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 One of the reasons we fail tests is that we don’t understand what God is trying to accomplish. We think God tests because He’s curious, which means the test is so that God can gain information. This means the test is for God and not us. 

 God is not experimenting with our lives. He’s not up in Heaven thinking, “I wonder what would happen if I took Bob’s job from him.” 

God already knows what will happen; He’s God, He knows everything.

 Tests are for us, not Him. God wants to give us the benefit of building us. 

Without trials, we will remain weak. Without tests, we will not mature.

 Untested faith is just a theory. 

  •  You can’t build your life on theories. 
  •  A theory about the afterlife is useless on your death bead. 
  • A theory about the character of God is useless when your marriage is in shambles. 

 Only a strong faith can give us the security and assurance we need in those hard times. But strong faith must be built. 

 So, today, I want to talk about how God uses trials and tribulations to help us: 

  1. Tests reveal    
  2. Tests purify 
  3. Test builds strength and endurance 

 Tests reveal 

1 Peter 1:7 “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:” 

 Peter is saying that trials reveal whether your faith is genuine. When we go through a test, and our faith is still intact, we are assured that our faith is real. 

  • Tests reveal character 
  • Tests reveal progress 
  • Tests reveal priorities 

Character

 We’ve all been surprised by the decisions we’ve made. Sometimes you make a bone-headed decision, and someone asks you, “why,” and your only response is, “I don’t know.” 

Character untested is not character.

 The perfect example is Peter, who thought he would never forsake Jesus, but when the test came, he revealed a character flaw. 

Progress

 You say, “I’m going to get on this treadmill and run for 20 minutes; I’m not even going to look at the time until the timer stops.” 

 You start running, judging by how tired you feel, you think, “20 minutes must be getting close.” You look down, and you’ve only been running for 2 minutes. 

 What’s your problem? You’ve made less progress in your training than you thought. 

 Some people struggle with anger, but God begins to work in their lives, and they get better over weeks and months. 

 And then suddenly, something goes wrong, revealing that they haven’t made as much progress as they thought. 

Priorities

 Jesus tells us we can’t have two masters because “either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24) 

 This verse is about priorities; it gives us a simple truth that most people overlook. 

 You will either prioritize God or something else. We can’t walk with Jesus and the world at the same time. 

 Either Jesus is your master, and you follow His commandments. Or, the culture is your master, and you follow its commandments. 

  •  You cannot cling to the world and Jesus. 
  • You cannot have everything.
  • You can only have what you prioritize.

 When a trial comes into our lives, it reveals our priorities by showing us what we prioritize. 

  • For some people, when hard times come, they cling to money. They prioritize their comfort above anything. 
  • For some people, when hard times come, they cling to pleasure. They prioritize feeling good above anything. 

When hard times come, some people cling to anything but Jesus. This reveals what your priorities are like nothing else.

 Your wife or close friend could point out that your priorities are out of order, and you can ignore them. 

 But when you face the trials and tribulations of life, it holds up a mirror revealing who you are and what you value. 

You value what you prioritize.

 You may look at someone else’s relationship with the Lord and say, “I wish I had that.”

 Hard Truth.

 You have the relationship with God that you chose. In life, most things are out of your control.  

  • For the most part, your health is out of your control
  • Your circumstances are out of your control.
  • You do not get to pick what family you were born into; that’s out of your control. 
  •  You cannot control the economy. 

 However, at the top of the list of things you can control is what you prioritize.   

   Tests purify. 

Mal 3:2-3 “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”

 Tests are like a Refiner’s fire; they burn away the impurities in our lives. They take away anything that doesn’t look like Jesus. 

In the passage the Refiner is Jesus, the prophet talks about how Jesus has come not to save us in our sins but to save us from our sins.

 Things like gold and silver have all kinds of impurities when they come out of the ground. 

 So, a refiner melts the gold or silver, skims the dirt, and grim off as it rises to the top. 

 The refiner knows the silver is pure when he sees his reflection. What Jesus is doing when He tests us is removing the impurities in our lives. 

 The process of refining and the fuller's soap comes with the idea of cleaning. 

 God’s goal. 

 What God desires more than anything for us is for us to become like Jesus. Yes, God loves us as we are, but He loves us too much to allow us to remain as we are. 

Today is my Birthday; my mom has pictures from my first Birthday. They fed me cake, and I got it all over my face. 

 Question: did my mom love me even though I made a mess? Of course, she did! But she didn’t allow me to stay the way I was because she loved me. 

  •  As I became older, she insisted that I hold the fork the popper way. 
  • As I became older, she didn’t allow me to make a mess when I ate. 

 God is a good parent, which means He will, throughout our lives, put us through trials and tribulations to take away the dirt and grim from our lives. 

 Christianity is about being conformed to the image of Christ, not being comfortable. 

 This means that it is a good thing when God applies some fire to your life so that He can take away the things that don’t look like Jesus. 

 Because our goal is holiness, not fun. 

 Test Strengthen. 

 James 1:2-3 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” 

The trying of our faith will produce “patience."

 When we think of patience in connection with trials, we think of quietly accepting our fate. 

 We might say to ourselves, 

 “Just try as best as we can to get through this and try to say or do anything to make God mad at us so this trial doesn’t turn to some kind of judgment.” 

 That’s not what the word patience means. 

 One commentator called this word active steadfastness. It’s not a possessive submission to circumstances. 

 It’s militant. It refers to the “quality of character which does not allow one to surrender to circumstances or succumb under trial.”  

 Vines Expository Dictionary says, “It’s not mere endurance of the inevitable, but the brave patience with which the Christian not only bears but contends.” 

 James is not talking about the skill of passively waiting, like, say, at a doctor’s office. He’s talking about the fortitude and endurance it takes to run a marathon.  

 The point here is that God wants to produce: 

  •  An unwavering consistency. 
  •  An unbreakable commitment.

 He’s not interested in a commitment that is here one day and gone the next. 

 The way he does this is by trying us. Untested faith is just a theory. And the thing about theories is that, for the most part, they are of no help in real life. 

  •  A theory about the afterlife is useless on your death bead. 
  •  A theory about the character of God is useless when your marriage is in shambles. 

 Only a strong faith can give us the security and assurance we need in those hard times. 

 Application. 

 Tests and trials hold up a mirror to our lives, revealing what we value. 

  • Sometimes our character flaws are hidden from us. 
  • Sometimes we are not the person we thought we were. 
  • Sometimes we have made less progress than we thought.

 Therefore, the tests that God gives us are necessary. They show what we value and who we are. 

 But positively, 

  • Sometimes we are capable of more than we thought. 
  • Sometimes we’re farther along than we thought. 

 Tough times reveal that to us.