Don't Waste Your Trials - 1..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Open up your Bibles to the first letter of Peter, the first letter of Peter. We are not going to be on the first letter of John as we were doing our study, but rather we are going to be today in the first letter of Peter.

And the reason why we are going to be going to the first letter of Peter is because I decided to speak to you about the topic of trials in the Christian life, as we can see, most of our church are not here because the church is experiencing trials of different types, various types of trials. So even though we have spoken about this topic, and even we have preached before through first Peter about trials in the Christian life. my desire, my dear brother, sister, friends, everyone who is within the sound of my voice is that I want to speak to your soul and to my soul from the scriptures about the topic of trials in the Christian life. And if you know the first letter of Peter, you will know that the apostle Peter addresses that topic very well in the first nine verses of the first letter of Peter chapter one. So that's what we're going to be reading.

We're going to be reading the first nine verses of chapter one of the first letter of Peter. Now, my voice is a little bit weak still, and you might catch a little bit, so we're going to pray that the Lord may help us, that the Lord might uphold us as we speak, and as you hear, and as I try to communicate from my heart, from the scriptures, that which I think is going to be beneficial for each one of us, just to simply be reminded of There are truths about trials in the Christian life that are so plainly given to us in the Scriptures. But once a person is going through a trial, and once that person is experiencing the darkness at times he feels of the trial, whatever the trial is, the flesh and the heart is tempted to forget the light that the Lord has given us in the Scriptures. And at times we find ourselves even as Christians facing trials as if we did not have a God who's seated in heaven and who is ruling and governing the whole universe and the whole world. So my goal and my desire is just to remind your soul, my dear brother or sister and friend, and remind my soul as I'm going to be meditating with you through these things in the Scriptures about trials in the Christian life.

And I suppose that this is a good time for us to come before the Lord and pray so that He will help us as I speak, that He will call my voice, and we will be able to communicate clearly, and that you will also be able to see in the Scriptures what I want to share with you, my dear. So let us come before the Triune God and ask Him to help us. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are coming before you in the name of your eternally begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and it's through the illuminating power of your Holy Spirit given to us as a guarantee of the eternal inheritance that we have as Christians, that we can come before you in times of need and approach you with boldness, uncertainty, and enter into the throne of grace, even with our feeble prayers, O Lord. And we can come before you and ask you that as these saints have come together on the Lord's day and as our brothers and sisters are listening to us, that you will be among us, that your name will be glorified, O Lord. that Jesus Christ will be exalted, not in the words of men, not in the religion of men, but that Jesus Christ will be exalted in each one of the hearts of these people here in front of me and within the sound of my voice.

Lord, where else shall we go? Only you have the words of eternal life. What can we do with words of men? What can we do just doing religion and playing church? Help us, Lord, I pray.

Help us by the power of your Holy Spirit. Help me, O Lord, to speak your words and help the brethren, O Lord, to hear your voice and help even the brethren who are not here on online to be strengthened, to be empowered, to die to self, to take up our crosses and to follow you. Purify us, O Lord, transform us and change us, O Lord, that we may not remain as we are, O Lord, but that Jesus Christ will be enthroned in our hearts, that we will desire indeed to die to self, Please, that we might find rejoicement in only having Christ in our minds, in our thoughts, in our being, and that we might find rejoicement only in seeing the brethren growing in conformity to Christ. Help us unite us in love, O Lord. Help us to love one another as we ought to love one another.

Help us to serve one another as we ought to serve one another. Help us to care one for the other as we are to care for one for the other. If there is anyone among us and within the sounds of my voice who is not in Christ, we pray, Lord, that the outcome of this may be the salvation of their soul. and for the saints who are within the sound of my voice, that the outcome of this will be to come to a greater realization of the power of Christ in us, making us more like him and giving us a strong desire to have you enthroned in our hearts. Help us, Lord, as we read these words and help us, Lord, as we think together and help us and pierce us with your words into our hearts.

that we may bear fruits of righteousness in Christ, for the glory of the Father, in the Holy Spirit, for the edification of the church, the salvation of the lost, and the establishment of the kingdom, that we will prepare and deliver to you, Lord, a bride that is ready unto the eternal wedding. We praise you and we exalt you with limited words. Be with us, Lord. Amen. Topic, brethren, of trials.

in the Christian life, and this is going to be primarily given to us in verses six and seven. Even I think I preached three sermons on that when we first started with a church that is available on the website. We're going to read the first nine verses of chapter one, and then the Lord will guide us as his church as we preach from here about trials in the Christian life. The first letter of Peter, brother, let us read together. This is the word of the Lord is all-sufficient, mighty, ever-enduring, life-giving Word of God."

