BACKGROUND:David conculded this Psalm with a prayer for God to search and test him in order to prove his loyalty, thus showing that he was not like the others of his generation who were fickle in their love and loyality and devotion to God.
(GOD)"For forty years that generation sickened me, and I said, ‘Always fickle hearts; they cannot grasp my ways." Psalms 95:10 (NJB)
David asked God to test him as a refiner tests metal. Since God knows everything, He would also know David’s anxious thoughts. God would also know if the psalmist had any offensive way in his life. Such an examination David was convinced, would yield evidence of his loyalty. The Lord in His leading would then preserve his life, as he followed the Lord.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
As we finish this Psalm today, the question that comes to my mind is this - how much will I trust the character of God in my life? Today, I want to breifly look at how we can build that trust.
Repeatedly in Scripture the Bible says God has promised to meet your needs – emotional needs, financial needs, physical needs, spiritual needs, relational needs, every need of your life. That's why we have look at the names of God - to remind you exactly who God is and what His character is like.
One of the promises God gives is in Philippians 4:19 - “My God will supply all that you need [circle the word “all”] from His glorious resources in Christ Jesus.” That’s a pretty blanket statement. He says, “I’ll meet all your needs.”
What does this include? Everything.
The problem is this. You look around and obviously not everybody’s need is met. In reality many times our needs seem to go unmet. What’s the problem? Is God lying? Is God exaggerating the point? Is He just saying something that sounds real nice but isn’t true? Why is it that sometimes my needs seem to go unmet?
The Bible tells us that with every promise there is a condition. There is a premise with every promise. One of the conditions for this promise is you have to trust Him. The more you trust God, the more God is able to meet needs in your life. He less you trust God the fewer needs He’s able to meet in your life. The Bible says there is a faith factor involved. Matthew 9:29, Jesus said, “According to your faith it will be done unto you.” God says, “You get to choose how much I bless your life. It’s according to your faith. You get to choose how many needs I meet in your life. It’s according to your faith. The more you trust Me, the more needs I can meet. The less you trust Me, the fewer needs I can meet.”
The obvious question then is how can I learn to trust God more so He can met all of my needs? How can I learn to have greater faith?
Faith is an interesting substance. You don’t get it by setting in a Bible study group. You don’t get it by just talking about it. You don’t get it by just thinking and hoping and wishing. Faith is like a muscle. That means it develops by being used. The more you use a muscle the stronger it gets. The more you use the little faith that you’ve got, the more it gets stretched. And the more it gets stretched, the more God is able to bless your life.
We call the circumstances that God creates to stretch our faith trials. And the Bible says in 1 Peter 1:7 “These trials are only to test your faith to show that it is strong and pure.” And the Bible tells us that like fire when the heat’s on it purifies gold and silver that God tests our heart by putting us under the heat, those fiery trials of life.
Today I want to look at two of the most common trials. Chances are you’re in one of these tests right now. Whether you are or not, I guarantee you, over your life you will go through these four tests over and over again. When you go through them you can know, “This is an opportunity for me to develop my faith so I can trust God more so He can bless my life more.”
#1. THE PRESSURE TEST
The pressure test asks the question, “How will I handle stress?” Will I depend on myself or will I depend on God? Will I turn to other things or will I turn to God? Psalm 50:15 “I want you to trust Me in your times of trouble so I can rescue you and you can give Me glory.” God says, I want you to turn to Me when you’re in trouble, not to other things. Do we do that? No. We usually have God about number nine or ten on the list. We turn to everything else first to relieve stress before we turn to God.
Some of you say, “When I get under stress I know what I need. I need one of those little pills. I go to my medicine cabinet and get that little pill and then I won’t be stressed.” No. And it doesn’t last.
“I know what I’ll do. I’m all tense and nervous and stressed out by my problems. I’ll call a friend and complain about my problems.” You call a friend and talk on the phone and complain about all the stress in your life, hang up, and you’re still under stress.
“I know what I’ll do! I’ll make some nachos!” So you make some nachos and nuke them in them microwave and you eat them all and when you’re through your tummy’s full but you still have the same problems and you’re still stressed.
