OK, we're officially underway. We're going to spend the next couple of days, four sessions together, talking about the trials and tribulations and afflictions that we encounter in the course of our life and how we, as Christians, are to respond to them. I don't expect to tell you anything you've never heard of before. What my plan is, is to take things you already know and help you put them together in such a way that they will have impact on how you understand troubles, how you deal with troubles, and deal with trials. I thought about trying to come up with some real deep theological truth that nobody's ever heard of before and wow you with it. My brain doesn't work that way. So we're going to stick to the stuff that you already know. But the intent is to put it together in a different way. An example is, how many of you... Now, I know this group is going to be tough with this because I watched you in action last night with the I never, never stuff. But how many of you have never heard of tomatoes? Raise your hand. Okay. How about cheese? Right. How about basil? Garlic? No? Bread? Olive oil? Garlic? I said that, but there's two garlics. Okay, so you've heard of all of those things, right? You need my secret formula for eggplant rollatini in order to put all those pieces together and come up with the oh, wow. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to put the pieces together, things that you already know, things that you already understand, help you understand them better, and then see how that fits into a Christian understanding of who God is and what he's doing when we are faced with trials. If we have a passage, the basis for where I'm going here is found in Romans chapter 5. We'll be referring to this passage often and others that say very similar things, but let me just read the first five verses here. Romans chapter five, Paul writing to the church in Rome, explaining to them the gospel and the details of the gospel and the meaning of the gospel in their life. He said, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations. Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance proven character, and proven character hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. We left Cape Cod Monday evening to go to Providence. We stayed over. Our flight was 6 o'clock in the morning, so we went and stayed over. Monday afternoon, Jan was having trouble with her jaw, so we called our dentist, and we went to see him, and he was kind enough to stay late and take care of us. And I was explaining to him that the reason we have to do this is because we have to be in Oklahoma Tuesday because I'm going to be speaking at a conference. And he said, really? What kind of conference? And I said, well, he knows I'm a pastor. He says, is this a religious conference? And I said, yeah. And I said, I'm going to be talking about how we are to rejoice in the trials of life. And he said, rejoice in the trials of life. Come on. And he just walked away. That's the world's thinking about difficulty. But this verse tells us that we exult in our tribulation, that we are to find joy in the midst of the difficulties of life. And we're going to see how to do that as we spend time over these next couple of days. When God saves us, he changes us in a very radical way initially. That is, we were dead and now we're alive. We were not spiritual, now we are. But that's only the beginning of what God is doing. That's a starting point for change that God is doing in the life of the believer from that point until he's done with us here and he takes us home. these changes come as we understand the Word of God better and seek to apply that Word to our lives. That means that we have to learn things. Now, those things are based in theological truth, but it's not the knowledge of theology that matures us as Christians, because there's a lot of non-Christians out there who teach theology in seminaries, okay? So it's not just a matter of knowing the facts. The mature Christian is one who is able to take what they've learned of theological truth and make application to their life so that their life is being changed by that because that's the work of the Spirit and that's what God is doing with us. One of those things that we need to learn and probably one of the more difficult things that we need to learn is how to do this, what Paul is saying. He's stating it as fact that we do this, but there's a basis for that, and we're going to understand that. James makes it a command. He says, consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. So we're commanded to do it, and we're told that we do do it, and we just need to figure out how all that goes together. If we don't get a handle on this, if we don't understand what God is calling us to do in these things, we're going to be miserable people because we're going to be faced with all kinds of trials in the course of living our life. And if we don't know how to handle it, then it makes for a more unpleasant time in dealing with those circumstances. I'm going to be referring to a treatise that Thomas Boston wrote. It's called A Crook in the Lot. I don't know if you've read it or not. It's hard reading because he's writing in older English. But I want to read a quote here. He says, a just view of afflicting incidents is altogether necessary to a Christian deportment under them. OK? We have to understand the nature of the affliction, where it comes from, how