This is his words. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, for the sprinkling with his blood, May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded or kept through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when at the revelation of Jesus Christ, though you have not seen him You love Him that you do not now see Him. You believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible, unspeakable and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome or the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Amen. That is the words of the Lord.

My dear soul, my dear brother, my dear sister. Last week, by the grace of God, when we had the opportunity to speak to the congregation, I wanted to preach to the saints and everyone who was within the sounds of my voice last week about the topic of the advocating ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what I tried to say to you last week was this, that your salvation, if by grace through faith you are in the person of Jesus Christ, your salvation depends not only upon the profession of faith that you did time ago, whenever you were saved, that past profession of faith, but that your salvation depends on the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is right now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. We cannot be saved in the end of our days or in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ if he does not advocate for our souls in heaven. And how did he accomplish this glorious ministry of advocating or interceding for your soul?

He accomplished by ascending into heaven entering into the heavenly places, being ordained as the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, sitting at the right hand of the father as king of kings and lord of lords, and then the father and the son as king seated in the throne sent the Holy Spirit, who is the comforter or the advocate or the other helper to the church as the guarantee of the eternal salvation that Christ Jesus has secured for every single saint. My dear brother and sister, that is a glorious reality that there is someone now, not a religious person who existed 2,000 years ago, but there is someone now alive in heaven who happens to be the creator of heaven and earth and everything in them, the ruler of everything that takes place who cares for the soul of the one who by grace through faith has been genuinely saved. And not only cares, but intentionally advocates and intercedes so that this Christian will endure until the end. And the proof of that and the manifestation of the interceding of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven is that we have the Holy Spirit as the guarantee, as the seal that has been upon us. It is the exceeding love of God that has been shed into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.

And brethren, the ministry of this Holy Spirit that we have within us could be summarized in only one word, and that word is truth. The Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit does in the Christian can be summarized in just one word, and that word is truth. That is, bringing your life in conformity to truth. And that truth happens to be the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

And the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring truth upon the life of the one that was lost. Salvation can be summarized at times in that, that we were foreknown before the foundation of the world by the Father, as we have read it in the first and second verse of 1 Peter, that we were sanctified by the Spirit to the sprinkling with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to the truth. We obey the truth of the gospel and we are saved. And once we are saved, my dear brother and sister, the Holy Spirit conforms our lives to truth. A truth that is not only in the head, but a truth that is supposed to be experienced and lived.

In other words, the Holy Spirit points us to the person of Christ who is truth, and He transforms our mind and our complete being, and we are to become more and more like the person of Jesus Christ who is the embodiment of truth. And the more that we become like the Lord Jesus Christ, and the more that the truth prevails in us, not only in our minds, but also in our beings, the more opposite and contrary that we become to this world, who is under the power of Satan, who is the father of lies, the curse of the power of this world, The government in a way of this world and the scheme of this world is under the prince of the power of the earth. The children of disobedience, the children of wrath are under the course and the stream of this world that is opposite to the truth, not only that is to be known, but the truth that is to believe, that is the person of Jesus Christ. And because The ministry of the Spirit in the life of the saint is to make that person more according to the truth, not only of what is written, but the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The more that a Christian becomes like Jesus Christ, the more that that person, that woman or that man united to Christ will be offensive to the system of the world.

That of Christianity being mingled and almost impossible to differentiate from the world is purely from Satan. When the church makes it into the world and the church is more like the world, that means that that church is not a church, but it's a synagogue of Satan. Because the church is meant to be the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of each one of the saints at such a point. that each one of those becomes so like the person of Jesus Christ. And it happens that when Christ came to this world, he did not find a place where he could lay his head.

It happened that he was rejected. It happened that the religious system of the time, not only the atheists, but that the religious system of the time rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, opposed the Lord Jesus Christ, that he suffered for righteousness sake and the path that he walked is the path that he has called us to walk into. That the more that we become like Jesus Christ, the more that we will be opposite to this world. But my dear brother and my dear sister, at times we are tempted to believe that the system of Satan and that which is evil and unrighteous is only outside of us. And that we are in conflict only with this wicked and unrighteous system that only is outside of us.

