Lighthouse Baptist Church
and Christian Academy

Now in the Bible this word "trouble" is often called "trials", and "trials" are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him.

They're not designed to hurt us; they're designed to help us.

When things go great in your life - It doesn't take any faith - it doesn't take any character.

So God has to bring some things along in our life to stretch us, to cause us to grow, and these are called troubles or trials.

God wants to build character in you. How does He do it?

...trouble produces patience, and patience produces character, and character produces hope.

Romans 5:3-4

This is the Point!

God is far more interested in your life, in what you are, than in what you do.

God is always more interested in what you are, your character, than He is in what you do, your career.

Why? Because you're not taking your career to heaven with you, but you are taking your character. That's what's going to last.

So God says that the goal of life is character, not your career, and the goal of life is character not your own personal comfort.

Now, until you understand this, life isn't going to make sense.

All kinds of problems are going to come into your life - troubles, trials, difficulties - and you're going go, "Why me Lord? Why is this happening to me?" as if your life is supposed to be a life of comfort. Well it's not!

The goal of life is not comfort. This is not heaven. One day you're going to be in a place with no problems, no trials. Isn't that going to be great?! And you're going to spend millions and billions of years there, so this is not heaven. And if you keep thinking you're going to have heaven on earth, you're going to be very disappointed.

This is not the place for comfort.
This is the place for character development. And one of the things it takes is, troubles produce patience, patience produces character, and character produces hope.

Every problem has a purpose.

1. I don't care whether you caused it,
2. Somebody else caused it,
3. The devil caused it,
4. I don't care who caused it;

Every problem has a purpose. And what is that purpose? It's to make me like Jesus Christ, to build character in my life.

Example of Jesus
You know Jesus went through many troubles and trials in His life, but His greatest was the night before He was crucified. Because He knew what He was going to have to face the next day, and the intensity of that turmoil in His heart was enormous. He was going to take the sin of the world on Him. He was going to die a horrible death by crucifixion, and the real question would be, "Would He trust God?" Would He trust God to know what's best for His life, even if it meant an extremely painful death? And that's what He had to struggle with. And so, notice, He went to a place called Gethsemane. He took His disciples to a garden, actually it was a grove of olive trees, and under the stress of carrying the weight of the world, He asked His disciples to stay with Him while He prayed. And notice what it says there.

They came to a garden called Gethsemane and Jesus said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I pray'.

Mark 14:32

Now notice, even Jesus needed friends when He went through troubles. That's why you need a small group. That's why you need fellowship. Nobody is supposed to go through the troubles of life alone. Even Jesus needed friends.

The worry in My heart is so great that it almost crushes Me.

Mark 14:34

Now this is major trouble.

He said, "I am almost crushed when I think of what's going to happen tomorrow, what I'm going to have to go through." Most of you say, "I know that feeling of when I felt like I couldn't make it another day."

"Father," He said, "everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet, I want Your will, not Mine!"

Mark 14:36

When you go through trouble, it's OK to say to God,

1. "God I don't like this",
2. "God I want you to take it away",
3. "God I know it's possible for you to take it away".

He said, "I know everything is possible with You. Yet, this is what's best for me. Your will be done in my life". He surrendered to God's plan. He says, "Whatever fulfills Your purpose in my life".

Now here's the first point. If you're going to become like Jesus Christ, you've got to learn to trust God completely, even when things look terrible, things are falling apart.

1. I don't understand it,
2. I'm dying,
3. I'm sinking,
4. I'm going under the water here

You're going to have to learn to trust God completely just the way Jesus did.

God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. It's easy to trust God when everything is going great in your life. The real test of your faith is, how do you hang out with God when you don't feel good?

Now, let me give you a couple of helpful things that will help you along when you go through troubles.

Temptations are situations designed by Satan and they're intended to harm us. That's what temptations are.