it comes from, why it comes to us, what the purpose of it is, in order that we can have a Christian deportment. That is, that we can behave as Christians under those afflictions. He said, and that view is to be obtained only by faith, not by sense. For it is the light of the world alone that represents them justly, discovering in them the work of God, and consequently designs becoming the divine perfections. When they are perceived by the eye of faith and duly considered, we have a just view of afflicting incidents, fitted to quell the turbulent motions of corrupt affections under dismal outward appearances. If we understand rightly who God is and what he's doing with us in the midst of whatever trial we're facing, we are better equipped to deal with it in a way that reflects who we are in Christ and God's work in us. He said, and we will be a just view of afflicting incidents will help us to be fitted to quell the turbulent motions of corrupt affections. That's interesting, the way these guys write, but it's powerful stuff if you think about it. And we'll deal with all of these parts as we go. So over the next couple of days, then, we're going to be devoting our time to learning this practice of the mature Christian, where we develop a just view of afflicting incidents. That's a right view of our tribulation, of our affliction, of our trials and our tests, so that we can exalt in them and not be undone by them. And so in order to do that, you have an outline in your booklet, which I had to send this outline weeks ago. And every time I go over my notes, I change it. But we're good to go here. The first session today, we're going to talk about the nature of trials, just a basic understanding of trials. And then we're going to look at God's place in the trials, all right? And that's under session one. We've got the outline there. We'll fill it in as we go. Session two is going to be God's purpose in giving those trials. Session three is a review of God's attributes that we can then relate to the trials that we're facing. And then session four is going to be how God is changing us. We're going to look at the change process and look at the details of that and understand how it is this trial results in God changing me in a way that he desires to change me. You know, a recipe that lists ingredients with no instructions as to how the ingredients are to be combined or what to do with them after is really of very little help. So my intent, my desire is to give you that recipe today. That's all I have to say. I'm going to give you the final exam now, if you want to help pass these out. No discussion. This is a closed Bible quiz. You may find that there are no right answers to any of these questions, in which case, you're free to write in your own answer. Or you may find that there are more than one answer to the question, in which case, if you don't get them all, you don't get them right. See this is the way to do it You guys do all the work and just relax and have my coffee. Can I pause this for a minute? Just hit record? Okay, we're going to run through this quickly because what we're going to do over the next couple of days is deal with all of these in great detail. Number one, a trial is? Either A or C? C is probably the best answer. Now, if you want to come up here and make a defense of your answer, you're welcome to, okay? If you want to disagree. All right, number two. Trials can also be called? All of the above. All of the above. Number three. Trials can only occur in the following forms. All of the above. All of the above. Now, these quizzes are not a trial. They're a test, but not a trial. All right, number four. Trials, that's affliction, testing, temptation, A and B. Okay. You'll have to stick around. Yeah, Rob, come on up here. All right, we'll keep going because we'll come back here. Number five, the source of trials in the believer's life is? All. All the above. Number six, we react to trials? All. All the above. Number seven, the single attribute of God that best explains God's place in trials is His? Wrong. I knew you didn't get them all right. That was a trick question. It's a single attribute, so you can only pick one. That's right. Is it D? Holiness. Number eight, the doctrine that explains God's management of all creation is called? Providence. Providence. Number nine, why does God's sovereign direction of the events of our life cause us problems? All the above. And what should be our response to trials, afflictions, temptations, testings of life? Rejoice. Rejoice. Very good. OK. So we're going to take time and work through this. We're going to start by looking at the nature of trials. We need to understand what it is we're talking about when we're talking about trials. And in your outline here, we're looking at A, under session one there, A would be the nature of trials and number one would be the occurrence of trials. Okay? Anybody here, first of all, anybody here never had a trial or affliction, persecution, testing? Pardon? Oh, sorry. Anybody? Keep it up. You'll be in trouble. Are you back on? Yes. Yes. So are you. OK. Because I was going to say, if you did, you could go do whatever you want to do. You won't have to listen. But I'm glad everybody here is involved. There's a couple of different words that the scripture uses to identify trials. And flipsis is pressure or pressing together. And it's used figuratively of suffering brought about by outward circumstances. We