If you have forgotten and if you have not seen that in the scriptures, the scriptures are very clear also to tell us that much of that unrighteous and wicked system that is governed by Satan, that is outside of us, happens to be initiated and conceived inside of us. Your heart, my heart is wicked. Your heart, your soul is also unrighteous. And there is undwelling sin that is still bringing us to darkness and to unrighteousness, that when it comes together with the outside system of unrighteousness, my dear brother, find the perfect agreement so that blackness will increase and increase and increase. And it happens that this Lord of us who had decided to save us and to raise us has given us a promise, and that promise is this, that salvation is the process to conformity to the person of Jesus Christ.

That is to become like Him. And if we are going to become like Him, then everything that is contrary to the Lord, everything that is contrary to truth has to be removed. We will be sanctified. We will be purified. We will be made like the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it has pleased the Lord in that process to use trials and temptations. and difficulties to bring the abundance of the truth and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ into the heart of those who profess to have faith in the Savior. It has been granted to you, the Apostle Paul says in Philippians chapter one, right? It has been granted to you not only to believe, but also to suffer for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if anyone desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, the apostle says to Timothy, you will be persecuted.

My dear brother, my dear sister, suffering trials and difficulties and tribulations are not something that happens to the third world church. And for that reason, the rich people in the Western church sends a few dollars every month just to appease their consciences and to feel somehow linked and connected to the work of the kingdom. my dear brethren, is a characteristic and a promise of the growing power of Jesus Christ in the life of a person. And the reason why the Western world experiences what it experiences now is because that which is supposed to be the Christian church has become more like the world, like the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we experience is the result of putting our eyes in the world and not in the person of Jesus Christ, is putting our minds in the things that are passing away and the distractions, being satisfied with coming to church and peace their consciences while we give ourselves to our worldly lives from Monday to before church on Sunday and being at peace in our consciences, being Christians, praying one prayer or doing this or that, and the result of it is a wicked, unrighteous society that is detached from the power of the gospel because the church has lost its holiness and has lost its light.

My dear brethren, I don't know about your soul, but when he comes or when he takes me up to glory, I don't want to be found walking in darkness, I don't want to be found walking in my sins. I don't want to be found just with secret hypocrisy. I don't want to be found just playing religion and just having church and just singing a song or two and then just doing these events through the week so that I will appease my conscience. I don't know about you, but when the Savior comes, I want to see him to his face, established upon the righteousness of my Savior, and finding him and not being ashamed. As the Apostle John says in 1 John 2, Brethren, this cannot be accomplished with the power of the flesh.

This cannot be accomplished with the power of religion. This cannot be accomplished with the power of morality. This cannot be accomplished just with simple good principles that we teach the children so that they do not behave like the children of the lost and the atheists. This cannot be accomplished just by praying one prayer or two. This cannot be accomplished by calling different prayers that do not go beyond the roof.

This cannot be accomplished with lives of cold and indifferent hearts that are taken so easily by the things of the world. This cannot be accomplished by minds of religious people like in the first century, that when the government was coming upon them, reacted in all different ways. The Pharisees wanted to preserve themselves as pure and as a religious people. Other sects reacted, just opposing the Xenods, opposing the system. Other sects responded, mingling with them.

But when the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah came, nobody knew that he was a Messiah. And the system of religion completely confounded and taken and confused. My dear brother, my dear sister, if there is suffering in your life, as I have said to some of the brethren during this week, do not waste your suffering. Do not waste your trial, because God is sovereign above it, and He's in control of it. And this is why I think it's very important for us to remind ourselves of the important truth of trials.

It says here in verse 6 and verse 7, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while. If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. so that a tested genuineness of your faith, which is more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, might be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ." Brethren, I only want to show you and point you to two things of trials. things that you already know.

You don't need a preacher to tell you what is clearly here in this text and in other parallel texts that speak about trials and tribulation. But I just want to remind you of two simple things about trials, that if we are reminded of these two simple things about trials, And when we experience the difficulty of the trial, I think that we will bear fruits of righteousness in Christ for the glory of the Father in the Holy Spirit conformity to Christ dying to sell. and not wasting our trials. Two things that I think are important for you to keep in your head, to keep in your mind, to keep in your soul, as you not only learn intellectually from the things that I'm saying, but also, brethren, brother, sister, friend, dear soul, as you experience the trial. Two things.