This is the point
God never tempts us to do evil, but God is able, because of the greatness of His power and who He is, to use Satan's temptations for good in our lives because temptation always provides a choice.

And when I choose for God rather than choosing for Satan, Satan's plan is ruined and I start to grow in my life. And choices are needed to develop character in our lives.

Jesus faced temptations. He never sinned, but He faced temptations.

Right after He was baptized at the very beginning of his public ministry at the age of 30, He went through an intense 40-day period of temptation out in the desert.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Matthew 4:1

Now, if Jesus faced temptations, guess what? You and I are going to face temptations, too.

Truths about temptation that help us to get through it

1. Remember that it is not a sin to be tempted. Jesus never sinned, yet He was tempted. It's not a sin to be tempted. Martin Luther used to say, "You can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair."
2. Remember that everyone is tempted in the same ways. The Bible says we're all tempted in the same common ways.

One of the ways that Satan tricks us is he makes us feel like our temptation is better than anyone else's, like

1. "I'm really bad,
2. I've got this great temptation,
3. I've thought of this thing, this temptation, nobody in all of human history has ever thought of."

It's important to remember 3 things:

1. You'll never outgrow temptation.
2. You never get to a point in your life where you become so spiritual or so old, that you're not tempted anymore.
3. We all are tempted throughout all of our lives.

Every temptation is an opportunity to do good, to make the right choice.

It's a stepping stone toward being more like Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, "Get out of here, Satan. The scriptures say, worship only the Lord God. Obey only Him".

Matthew 4:10

He confronted the temptation.

Here's the point. Temptation always tests whether you love God more than the temptation. That's what's happening when you're tempted. It's always a test of what do I love the most in my life.

1. When I'm tempted by money, it's a temptation. Do I love God most or do I love money most in my life?
2. When I'm tempted by a wrong relationship, it's a temptation. Do I love that person or do I love God more in my life?

The Bible tells us that Jesus said, "If you love Me, obey My command".

Now with each of these we're giving you some practical ideas about "What do I do?" "How do I go through this?"

Two helps with temptation.

1. If you want to make it through the temptations of life we all face, keep focused on good thoughts. The Bible talks about this in Phil. 4:8 when it says, "Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right". Temptation always starts with getting your attention, and when it gets your attention, it gets you. If you focus on the temptation, inevitably you're going to go down the road, and you're going to get caught up in that temptation. Some of you think, "Well, I'm like a multi-task person. I can think of many different things at once" and you're doing all these things, but I'll tell you two thoughts that cannot stay at the same time in your mind. You cannot keep the thought of succumbing to a temptation and the thought of obeying God at the same time in your mind. Once you turn your thoughts and focus on something positive, good, right, true, those things that God would have us think about, then all of a sudden you've pushed out the temptation.

Let me give you just a tip about temptation. When you're tempted, don't resist it. Because as you're resisting it, guess what you're doing? You're just thinking about the temptation! You're getting into a spiritual tug-of-war with Satan, and he always wins! You don't resist it, you just drop the rope and you walk a different direction and you think about something different. This is a verse that I've used literally hundreds and hundreds of times in my life, "Whatever's good, whatever's right, whatever's true". When I'm tempted, it's my favorite verse to use to turn my thoughts from what's wrong to what's right, so I've memorized it very well, because I've been tempted a lot. If you'll take a verse like this and let it turn your mind from what's wrong to what's right, you'll find that the temptation starts to drop away. You refocus on something else. You keep focused on good thoughts.