talk about affliction. We talk about oppression. We talk about trouble. That's the word that's used here, tribulation, in Romans 5.3. It's that Greek word. And so it covers all kinds of problems, difficulties, that we encounter in the course of life. It can be used to speak specifically of the sufferings of Christ and our participation in those sufferings of Christ. Paul says that in Colossians 124, now I rejoice in my sufferings there. And he's talking about this. He's using the same word. It's also the word that's used with regard to the tribulation of the end times. There's another word, parosmos, and that is a test or a trial, typically of God's work in life to assess It can be used also as an enticement to sin, and we have to make the distinction there because God does not ever tempt anyone, but the same word is used there. So we'll see that in places like 1 Peter 4, this fiery ordeal which comes upon you for your testing, okay? It's used to speak of the devil's temptation of Christ in Luke 4. There's another one that's also translated afflictions in different places and that's mastix and it has to do with the whip, okay, flogging or a whipping and it's used to speak of the bodily diseases and plagues and afflictions and ailments and things like that. And that's in Mark 3, we see the word appearing there. So what we're talking about here is a very broad range of issues. We're talking about all of those things that we understand as difficulties, as trials, as tests. They come in all different sizes and shapes and colors and varieties. James says that when you encounter the various trials, the poikilos, the multicolored, variegated trials, that means of any kind, of all sorts. All the possible varieties of trials are to be dealt with in the same way. We can have a way of thinking about whatever comes into our life that falls into that category that helps us to address it, and that's what we're doing. Nobody raised their hand when I asked if anybody had never had a trial, so we see that trials are universal. No one escapes. Nobody is free from problems. They're as much a part of human existence as eating and sleeping. Job 5.7 says, for man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward. Job 14.1, man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of turmoil. And Matthew 6, Jesus himself talking about our concern for today and tomorrow says, do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. So Jesus said, every day has trouble. And we don't have to be anxious about what's going to happen tomorrow. We simply need to deal with it. We simply need to deal with today in a way that's appropriate for who we are and for what we are in Christ. Where do trials come from? That's number two on your outline, the source of trials, tribulations, afflictions, etc. Number two on your outline. What are trials? The various kinds of trials. The universality of trials. That's the kind of group this is, huh? Oh, boy. Yeah. That's a problem with outline. See, now you're not listening to what I'm saying. You're so concerned about filling in the blanks, and you're going to go home anxious. I didn't get all the blanks filled in. What did he talk about? I don't know. I didn't get all the blanks filled in. Yeah, yeah. OK. Number two. OK. No, number three, I'm sorry, I got way ahead of myself. You people are becoming a very serious trial. And notice how I'm handling it. What a joy to deal with all you I told you there were modifications to the outline. I gave you the disclaimer up front. Nobody heard that part, but that's OK. All right. Number two. Number two. I just did this. The source of trials. All right? The source of trials. See, now you got me all thrown off. I don't know where I'm going. I think we ought to just quit and go to lunch. No, we're just going to go. OK. Well, listen, let me ask you, where do trials come from? Where do they come from? Where do they come from? What causes you trouble? Our own sin. Our own sin. Very good. That's A. Our own sin. Can you think of a biblical example where an individual's sin caused them a problem? David. OK. You know, David, David, After the incident with Nathan and he realized what's going on, David therefore inquired of the Lord for the child and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground and the elders of the household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground. But he was unwilling and would not eat food with them. Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. Okay. David's condition in that period of time would would certainly be classified as Not a picnic. Okay. This was a trial. This was a real test and it was brought about by his own sin. All right What else somebody else No, what about what about somebody else in the in the Bible who's there's one I thought would be obvious Jonah Jonah's a great one, you know finds himself in the belly of the great fish and how did he get there? That wasn't a day at the beach. Well, it was a day at the beach for Jonah. Yeah, he was running, right? He was rebelling against the will of God. That's sin, by definition. Saul, certainly, and we could go on. Scripture is replete with incidents where the individual's sin brings about difficult circumstances in their life. So one of the sources of trials in our life is our own sin. What's another source? The sin of others. The sin of others. That's B. Very good. Are you reading my notes? That's exactly what