And the repetition is with a purpose. It's because of the futility and the feebleness of our minds, so that we will remember the two things that I want to leave in your heart and in your mind. The first one is very simple and that is that trials are a test. Trials are a test. Trials contain or they have an aspect of Testing.

So when your soul, when your life, either physically or in your soul, spiritually or materially, you experience a trial, a tribulation, a difficulty, the first thing that we are to be reminded of is that that contains an aspect of testing. Here is implicitly given in verse 7, so that the tested genuineness of your faith in the ESV, it says, In other translations, it will be more clearly this aspect of testing, but we have other portions, for instance, James chapter 1 that clearly says, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. So the first thing, my dear brother, my dear sister, that we need to have in our mind is that every trial that the Christian experiences is contained or has a form of testing, a test. And a test aims to measure something. When you do a driving test, you do it with a purpose so that someone will measure your abilities or your skills to drive.

When you do any sort of test, the purpose is that there will be a measurement. That is that the person who is being tested says that they have something. And that something that they say that they have is now being put to the test. A trial is a test that aims to measure something. Let me now take the scriptures and ask ourselves important questions that will give us power to that simple thought and I hope preparation every time that we enter a trial.

It follows, we conclude that a trial is a test that we ask this question at least. Who is the one that tests? Because if a person is being tested through a trial, then there is someone who is testing the person who is being tested through the trial. And brethren, I know that you all know these things, but it's very important that as Sister Maria was praying last night, that every time that we read the Scriptures, that the Scriptures read us and not the neighbor or not the person in front of us or someone else, just an abstract thought that we put ourselves through the words of the scriptures. And that is that if a trial is a test, then who is the one that is testing you when you are in a trial?

Wouldn't you want to know who is interested in measure something in you when you are going through a trial? If you know that your trial, your difficulty, that darkness and that thing that you are experiencing, that suffering is a test, and that you're being measured about something, wouldn't you want to know who is the one that is measuring that in you? When we ask ourselves that question from the scriptures, the testimony of the Holy Writ is very clear. From the very beginning to the end, there is one who is sovereign above all and who is in control of everything. And the one that tests the hearts of men is God himself.

He was God, the one who tested Abraham in Genesis chapter 22 verse 1 when he asked him to take his son Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice to test the contents of the heart of Abraham. He was God himself, the one that tested or who tested Multiple times, the people of Israel, when they were rescued out of the land of Egypt, through the wilderness, onto the promised land, many, multiple times, God tested the people of Israel, His people through trials, difficulties, lack of food, lack of water, enemies, fear. All of these trials were tests. of God to his people, not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, because the same Jesus Christ is to Peter. Oh, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked permission to sift you, has asked to sift you like wheat.

But I have prayed that your faith may not fail. And when you are strengthened or restored, you may strengthen your brother and sisters. It is God, my dear brother and sister, the one who tests. The one that is in control, sovereign control of a trial, happens to be God, because He is the one that is testing. And then it follows, if we know who is the one that is testing, then the question that we need to ask ourselves is, what is He, testing.

I want to know what am I being tested on, if I'm being tested or being measured by God. And I think the scriptures make it very clear there, brethren, what does God test on the saint through trials and difficulties? Faith, it says in verse seven, so that they tested genuineness of your faith. Or James says in James chapter 1, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith. But let us allow the scriptures to go a little bit deeper on the thoughts of God testing our faith through a trial.

Because one may be tempted just to simply believe that one has prevailed through the trial if one remains as Christian after or on the other side of the test, on the other side of the trial. If one remains professing to be a believer, if one remains to coming to church and one remains attending the Bible study or the prayer meeting, if one remains engaged in religious activity, and one may be tempted because of the coldness and the shallowness of contemporary Christianity to believe that remaining a step past the trial is to be on the other side and say, I still believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So if this God who is sovereign above all is testing us in a trial and he's testing the genuineness of our faith, how does he test? the genuineness of our faith? Well, I suppose that is a good exercise to ask the Scriptures, what is my faith supposed to be so that I will know what is it going to be tested about?