“I know what I’ll do. I’ll go shopping. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Or if you’re a guy you say, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll set down and watch a game on TV. Or I’ll work out or something.”
We all have our own little stress relievers. And along about ninth or tenth place comes God. God says, I want you to turn to Me. When you’re under stress, this is a test.
You have legitimate needs in your life that needs to be met. The problem is you get in a hurry. If God doesn’t instantly meet that need, you make up your own plan. And you try to meet your own needs yourself. We do this all the time. We short-circuit God’s will, God’s blessing in our lives by going for the quick fix, the cheap thrill, the instant hit, the quick relief that’s temporary – a little temporally fix. But we do it all the time. We don’t wait for God’s will in our lives.
Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have done two evils. They have turned away from me the spring of living water and they’ve dug their own wells which are broken wells and cannot hold water.”
Imagine this: You’re walking through the Sahara Desert for two days with no water and no shade. Your throat is parched. You’re dying of thirst. Your tongue has grown thick. You think you’re going to die if you don’t get some water. As you come up over a sand dune after a coulee of days and you see this road side stand with a big neon sign and arrows pointing down like in Reno that says, “God’s free unlimited, everlasting, fulfilling, living water.” But do you walk up and ask for a drink? No! You walk right on past it and say to a guy standing there, “Can I borrow a shovel?” and you start digging your own well. You’re going to get your own water, your way.
Even worse than this, we have the audacity that as we’re digging the well to ask God to bless our well. Have you ever done that? Yes, you have! You go out and get into some relationship you know is wrong and then you pray, “God, please bless this relationship.”
Or you go out and buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like and you get over extended n credit and deeply in dept and then come back and say, “God, bless my finances. I have this financial need.” Who got that need there? You tried to turn a desire into a need. God didn’t promise to bless your desires. You got overextended with things you didn’t need then prayed, “Bless my finances!”
We do this all the time. Abraham was promised a baby, a son, who would be the father of a great nation. As Abraham got older, nothing happened. He had no kids. His wife Sarah was infertile so he thinks, “I’m going to dig my own well. I’ll make my own plan. I’ll take matters into my own hands.” He took Sarah’s handmaiden, her servant girl and had a child through her. Hagar got pregnant and had a baby. They named him Ishmael and he holds him up and says, “God! Here’s the miracle boy!” God says, “No! That’s your plan. That’s the well you dug. I’ve got a baby over here named Isaac and he’s coming next year.”
How many times do we do this? We get in a hurry. We figure out our own plan to meet our needs and ask God to bless that plan. God isn’t going to do it. God is not going to bless that relationship that you’ve tried to force on God. God is not going to bless all those other plans you’ve tried to force on Him.
Some of you right now are struggling with financial pressure in your life and the temptation is to cut corners, to be unscrupulous, stop tithing, cheat on your taxes, do an unethical business deal. Anything to get out of debt. You’re building a well that isn’t going to hold water.
Some of you right now have tremendous sexual tension and pressure in your life. You think you’re going to explode that you’ve got to have a mate! Even though God has been very, very clear and says sex is only for marriage (He’s very clear in scripture about this) you come up with every kind of rationalization you can think of: “We’re both Christians… We love each other… “ etc., etc. You’re digging a well that’s going to break your heart. Count on it. God is not mocked.
Some of you are under enormous emotional pressure. You don’t turn to God. You reach for that bottle! Or you go to the medicine cabinet for those prescription medicines. And you’re digging a well that’s not going to hold any water. It’s a quick fix. It doesn’t solve the problem.
What’s the antidote? “If you’re walking in darkness without a ray of light, trust in the Lord, and rely on your God.” This is a test! God is going to see when you’re under stress are you going to turn to Him or are you going to turn to other things? It’s a test. Will you trust Him?
#2. THE PEOPLE TEST
God often uses people in your life to test and stretch and develop your faith. This test is “How will I handle disappointment?” Life is often disappointing. Things don’t turn out the way we planned them. Careers don’t turn out the way you plan them. Marriages don’t turn out the way you plan them. Plans don’t turn out the way you plan them! The fact is, life is disappointing a lot of the time.
