Preparation For Promotion Part 1: Test of Trust
Scriptures: 1 Timothy 3:6; John 10:10b; 1 Peter 5:7; Habakkuk 2:3
Introduction:
Ephesians 4:13-15 “…until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” (NIV)
This will be our foundational Scripture in this series. In these verses, it is clear that we are expected to grow in Christ and with that growth become more stable, not being tossed around with every storm that will come our way. So in this series I will focus on your “promotion”, where you come to be mature, leaving your infant stage behind. The title of this series is “Preparation for Promotion.” How many of you are aware that God has a desire to “promote” you? Well in case you did not know, He does. In this series we will cover several “tests” that you will face as you are being groomed for your promotion. But I want to make one thing perfectly clear – the promotion that God has for you is for you and you only. God’s promotion is nothing like the promotions we receive on our jobs where we are competing against everyone else. In those situations “the best man or woman” may or may not get the promotion depending on the circumstances and what is going on in that environment. However, with God’s promotion, the promotion is already yours. No one else can do what God has planned for you. You are currently in the preparatory stage getting ready for the promotion. When you are ready, God will promote you. The other thing to keep in mind is that our promotions will be private. Others will see after we have begun to operate differently, but there will be no emails, large announcements or publications from God detailing our “new position”. This will be between God and us individually. Finally you may not see it coming. One day you will notice that you are acting different from your past – more confidence, assurance and understanding about things happening in your life. But eventually you and others will see that you have been “promoted”.
Webster’s dictionary defines promote as “to raise to a higher position or rank; and to further the growth or establishment of.” The second part of the definition says that to promote someone or some thing means to “further the growth or establishment of.” Not only does God desire to bring us into a position of increased responsibility based on our willingness and desire to serve Him, He is also focused on our continued growth and establishment as we are moving towards the place He has for us. When I think of how He does this, Proverbs 18:16 comes to mind. In this verse, Solomon says that “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.” One interpretation of what Solomon was referencing pertained to a bribe and how people can bribe their way into the presence of someone greater than themselves. However, I want you to look a little deeper at this. Everything that God has placed within us is for the body of Christ. Whatever our talents, gifts and abilities, we are to use them to further His Kingdom. When God is actively promoting us, one of the things that He does is bring us into the presence of others where our gifts can be utilized and sometimes even appreciated.
When we use our gifts and talents to help others, they become a gift to the person on the receiving end. Think about Oral Roberts or someone like TD Jakes. Their ministry gifts and what they have accomplished opens a lot of doors for them, especially Oral Roberts. Although he has counseled several presidents, it was the gifts that God placed within him that he fully utilized that opened the doors. When you are willing to use your gifts for God, He will be like a “promoter” for you, making sure you receive the opportunity to use your gifts. That is one of the definitions of “promote”, having someone pushing you forward. In this message I will not focus on God promoting us to others like an agent does, but what God desires to do within us to bring us to a higher, stronger, place with Him.
So let’s look at the first part of the definition promote. It says to promote means “to raise to a higher position or rank.” It is something that is earned or given to you based on your accomplishments. For example, one promotion that we all have in common is being promoted while in school. I remember when I was in elementary school we all thought you got promoted based on whether or not the teacher liked you on the last day of school. So on the last day when we would find out if we were promoted, everyone would sit quietly at our desks trying to make sure the teacher liked us. One day a teacher explained to us that it was not how we acted that day that would decide if we got promoted, but the grades we got all during the year. My point is this, in order to move from one grade to another, you had to do the work and you had to pass the tests. If you did not pass enough tests to show that you had learned what you were supposed to, then you would fail and have to repeat the grade again. If you did the work and demonstrated that you were competent in the grade, you would go to the next higher grade. The important thing to remember is that you could not get promoted unless you learned what you were supposed to learn. Why does this work this way? As you move up in grades, the lessons become harder because they are taking you to the next level. Every time you got promoted to another grade, the expectation was that you had learned the information from the previous grade and you were ready to continue that learning in your new grade.
The next promotion that some of us have in common came to us while we were on our jobs. My first promotion came while I was in the Air Force. I had to take tests, perform in my current position well enough to be recommended and meet all of the other criteria. If I met all of the other criteria and was doing a very good job in my current position, but failed the tests, I would not get the promotion. I had to pass the test. Many of you had to prove yourselves in order to get your promotion. There were certain experiences and accomplishments that you had to have met in order to prove that you deserved the promotion. Whatever it took, there was a process of you doing “something” to get ready for the promotion. Whether you were promoted in school or on the job, once you received it, you had to be ready. In school you had to be ready to start learning and performing at a higher level. You not only had to remember what you had learned in your previous grades, you had to apply that knowledge to what you would be learning in your new grade. When you got promoted on your job you received new responsibilities. Maybe you began to supervise people where before you did not have to. Whatever your situation, with the promotion came an increase in responsibility. It is the same way with God. He desires to promote us in the things He has planned for us individually, but first we have to prove that we are ready by passing the tests. It would not be in our best interest to be promoted before we are ready because we could fail.