I have here. The sin of others. Okay. If you look at David in the Psalms, he is frequently speaking of the difficulty that he's facing as a result of other people's sin against him. Psalm 35, 43, 54, 55, 56. you know, and so on. I stopped when I got that far. All of those, all of those Psalms have in them places where David is referring to somebody else or something outside of himself that is a sin against him or against the people. And, and he is experiencing a trial, a test as a result of that. What else? What's another way that we encounter trials? Okay, that's a trial, that's what a trial is. Life in a fallen world, okay. I'll take that. I had stuff happens, okay. Okay? Trials come to us in all kinds of ways. You know, the flat tire on the rainy day when you're on your way to that job interview that you absolutely have to have because you've been out of work for six months, and if you don't get work, you're going to lose your house, okay? And you have to change the tire in the pouring rain, and you show up for the job interview looking like a drowned rat. stuff that happens in the course of living in a fallen world, okay? Those kinds of things also we find all through scripture. There's a lot of different places where we could look at incidents. The Tower of Siloam fell and killed people, all right? Health issues would fall in that category as well. Yes, all health issues would fall in that category. You know, if we classified, relationship issues would be our own sin or other sin against us. Then we look at health issues, that would be things that are not brought about necessarily. They could be a result of our own sin, but most often are just a matter of life in the fallen world. So those are the basic sources of trials. Yes. Job's trial would, there's a lot of parts to that. You know, Job's own sin in his response to what God was doing, that wasn't why the trial happened, but that's why the circumstances were considered a trial. We look at how Job related to those circumstances, and he wasn't exalting in his tribulation, okay? So there was something wrong there. We're gonna deal with Job quite a bit as we go, so we'll probably come back to that. Job's friends sinning against him, okay, accusing him falsely, and his wife, she was a very encouraging sort, you know, curse God and die, right? So there's Job's difficulties were of various nature. One of those, one of those is, If we put it under the category of stuff happens, we'll see that stuff doesn't just happen. It's not accident. That flat tire on a rainy day is not an accident. It's not a mistake. And this is critical. If we think it is, then we'll never be able to rejoice in it. We have to understand what's going on in that situation in order to be able to do what God calls us to do. And that's what our intent here is, is to help build a framework so that when that event occurs, we can say, okay, I know what's going on here. It doesn't mean that I get all giggly and silly about it. That's not what rejoicing is. What it does mean is that it doesn't cause me to be angry, upset, fearful, anxious. It allows me to look at what's going on, understand who God is, put the two of those together in such a way that I can worship Him in the midst of that. Yes? So, on the source of trials, could you, why couldn't we just say, ultimately, God's sovereign design? You could. Okay. So Jim, everything that happens has the providence of God. Yeah. Yeah. That's session three. Okay. Please come back. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what we're doing is we're just, putting out, we're just kind of laying out some stuff here to give us something to think about, some hooks to hang ideas on as we think about the nature of trials, the source of trials, the occurrence of trials. And then we're going to get to the part where we're looking at how to deal with it, where did it come from and why. How we solve the problems and things that couldn't have been any other way except by God. That's true. But what does that include? All three of these. That includes everything that happens? Yes. Okay. Don't get ahead of us, because we're going to spend a lot of time looking at the sovereignty of God and the working of God in this world and understanding how that goes together. That's absolutely critical to making sense of James 1's command and Paul's Romans 5.3 comment. If we're going to exult in our tribulation, there's some things that have to be true in our understanding. And so that's what we're going to build on. So, so please I'm not putting you off, but we're going to deal with that in detail. Number three, that's three, that follows two, okay, and that is the reaction to trials. The reaction to trials. On what level do we react or respond to trials? Give me one. Emotional. Okay, emotional. What does that look like? Describe that. Fear, anger, worry, temper tantrums. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Seclusion. Yeah. All of those things. Anything that's an emotional response can be part of the response we have to the trial that we're facing. Again, if you read Psalms You read David's response. David is not bashful about expressing his emotions in light of his circumstances. He is very honest in what he's feeling. Now, there's a distinction to be made between what we are feeling and how we understand what's going on around us. The problem is, and this is true for many Christians, is that our feelings are the end of the thought process. And we never get past the place where, oh, what am I going to do? It's a horrible thing. I feel terrible. And we never get beyond that to the point where we're seeing what God's doing, understanding what God's doing, and are able to exalt in the tribulation. So the emotional part of it is certainly a critical element. David says in Psalm 55, give ear to my prayer, O God, and do not hide thyself from my supplication. Give heed to me and answer me. I'm restless in my complaint. I'm surely distracted because of the voice of the enemy, because of the pressure of the wicked. For they bring down trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. OK? So we see there David's expression of his response to his circumstances that are a test are emotional. And he's not afraid to handle that. And we should not ever assume that what we're doing here is advocating a non-emotional response to our trials. It's part of how God wired us, right? What we'll see is it's the emotional response is what should trigger this line of thinking all right, and we'll We'll build on that as we go. Okay, so we respond emotional. What's another way we respond? Physical okay, we respond physically what? What are the physical? responses to trials Sick sick yeah we work what do we do yes yes or We work to fix it. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to make it all better. The physical response is, I'm going to try and stop this. I'm going to try to fix this. So I'm actively involved in that process. What else? Oh, yeah, the physical there are all kinds of physical I mean the world recognizes this right a stress All right stress is a contributor to heart disease to diabetes to high blood pressure or all kinds of things Well, what's stress? That's being anxious for tomorrow, right? Stress is another whole subject, but there's a physical, visceral response to trial. There's an emotional response, there's a physical response, and that physical response can be loss of appetite, loss of sleep. or too much appetite, trying to stop it, trying to fix it, all kinds of things fall under that physical category. There's a third area, you can tell that by looking at your notes, because C is still blank on your page, it should be, under number three. What is that? Spiritual, right, spiritual, and that's really where our focus is. This is the, well, let me ask you, when we talk about the spiritual response, what are we talking about? How would you describe the spiritual response to a trial? Faith or unbelief. Faith or unbelief. What else? Somebody said something? Prayer, thanksgiving. Prayer, thanksgiving. Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Trying to understand. Pardon? trying to work through and understand what God's doing? Your relationship with God. Okay, relationship with God? Yeah, all of those things. Where do all of those things take place? They all take place in the same place. Yeah, the mind, the intellect, right? It's my reason my reasoning ability that encompasses all the things that were mentioned there in terms of the spiritual response to the trials. Obviously, we're talking about believers here. We're talking about we need to be alive spiritually to have a spiritual response, but that's a given as far as our time is going here. This is the cognitive element. This is the intellectual element of the process. Scripture speaks frequently of us operating with renewed minds, okay? Renewed minds. And what that means is that we are to be thinking differently as Christians than we did before we were Christians, okay? That doesn't happen instantly. Now, our conversion, our regeneration, our salvation, that's an instant work of God. Once we're saved, we're saved forever. That's the end of that. But the renewing of the mind and the growth into maturity and the change that God is accomplishing in us is the result of our thinking about things differently than we used to think about things. And typically, our spiritual response to our circumstances is that we fail to see God at work in what's taking place. So we look only at the circumstance and not at what's really happening. And in fact, David, I read part of that. David, give ear to my prayer, O God. Do not hide thyself from my supplication. Give heed to me and answer me. All right? Is David expressing there a close connection to God and a confidence that God is right in the midst of this trial with him? Think about it. What's he asking? He's saying, don't go away from me, don't hide from me, right? Hear me, listen to me, right? Listen to me, Linda. That's another story. Anyway, have you seen the video? Listen to me, listen to me. Oh no, you haven't. Well, we'll have to do that this afternoon. David is concerned that God is not there. He's speaking to God, knowing that God is there, and yet there's a sense that there's some distance there. There's the failure to see God at work in the midst of the circumstances that gives rise to the difficulties that we deal with. And that's a spiritual element of our reaction to trials I read some passages here that that express this kind of thinking Deuteronomy 31 17 at that time they will indeed say is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have befallen us Israel is going to say, well, God's gone, right? God's gone. Well, that's a spiritual response. They're failing to understand who God is, where he is, and what's going on. Job 13.24, why dost thou hide thy face, and