Sermon Central
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#1learn To Identify And Thrive During The Tests. Series
Contributed by Wade Martin Hughes, Sr on Mar 16, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: We need to identify seasons of testing, then expect the tests, and then learn how to thrive during the testing processes of life. Why are you tested?
#1 LEARN TO IDENTIFY AND THRIVE IN THE TEST!
Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com
This lesson one and will be done in several sittings, there is a lesson two, of two more parts.
I. DO YOU REALIZE GOD DOES HIS BEST WORK IN THE TESTING PROCESS?
A. WE OFTEN HEAR QUESTIONS LIKE:
WHY ARE WE TESTED?
HOW LONG WILL THIS TEST LAST?
WHY DO PEOPLE DREAD TESTS?
B. WHO WINS IN THE TEST OF A HAMMER AND A BIG ANVIL?
WHY?
C. TEST:
Examination, observation, to try
Basis for evaluation,
To submit to procedures to prove or disprove
Criteria
A way to measure skills, knowledge, understanding, aptitudes
D. TRIAL
Examination of matters and issues
A test of FAITH patience or stamina
To investigate how well something works
Tryout
To test the ability
To what one is capable of
E. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE VALUE OF TESTING?
KJV
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
F. CAN WE IDENTIFY ---- THIS IS A TEST? THIS IS ONLY A TEST?
NIV
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
G. WILL WE LEARN TO EXPECT TESTS?
Living
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.
H. WILL WE EVER LEARN TO THRIVE IN THE TESTS?
Messsage
Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about;
II. LORD TRY MY REIGNS!
A. There are three words that sound alike:
1. Rain --- water falling from the sky
2. Reign --- a king’s authority and rule.
3. Rein--- A strap fastened to a bit that the driver gains and keeps control
A restraining influence
A guiding power --- to control
To check or to stop or to slow up by gaining control
Jeremiah 11:20 But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have
Jeremiah 17:10 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. I revealed
my cause.
B. Lord, I willingly yield and submit to Your Divine Plan and Control. God, we realize there is only one way to LET YOU REIN OUR HEARTS, THAT IS TO PASS THE TEST OF SUBMISSION.
III. WE LIKEN TESTING AS UNTO A FIRE ... FIRE IMPROVES THE VALUE!
A. We understand the process of refinement?
Improvements
To free from impurities or unwanted materials
To free from moral imperfections
To improve by pruning
To separate dirt and worthlessness
Malachi 3:3 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.
B. I am told in Biblical refinement that the master refiner knew the gold or silver was pure when he could see a perfect reflection of his face in the
silver or gold.
C. FROM $35 TO $125,000 JUST BECAUSE OF THE FIRE? HEAT EXPOSURE?
I am told something about the refiners process...
Take a small bar of pig iron and it will be worth $35.00
Put the same amount of metal back in the fire, and work it and it will become two horse shoes worth $60.
Take the horse shoes back to the fire and the same metal will now be worth $350 of sewing needles.
Apply more heat and submit it to the refinery process and now the same metal is worth $2,500 in penknife blades.
Lets take it to the fire one more time and make watch springs and now we have around $125,000 value.
1 Cor. 3:12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
IV. THE TREE TEST?
CLEAN WINDOWS CAN MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE.
A. Did you hear about the lady that told all the neighbors around her the neighbor directly behind her house had dirty, dingy clothes on her clothes line.
B. One spring day the lady’s husband washed her windows and the next day the
neighbor washed her clothes and they were so much clearer?
Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