2. Get a spiritual partner. I know none of us like to talk about our temptations, but one of the ways to defeat them is to be open about them, to bring them out into the light. Get a spiritual partner, someone who can help you. The Bible tells us in Eccl. 4:9-10, "You're better off to have a friend than to be all alone... If you fall, your friend can help you up". So many of us, as we go through life, we have a temptation that's been overwhelming. It might be new and it might be lifelong. But the truth is, it's something you've faced alone. This step is saying, "Go tell someone else about this". They're not going to drop their jaw too far, because guess what? They've faced the same kind of temptation as you. This step of recognizing, "I need someone to help me through this," is a step that you need to take to begin to set that temptation aside in your life. At the start of 40 Days, we talked about not going alone, at least getting a reading partner. The best place to look for this spiritual partner is in your group, somebody that you trust. The Bible tells us that the Apostle Paul, who God used in great ways because he resisted a lot of temptations in his life, had a lot of spiritual partners. In fact, it tells us the names of those people, guys named Barnabus and Mark and Apollos and Timothy and Epaphrus and Titus. All these people that he brought into his life, and one of the reasons he was able to live such a great life of faith is that he wasn't afraid to have partners who he walked through life with.

But here's the question. What temptation are you facing right now and how could God use that temptation as you choose to obey Him as an opportunity for you to grow in character?

God wants to make you like Jesus Christ. It's the third purpose that He put you on this planet for. He wants to build your character now so you can be rewarded in eternity. This life is not what it's all about. This is preparation for eternity. And so today we've looked at two of the ways that God uses. God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey.

Now what in the world are trespasses? Well, if trials are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him and temptations are situations designed by the devil to draw us away from Him, from God, then trespasses are situations designed by other people designed to hurt us. Yes, there are people in life who want to hurt you intentionally, and that's why the Bible says in the Lord's Prayer, "Lord" we're to pray, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us." Now this is the tough one. It's one thing to handle trouble and it's another thing to handle temptation. But the most difficult tool of all that God uses in our lives to make us like Christ is this one. And bearing the hurt of other people without retaliation is, without a doubt, the most important and the most difficult step in becoming like Jesus Christ, because it often involves being misunderstood, being criticized, being judged, being hurt physically or emotionally or verbally, it may involve abuse.

Now let me be real clear. These are not good things. These are evil things, and God is not the author of evil. God does not cause these things. God hates sin. But He didn't even protect His own Son from these things. Even His own Son was misunderstood and hurt and judged and abused. What makes you think you're going to be let off the hook? You see, on the cross Jesus Christ not only carried our sins, He also endured enormous abuse from the people who were right there. Notice this first verse, Matthew 27:39-44. It says, "The people passing by (looking at Jesus on the cross) shook their heads and hurled insults at Jesus... and the elders made fun of Him... Even the bandits who had been crucified with Him insulted him in the same way." And what was His response? Look at the next verse. "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive these people, because they don't know what they are doing'". In 1 Peter 2:23 it says this "They called Him every name in the book and He said nothing back. He suffered in silence, intent to let God set things right". What did Jesus do? What was His response to trespasses? He yielded His right to get even. He absorbed the hurt. He put up with the pain. He responded to evil with good. That's what Jesus did.

Now, if you're going to grow up spiritually and if you're going to become like Jesus Christ, you're going to have to learn the same thing. The truth is in life you're going to be hurt. This is not heaven. This is a fallen world. Everybody sins. You hurt other people. Other people hurt you. We hurt each other intentionally and unintentionally. You're going to be hurt often in life. And if you're going to become like Christ, you have to learn to forgive. You say, "Well, how do you do that?" Well, how can you learn to forgive if you've never been hurt? You can't! You can't learn to forgive unless somebody's hurt you. And yet forgiveness is one of the primary qualities of God and God wants you to learn to become like Him. So there are hurts that are allowed in your life in order to make you like Jesus.