And that is answered for us in Hebrews chapter 11 very clearly, a verse that you will know in Hebrews chapter 11. So what is my faith supposed to be through a trial and through a difficulty? Hebrews chapter 11. And every time that I'm preaching, I forget the order of the books. So I have to go through the New Testament just finding the books.

I don't know what that happens. Hebrews chapter 11, it says, now brethren, just allow the Scriptures to speak to your soul, allow the Scriptures to reach through your heart. This is what your faith as a Christian is supposed to be. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, it says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, we have those two words there.

You have substance, another translation, or assurance and conviction. So we are told that your faith, maybe your brother or sister, is supposed to be conviction, certainty, assurance, something that you are 100% sure. And that of which you are supposed to be 100% sure is things that are not within your immediate reality, that is, things that you do not see and things that you hope for, that is that they are not within your current present time. You hope for something that is in the future, something that goes beyond your scope of apprehension, something that goes beyond your scope of ability to control and to fix on our own, something that goes beyond the ability and the power of your senses, something that you do not see, something that you hope for, but yet you are to be fully assured. you are to be convinced of all of those things.

That is, that when you are in the darkness of a trial, in the darkness of a difficulty, your soul, your body, your mind, everything that you are is going to be so moved to try to see what you have, to try to observe what you have in your hands, the resources that you have, the solutions that you may have, and you may be so tempted to deposit your trust upon the things that you see, that you observe, and all of these things that are so immediate to your reality might so easily. Take your mind captive and away from the things that you do not see. But as we have just read in 1 Peter, he happens to be the person of Christ that you have not seen, yet you're supposed to love him. And the person of Christ that yet you have not seen, you're supposed to believe in him. And in doing that, you rejoice with joy unspeakable.

You're removed because of darkness. Conviction, certainty, full assurance in the heart Christ has accomplished for us, because it happens that it's Jesus Christ, the one that is the object of our faith. But still, brethren, still, even when we just read that verse there in verse 1 of chapter 11 of Hebrews, and we just put those categories, it's still something that happens in the mind. And one can just come to the conclusion and say, yes, I'm doing all of that. I'm trusting the Lord.

And I still believe in all of those things. There is a little bit of an issue. And the issue is that according to the scriptures, faith is much more than Hebrews 11 verse 1. Faith is what it is here in Hebrews 11 verse 1. It is part of that, but it's much more than that.

Come with me to Galatians chapter 5. And in Galatians chapter 5, you will see what faith is not only supposed to be, but what faith is supposed to do. Because what God is testing through the trial is your faith. And your faith is not only an intellectual assentment that abides in the head of a person. According to the scriptures, faith is supposed to be something that believes, but also something that moves a person to do.

So come to Galatians chapter five, and then we can see a very important characteristic of faith that a Christian is supposed to have. Galatians chapter five, and this is a very important verse, verse six, it says, my dear brother, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails or counts for anything, but only faith working through love. That is that in genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, that is that those who are in genuine union with Christ are the ones who have a faith that works through love. Because the law or the keeping of the law, not the keeping of the law being for nothing. What matters is faith, but this faith is a faith that works through love.

And this working of this faith is going to be then explicitly given to us by the same apostle in verse 22, in which you famously know as the fruit of the spirit. In verse 22, the apostle will then expound the nature of the life of the Christian. In verse 22 says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. patience, kindness, and goodness, and faithfulness, and gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no love. My dear brother, my dear sister, it is very easy to have love when everyone around me is lovable, and when I am at peace enough in my head to love them.

It's very easy, my dear brethren, to be joyful when all the circumstances around me and inside of me are such that I can be naturally joyful. Brethren, it's very simple and easy to be patient when everyone around me behaves and says things that allow me to respond in patience or when inside of me everything is in place, so that I can be patient, even if those around me do not deserve my patience. But it's another thing is a very different thing. When I am going through a trial, when I am going through a tribulation, when I'm going through difficulty, when there is darkness upon my life, either spiritually or physically, either outside of me or inside of me, and at the same time, by the power of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, responding love, responding patience, responding joy, But what have we done? What we have done is that the contemporary church has made the trial and difficulty the perfect excuse for the exposure of their carnality that was in there in the first place.