But the most disappointing thing in life are people. Why do we get disappointed by people in life? You get disappointed by people when you expect them to meet a need in your life that only God Himself can meet. When you turn to a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a father or a mother or a husband or a wife or a friend and you expect them to meet all your needs, you’re setting yourself up for massive, massive disappointment. God never intended that for anybody! Nobody could possibly meet all your needs. And when they let you down, you think, “What’s wrong with you?” The problem is you. You put an expectation on them that they couldn’t possibly fulfill.
This is a test! So many of you have thought in the past, “If only I could get married, then I would be fulfilled and satisfied…. If only my wife/my husband would change, then all my problems would be solved…. If only my children were different – like their children next door – then I would be so contented…. If I had just had different parents, life would have been a whole lot grander.”
Your problem is not the people in your life. Your problem is your response to the people in your life. People are not the problem and they’re not the answer to the problem either. The answer to your insecurity is not another person. The answer to your inferiority is not another person. The answer to your worries and your fears is not another person. The answer to your depression and despair and discouragement is not another person. The answer to your sense of failure is not another person. And the answer to your meaninglessness in life, your lack of purpose and your boredom with life, your deep dissatisfaction is not another person.
The answer is God. When you expect other people to be your savior, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
The Bible says this in Isaiah 2:22 - “You should stop trusting in people to save you because people are only human.” Don’t expect a person to be the answer to all your problems. It’s not going to happen. If you do that you’re going to set yourself up. There is only one Savior, Jesus Christ. Stop expecting anyone or anything else to be your savior.
Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made Him [not other people] their hope and confidence.” What happens if you do this? Look at God’s promise in Isaiah 49:23 - “Anyone who trusts in Me will not be disappointed.”
Do you know why you’re disappointed? Because you’re trusting in other things besides God. You thought, “This experience will make me happy,” and it didn’t so you’re disappointed. Then you thought, “This person in my life will meet my needs,” so now you’re disappointed. Or you thought, “If I could just achieve this level of success and achievement, then I’ll be happy and satisfied,” and it didn’t make you happy and satisfied and you’re disappointed. This person, this event, this thing… if I can just buy this car… and then it disappointed you. Any time you are disappointed, it is a warning light that you have trusted in something else for your happiness besides God. It’s a big red light that says you’ve got your values misplaced.
I love what Emily Kingsley says about disappointment and handling disappointment. She’s talking about the disappointment when your kids don’t turn out the way you thought they ought to turn out – particularly a handicapped child. But this has far more implication than just for parents. She says, “I’m often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability. To try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it and to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this: When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. You’re going to see the coliseum, the Cistene chapel, the gondolas. You may learn some handy phrases it Italian and it’s all very exciting. After several months of preparation and anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go to Italy. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.” “Holland?” you say. “I signed up for Italy. I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.” But there’s been a change in the flight plans and they’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing to remember is they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place filled with pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks and you must learn a whole new language and you must meet a whole new group of people that you would never have met before. It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy and it’s less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you begin to look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. And Holland has tulips. And Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and bragging about what a wonderful time they’ve had there. And for the rest of your life you’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. At least that’s what I had planned.’ And the pain of that experience will never, ever, ever go away. The loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy that very special, very lovely thing about Holland.”
That principle applies to a lot more than just being disappointed in a child. Some of you on your wedding day stood at the altar and you thought you were going to Italy. Am I right? And you thought, “I am going to Italy!” And today you think you went to Bangladesh! And if the truth were know there’s some massive disappointment. You hide it. You put on the smiley face. But things haven’t turned out the way you intended them to be, the picture book story, fairy tale ending, happily ever after.
This is a test! It’s the people test. Are you going to handle disappointment by complaining and griping and crying and grieving and worrying. Or are you going to accept that God knows what’s best, that God has a loving plan for your life, that God loves you and knows what you need more than you do, that He’s in control. And that even the disappointments in your life have a positive purpose whether you understand it or not. It’s a test. Are you going to trust God with the things that disappoint your life?
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course.
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