Think about what Paul told Timothy in reference to placing a new convert into a position of leadership in ministry? He said when talking about a minister that the minister should “Not be a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.” (1 Tim. 3:6). The word novice means someone who is new to the faith. A person who is recently saved and has little knowledge of God should not be placed in a spiritual leadership position because they have not been tested to show that they are ready. If they are not ready, they can become very prideful and end up falling. When you are ready, God will promote you. Again, it is important that you remember that what God has for you may be different from what He has planned for me. This is not a competitive situation, but one of love and trust in the relationship. Also remember that tests are not meant to stress you out, but to bless you out. Although God is not the one bringing you the tests for He will not tempt us to sin, He will use the situations we are faced with to help us to grow. James 1:12 says “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” Let’s get started with the test of trust.
I. The Test of Trust
Jesus said in John 10:10(b) “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Jesus came to give us life, i.e. eternal life, while at the same time helping us to live a more abundant life on this earth. Moving into a more abundant life is a promotion for it encompasses a lot of things. The question that we must answer over and over again is whether or not we trust God. Do we really believe that He will do what He said He would? When the Israelites left Egypt, the Promise Land was only a few day’s journey yet it took them 40 years to get there. Why did it take so long? They did not have faith in God and therefore they did not trust Him. Remember when they came to the point of entering the Promise Land Moses sent out the spies to survey the land. Some returned and reported that it was a land of milk and honey yet there were giants in the land? They were afraid to go in and take the land and did not trust that God would deliver the land into their hands. They refused to accept their promotion, what God had for them due to a lack of trust that He would really give it to them. Over and over again when they faced certain situations their trust wavered. They even went so far as to have Aaron make then an idol of gold when Moses took too long returning from the mountain talking with God. A lack of trusting in God cost them 40 years of living in the Promised Land.
We can answer the question of whether or not we trust God by looking at our backup plans. When you believe God has told you to do something do you have backup plans? If you know for sure what God has told you to do, do you establish a secondary plan “just in case?” If you do, this is a sign that either you are unsure as to what God has told you to do or you do not believe that He will bring it to pass (a lack of trust). The trust test is simple obedience to do what God has told us to do. Trust will cause us to relax and when we relax we can fully enter into His joy. 1 Peter 5:7 says “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” When you do this, you release it to Him knowing (and trusting) that He will take care of it. When we do not trust God, we make it difficult for Him to work on our behalf because we are always trying to do it alone. Let me share three things about the trust test:
1. It requires us to trust even when you don’t see the way He’s going to accomplish something. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 records that after the Children of Israel continued to not trust and obey God, He led them through the wilderness for 40 years to test and prove them, that they would keep His commandments. They did not know everything God was doing, but during those 40 years in the wilderness; when God continued to feed them with manna; when He gave them water from rocks: and when they looked around and realized their clothes were not wearing out, they learned to trust Him. After those 40 years when their trust was established in Him, He brought them back to the Promise Land and they entered in. Even though we may not have all of the answers as to what God is doing, we must trust Him anyway.
2. It requires us to trust even when we don’t understand. There is a difference between this and the first one. In the first one we do not always know what God is doing and we must trust. With this one, we sometimes know what He is doing yet we do not understand it. Trusting God does not mean we have to understand. I do not understand how electricity works yet I continue to use it daily. Do we have to understand how a car engine works in order to drive a car? No, absolutely not. Likewise, we do not have to understand God and what He is doing in order to trust Him and allow Him to move on our behalf? If we cannot trust God where we are now, Satan has a place in our lives and is holding us hostage.
3. Sometimes we must have trust even when the heavens are silent. God will wait patiently for us to finish the tasks He has already given us before He gives us another one. If we are constantly asking God for more opportunities, more things to do, and we do not seem to be getting an answer, we need to ask ourselves if we have finished the first thing He has told us to do. Part of trust is knowing that God is there waiting for us and that when we call out to Him, we must be patient. We may not get all of our questions answered, yet our trust must still be steadfast. David said in Psalm 145:15 “The eyes of all look expectantly to You and You give them their food in due season.” In “due season” may not be within our time frame, yet God is still moving. The prophet Habakkuk said “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:3
Joseph could have been the poster child for someone having a reason (in our minds) not to trust God. Think about his situation. Joseph’s story starts with chapter 37 of Genesis. When you read his story, you find that first God gave him visions in the form of dreams. When he told his father about his dreams, his father recognized that these dreams were coming from God. So Joseph begins to have communications from God. Next, his brothers become jealous of him and sold him into slavery. His being separated from his family seemed like a long way from what he had dreamed in his dreams. When he arrives in Egypt, he is eventually thrown in prison after being lied on. While he is in prison, he helps others who quickly forget about him. Can you see him praying a prayer similar to what David prayed in Psalms 13 when he said “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?” (vs. 1) You know the rest of the story. Joseph was delivered out of prison. God fulfilled the vision that He had given Joseph as a teenager when his brothers came to him for food during the famine. He also got married and had two sons. He named his first son Ephraim when means “God has caused me to prosper and be fruitful.” He named his second son Manasseh which means “God has caused me to forget.” In the naming of his sons, Joseph professed what God had accomplished in his life. He never lost his trust and faith in God. Before Joseph died he told his children that God would bring them out of Egypt and he wanted them to take his bones with them. You how what? When they left Egypt, Joseph bones were taken with them. We must consistently learn to pass the test of trust. Trusting that truly our God is a good God and He is good all of the time. Trusting that what He said He will do, we can count it as being done. We must consistently pass the trust test so we get to the point that there are no more tests. Next week we will look at the test of security.