While when you go and read the martyrs, the Christians who gave their lives for this person, Jesus Christ, And it was in the moment of their trial, it was in the moment of their difficulty, external or internal, taking their children, suffering and pain, that in that moment they manifested Christ's likeness in a way that those who were killing them, that those who were oppressing them, that those who wanted to take their lives were pierced by. Brethren, the same spirit that was given to the early church is the same spirit that is meant to be in the heart of everyone who professes to be in the person of Jesus Christ. And when we are being tested through a trial by God, we are being tested. I mean, guess what? We are being tested.

not in the outside, we're being tested in the heart, my dear brother, of the genuineness of our faith. I don't want to love the brethren when everything is okay. I want to be able to love the brethren when they are lovable. I don't want to love the brethren or I don't want to serve the brethren when I think that they deserve to be served. I want to serve the brethren when my flesh tempts me to believe that they do not deserve to be served.

I don't want to be joyful with the circumstances when I live in First World and I see Australia as a perfect world different to Colombia. I want to be joyful when I'm in a place worse than my country because I'm in the Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, brother. This can only be accomplished through the power of Christ, seated in the heart of a person, truly and generally and in fullness by the Spirit and by the Word. And when we are being tested through a trial by God, the genuineness of our faith is being manifested and is seen in that person.

Who tests? God does. What does He test? He tests the genuineness of our faith, which is not something only that is here, but it's also something that is going to be supposed to be manifested from the heart. And why does God test?

We'll return there to 1 Peter, and we can just hear there very clearly. If you return there to 1 Peter, It says, verse 7, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that is your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Brethren, let me just ask you this question. It says that your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When is this referring to in terms of timing?

He says, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When is this speaking about? It's speaking about the present or the future. That is what is to come. Brethren, the purpose of the trial is the present purification of your soul for the future presentation of your faith before the Lord for all of these praise and glory and honor at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The present purification of your faith is with the purpose that indeed your faith will be purified, and you will see the things that are not supposed to be there, so that in the end, when He comes and when you're taken up to glory, then that faith of yours that is a gift given by heaven will be bound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not want us to remain as we are, brethren. The Lord Jesus wants us to be purified and to grow in sanctification and in conformity to him. And he's going to be glorified, and he's going to receive honor, and he's going to be praised, not only in the establishment of his kingdom, but the work that he accomplishes in each one of the saints. The conformity to Jesus Christ in each one of you, by grace through faith you are in him, is for the praise and glory of God.

Because no one else can sanctify you. No one else can remove from you the wickedness and unrighteousness that naturally is in you other than God himself. This is the work of the hand of the Lord that according to Psalm 138, verse six, he will not forsake. This is the hand of the Lord that he started in you and he will bring to completion in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is for the glory of his precious name, that he will be the just and the justifier of the wicked, not only in the legal forgiveness of the saint, but also in the conformity to the prison of Jesus Christ and presently He uses the trial so that when in trial and difficulty and adversity and in darkness, your heart is exposed.

You will not run away into religious stuff and saying, no, that is not me. I'm just going to go through the pain and difficulty on my own. And when I'm on the other side, I'm going to return to the same way. But rather that when you see your feebleness, your meekness and your weakness in the trial, you will come to the person of Jesus Christ to ask, Lord, I depend upon you, purify me, make me like you. If I'm not taken by your hand, I'm not going to make it to the other side.

And if I don't make it to the other side, Lord, who is going to glorify you in the completion of the work of your hand? Brethren, my dear brethren, that we may not derive satisfaction only by leaving behind the difficulty of the trial, but rather that we may find satisfaction in growing in Christ-likeness through the trial, so that independently, that the thing that we don't like, that the experience that we don't enjoy remains, we might always find satisfaction in the fact that it's Jesus Christ, the one that governs the whole thing, and he's the one that knows best for each one of us. Trials, my dear brother, my dear sister, are tests from God to the genuineness of your faith. the present purification and the future glory of the one who loved you and gave himself for you. He is the one that governs the trial and he's the one that is in control of the whole trial.

Now let me point you to the second thing and we conclude here in our meditations and this is Very important. The first thing that I said to you that a trial is or contains is that a trial is or contains a test, right? This is what I've been trying to say to you in the last time. I don't know how long you've been speaking. I should not speak that long.

