Sermon Central
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How God Tests Our Faith
Contributed by Rick Warren on Jun 11, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: We tend to get what we expect out of life. According to our faith, it will be done to us. Pastor Rick and Pastor Holladay teach four ways that God tests our faith.
David says in this passage that giving not only tests my faith, it not only tests my love, it is the test of my heart, the integrity of my heart. Is Jesus Christ the Lord of every area? God wants to be Lord of the difficulties. God wants to be Lord in the demands of life. God wants to be Lord in the dollars of life.
The lesson is if I want to grow in faith I not only have to rejoice continually, I have to obey immediately and I must give generously. That’s the third way that God tests our faith.
I want you to evaluate how much faith your giving reveals. Get gut level honest right now. If God looked at the giving that you give to Him would God say that you really trust Him? Or have you been afraid to do what His word says?
It’s interesting that in giving God not only tests our faith but the Bible says in Malachi that giving tests God. Malachi 3, God says, "’Test Me in this,’ says the Lord. ’Bring all your tithes into the storehouse [that’s the place you worship] and test Me in this. See if I will not provide for you, throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing that you won’t even be able to handle.’" In other words, I’m going to play a game with you. You give to Me and I give to you and we’ll see who wins.
Giving not only tests me, it actually tests God. I dare you to test God. I dare you to put Him to the test to see that He will keep His promises.
I have to say that personally I have grown more in faith in this single area than in any other area of my life. Yes, I’ve learned through difficulties. Yes, I’ve learned from obeying commands and demands that God said to do that didn’t make sense. I’ve learned to grow in faith in many other ways. But in this area of giving the most sensitive nerve in the human body goes from the wallet to the heart. And God says I want all of you. I want what it represents.
Tom’s going to come back and he’s going to give us the fourth test of faith.
Tom: Here’s the fourth test of faith.
4. God tests our faith through delays.
If every prayer were immediately answered, if your every need were automatically met, if every problem were instantly solved you wouldn’t need faith and your faith wouldn’t need to be stretched. But it is not that way. We have to wait on things. It is human nature that we hate to wait. I hate to wait. I hate it!
Do you do this? You’re driving up to a red light and there are two cars there one in each lane. As you’re driving up you’re figuring out, which one is going to get off faster. I’m going to get behind that one now. Do you do that? We hate to wait. We hate waiting lines. We hate traffic. We hate everything about waiting. Doctor’s offices.
Yet a large percent of your life is spent waiting. If you and I can’t learn how God wants to stretch and grow our faith during times of waiting we miss out on much of the faith lessons that God wants to teach in our lives.
I was doing my devotions last week. The encyclopedia of how long things take. A lot of waiting is the little trivial things. So if you want some trivia for the day here is some definite trivia.