Now again, this is the toughest one, so let me give you two tips. Two little helps for when people harm you intentionally or unintentionally. Number one, remember that God has forgiven me. The Bible says "Forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ" (Eph. 4:32). God will never ask you to forgive anybody more than you've already been forgiven by Him. Number two, remember God is in control. When you're being hurt by somebody else, yes, they may mean it for bad, but God will use it for good in your life. In fact that's the very thing Joseph said. Do you remember Joseph was betrayed by his own family in the Bible, and his brothers took him out? They so disliked their younger brother, they sold him into slavery and then lied to their dad and said, "Oh, he was killed by a bear". Not exactly, you know this is a dysfunctional family. And yet God had a plan in it all, and as he was taken to Egypt and went through all kinds of things - falsely accused of rape, thrown into prison... the first 40 years of Joseph's life went down, down, down. He had no idea why things were going wrong in his life. And yet he trusted God the whole time. He maintained a forgiving spirit. And God knew exactly where he was and had him exactly where He wanted him to be and over time raised him up to be second in command under Pharaoh. And it was his plan that saved two nations, Egypt and Israel, from starvation when the famines came. You read that story. And later the brothers come to this man, not realizing it was Joseph, and they went to ask for food to take back to their home. And when Joseph reveals who he is, they are afraid he is going to kill them. And yet he says this, there on your outline, "You meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done." (Genesis 50:20). He said "You meant it to hurt me but God turned it into good to save the lives of many people".

I got this letter this week from a 17-year-old young woman in our church. I've known her for about 15 years, since she was a baby. She grew up in this church. She wrote me her story of how her neighbor across the street abused her for years. Sexual abuse. And she kept it a secret. But this neighbor was finally caught for the rape of another woman and was put in prison and she was called to testify in court about her experience, just as a young teenager. I won't read the whole letter, let me just read the last paragraph:

"Pastor Rick, by allowing God to take control and lift the burden of my hurt from my heart, God gave me strength. Today I can truthfully say that because of the trials I've faced, I've been made stronger. Recently I read a book called Where is God When It Hurts? and there was a sentence that I've found to be true. It says this, "Faith in God offers no assurance against tragedy, but in every case suffering offers an opportunity for us to display God's work".

That is spiritual maturity. That's the level of maturity that I know adults who are 40, 50, 60, 70 years old don't even have! God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey, and God uses trespasses to teach us to forgive, because we can't become like Jesus without learning to trust and obey and forgive. Now I am absolutely convinced of two things: Your greatest testimony as a believer is how you handle hurt. How do you respond when other people hurt you? Do you respond like Jesus did? The second thing I'm convinced of is that you are most like Christ when you suffer in order to save others. Who do you need to forgive?

God's third purpose for your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. And if that's true, then He's going to take you through everything Jesus went through. Why would He exempt you? That means He's going to take you through a Gethsemane, an experience of trouble, where you learn to trust His love. He's going to take you through a desert, an experience of temptation, where you learn to obey Him and do the right thing. And He's going to take you to the cross, a time of trespass, where you learn to forgive. But there is a promise. Look at these last verses on your outline. "We go through exactly what Christ goes through". Here's the good news. "But if we go through the hard times with Him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with Him." (Rom. 8:17)

Now, I don't know what you're going through these days, I don't know. There are so many people here today. I don't know what you're going through. But I do know how God wants you to respond to it, regardless of what you're going through. I am confident of how God wants you to respond. It's the last verse on your outline. Let's read it together. This is this week's memory verse. Read it with me. "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5).

Let's bow our heads.

Dear Father, life makes so much more sense when we realize that it's not about our career, it's not about our comfort, it's all about character and becoming like Jesus. Help us to use life for the reason You gave it to us.

Now you pray. Say,

Dear God, I want to grow in character. I want to become who You made me to be. Thank you for the model of Jesus. I want to become more like Jesus in the way I think and the way I feel and the way I act. And if that means taking me through troubled times, then I say, "I want Your will for my life". And if that means going through a wilderness of temptation, please give me the strength to make the right choices. And if that means I must endure the hurts of other people, then teach me to forgive as much as You have forgiven me.

If you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, say, "Jesus, I can't live like you unless I know you. So I want to get to know You today. As much as I know how, I want to ask You to come into my life and heart. In Your name I pray, Amen."