Test is the first thing that a trial contains. Second thing that I want to show you is that my dear brother and sister, a trial reveals something that is fearful. A trial reveals the genuine affections of your heart. Brethren, a trial reveals the genuine affections of what is contained in your heart. What you see in people, what you see of me is somehow mediated through my mind.

You know, I think and how I'm going to behave. I try to do it in truth before the Lord, before him, not before you. But what you see is mediated through the mind. Same with you. What I see in you is mediated through your mind.

You think what you're going to say. You think how you're going to look. You think when you're going to come. You think where you're going to go. Somehow, my mind, your mind mediates or is the mediator of what we present, right?

But there are affections in your heart that your mind does not have control of. They are naturally, absolutely there. My son, Martin, is very fearful of dogs. Every time that he sees a dog, He will, he naturally responds in fear. There's absolutely no words that I can say to him.

There's absolutely no explanation that I can give to him. Every time that he sees a dog, his heart responds in natural fear. That is the affection, or this is the inclination of his heart. Every time that he sees a dog, he will just simply run in fear because this is what naturally is in his heart. Now, other person or other kids or other whoever might not have the same affection or emotion in their heart.

And when they see a dog, they may not respond in that way. They are not moved to that feeling, to that emotion. Trials and difficulties reveal the genuineness not only of your faith, but of the affections that are in the heart of a person that cannot be mediated by the mind. Now, the problem is, or the complication here is, that when we read the New Testament, not only first Peter, but also James chapter one, there is an expectation or even an assumption that Christians, when they face trials, various trials of all sorts and of all types, they will respond with that particular emotion, or they will respond with that particular inclination of the heart. Can you see it in the text?

It says in verse six, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. Not very clear there in first Peter, but if you come to James, James makes it more clear. Go to James. It says in the ESV, in James chapter 1 verse 2, it says, pay attention to the emotion that we are at least expected or called to have. It says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall or meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces Brethren, it says, count it all joy, would I have it in my mind, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

That is, when you experience something that it will naturally, and it will naturally produce that which is contrary to joy, actually it will be sorrow and it will be suffering. It says, count it all joy. rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials." You see the two emotions? He says, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.

It's not that the Bible is calling us to be like robots, that we are not grieved by the trials and that we do not experience emotionally the grief and the sorrow and the difficulty of what the trial or the difficulty may bring to us. But it's that the Bible, when acknowledges that, yes, we may be grieved by the trial, and we might be experiencing generally the suffering, it says that we can rejoice, that we can count it all joy. And indeed, it says in verse six, in this you rejoice, though now you are suffering for a little while. What is going on in the heart of the Christian? Has the Christian become a crazy person who can experience conflictive emotions at the same time or jump from joy to grief from one place has been taken with a crazy mind or something in the head, and now it is just unable to differentiate emotional states.

And then it's calling joy when it's not joy, and calling grief when it's not grief, or calling joy grief, or calling grief joy. That is an utterly confused person that it should be perhaps in a hospital, a mental hospital, being treated because they cannot distinguish between their emotions that they're generally experiencing No, brother, it's none of that, and I didn't mean to make it, you know, fun. It's none of that, my dear brother. It is that the person who by grace, through faith, has been genuinely inserted into the person of Jesus Christ, has been taken to a supernatural reality that is a reality. that the Christian lives in two dimensions.

One that is the present time that is passing away. And the other one in which we are supposed to be fixed upon, which is the supernatural, the spiritual reality that is as real and even more real than the things that are passing away, in which our faith is meant to be fixed upon. Because verse six, it says, in this you rejoice. That is that the rejoicement of the, christian in times of trials and difficulty is the this of verse six and the question is what is the this of verse six and the answer to that is verses three four and five now we have read them you know it already but brethren i don't want to instruct your mind i want to speak to your heart and what i want to speak to your heart is that When the Christian is suffering, when the Christian is going through trial and difficulty, that Christian will generally experience grief, will generally experience difficulty because we feel that we are creatures. But at the same time, at the same time, brethren, there is a reality upon which the Christian is not supposed but is fixed.

that that allows the Christian to see the passing away of the moment and rest in a beyond hope that will give the heart of the Christian comfort and genuine joy at the same time. And what is that? Well, my dear brethren, the fact that verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, he has cost us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that when we deserve wrath in the past, that brethren, please pay attention to this, none of the trials that a person can experience in this life, none of the darkness, none of the sufferings that a person can experience, even as a Christian can experience in this life, compares to the outpouring of God's wrath that we deserve because we are sinners, that apart from Christ, we will receive when we face Him outside of Christ. No trial, no difficulty, no sickness, no difficulty of this present to the pains and the difficulties of the outpouring of God's wrath that people deserve because they are sinners. Yet, when we deserve all of that, He loved us in Christ in such a way that according to His abundant mercy, He begot us.

He has begotten us again through the death of his Son. That is that while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us. For scarcely for a righteous person, one would ever dare to die. Yet perhaps for a good person, one would ever dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us.

What is a present trial, tribulation, or difficulty compared to the removal of God's wrath upon us because of this person of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, and making us his sons? Point number one. Reason number two, not only that he made us sons, verse four, but that he gave us an inheritance. Verse four, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven. sons in the sun, but heirs with Jesus Christ.

What lost of property, what lost of money, what lost of time, what lost of reputation, what lost of whatever may be valuable for a person compares to the already kept undefiled and unfailing inheritance that every believer has secured in the person of Jesus Christ by virtue of their childhood or sonship or daughtership, if those are words that you have in English, by virtue of belonging to the father as a son and daughter, now you have this inheritance. Not only that, but it says in verse five, that we are kept, that we are guarded. We are not kept and guarded just by a strong fence, or that we are guarded or kept by this mighty, powerful building that man has built, or that we are kept or guarded by this powerful insurance policy that is just so expensive that it will guarantee that I can do whatever. It says, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation Not that it may be, but that is ready to be revealed. And it says, in this, you rejoice.

In this, you rejoice, brother. Even though you are grieved with various trials in the present time that is passing away, in this, you rejoice. Even though your flesh is in the infirmities of your flesh and the pain that you feel and you experience, in this, you rejoice. Even though you lost the one you love, even though you have lost the money that you had, even though that you lost the future, even though you don't have that opportunity anymore, even though you don't have that, in this you rejoice. In the fact that you are a Christian, in the fact that you are a son or daughter of God, in the fact that you have this inheritance.

the inheritance that is Christ himself, the fact that you're being kept unguarded, that I will not utter a word. You understand that? I will not utter a word if he does not will it. In his will, he does not allow that a word will come out of me. It will not come.

The fact that these words are being uttered, it means that he's allowing it, that he allows me to speak to you, and he allows you to receive words. He allows you to receive the words of God. Brethren, there is someone who is alive, and that happens to be the King of kings and Lord of lords, the ruler of rulers, above absolutely everything. The world, they think that they are commanding what is taking place. There's one that is commanding, that will mock everyone, who upholds everything in his hand, your heart, your soul, your mind.

And it happens. that by virtue of Christ, we are on his side. Brethren, in this, you rejoice. Now, what suffering of the flesh? Brethren, it's not that the Christian is not to experience grief and difficulties.

I think I've made it clear and I've said, it's not that we're crazy and then we're just with a countenance of happiness when someone has passed away. No, we are to have contrite, hearts and broken hearts and even our continents will be falling at times because of the sadness that we experience. But deep, deep, the trial reveals the genuine affections of the heart of a person. So if you have gone or if you are going through your trials, Have you rejoiced in this, brethren? Because the question is that simple, right?

The question is just that simple. Have you rejoiced in that? That even though you may be experiencing this or that and the darkness, have you rejoiced? Because the trial reveals. the genuineness of the affections of your heart.

Now, let me just leave you with two practical things that I think will help us to examine us and also just to apply this to our hearts. Dear brother, there are two things that the enemy wants to take from you so that indeed when you're going to trials, the trial will be more clear to you than the rejoicement that you find in the person of Jesus Christ. The first one is that he wants to take your mind. Come with me to Isaiah 26. The first one is that he wants to take your mind.

The first one is that He wants to take your mind. The Scripture calls us to renew our mind, right? In Romans chapter 12, to renew our mind, not to be conformed to this world, but to renew our mind and so on. Brethren, Isaiah chapter 26, it says in verse 1, second half of verse 1, it says, we have in that day, the song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city.

that keeps faith may enter in. And then here it gives, this is a song, here a truth will be just written there. It's an anniversary. And I think that this is a very popular verse in Western Christianity. I think you will tell me if it's not.

You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you.