consider me thine enemy? Is that true? No, that's not true. That's not what was going on. That's a spiritual response to the circumstances that Job was expressing there, but it's the result of wrong thinking, OK? Again, Psalm 10, 1, Why dost thou stand afar off, O Lord? Why dost thou hide thyself in times of trouble? Well, certainly God isn't hiding, okay? And he's not far off. But the circumstances give rise to the thinking that he is, okay? A failure to process what's really going on. What's interesting with David, he'll express these kinds of emotions and these kinds of thoughts, but typically, by the time you get to the end of the Psalm, it's but Lord, but God, but you, okay? He recognizes what's going on and expresses it in a way that demonstrates faith. Psalm 27, do not hide thy face from me. Do not turn thy servant away in anger. Do not abandon me or forsake me. Psalm 44, why do you hide your face from me? Forget our affliction and oppression. That's not the case. That's a spiritual response because David's questioning God there. Okay, that's a spiritual response, but it's an improper spiritual response. Let's see. Well, there's a bunch of them. Uh, uh, that was, um, uh, Psalm 69, Psalm 88, Psalm 89, Psalm 102, Lamentations 356, thou has heard my voice. Do not hide thine ear from my prayer for relief from my cry for help. Um, by making this statement, he's implying that it's possible that God might do that. Okay. So we have to understand that how we think about our trial is a spiritual response to the trial. And I think for many times, we would make a distinction there and not view our thinking about our circumstances as a spiritual response. We would like to reserve the spiritual part for something more I don't know, maybe mystical, if you will, or something other than just a plain everyday thought process. But as a Christian, my thoughts are spiritual thoughts. And they're either correct spiritual thoughts or they're incorrect spiritual thoughts. And so I need to renew my mind. I need to be thinking God's thoughts after him. Paul says we have the mind of Christ. We can think the way God would have us think. But that doesn't happen automatically. All right? That's something we have to learn to do. It's something that we have to work at. And that's what this is all about here. I have to look. This schedule is not right. Because there's no way I'm going to be stopping at 10.15. Okay. We haven't even got halfway through, and we're just getting to the good stuff. All right, B in your outline, God's place in the trial. Okay, now here's where we begin to put the ingredients together to come up with a recipe that helps us, or come up with a finished product that is the result of putting the ingredients together in a right way. What was God's part in it? All right, that's the first, that's number one there under B. The first thing we have to understand is that God sovereignly deems the trial. God sovereignly deems it. So this is the result of God's sovereignty being expressed. Thomas Boston said, affliction does not arise out of the dust or come to men by chance, but it is the Lord who sends it and we should own and reverence his hand in it. Okay. Thomas Watson said this, whoever brings an affliction, it is God who sends it. It is one heart-quieting consideration in all the afflictions that befall us that God has a special hand in them. The Almighty has afflicted me. can no more stir until God gives them a commission than the axe can cut of itself without a hand. Job eyed God in his affliction. Therefore, as Augustine observes, Job does not say the Lord gave and the devil took away, but the Lord has taken away. We're gonna look at the sovereignty of God in great detail when we get to session three, because it's a critical part of understanding what's going on around us and how to relate to the difficulties, the trials that we are facing. Now, everybody here understands God is sovereign, right? How is God's sovereignty expressed in his creation? You said it before. You asked the question before. Yeah. You raised the subject. What's it called? Providence. Providence. Providence. OK. God's sovereignty is expressed in the management of his creation. So God providentially directs it. The trial. God providentially directs it. Ecclesiastes 3.1 says, there is an appointed time for everything. For everything, there's an appointed time. Who appoints it? God does. Who sees that it's carried out? God does. That's God's providence. That's God's providential working. Job 23, 13 and 14. But he is unique, and who can turn him? and what his soul desires that he does. Job is speaking of God here. Verse 14, for he performs what is appointed for me and many such decrees are with him. There's a thinking that, and we hear it often expressed in Christian circles where people say, whoa, that was providential, as if this particular incident was a demonstration of providence, but the rest of the day wasn't. Well, everything that occurs is providential. Everything that occurs is the result of God's active management of His creation. God didn't create the world and then sit back and let it go on its own. So when people say, that was a God thing. Yeah, yeah, everything's a god thing. That was just and we typically we say it of good things, right? We say it of the things we really like and know that was providential. That really worked out well for me. You know, we don't we don't have a tendency to say, oh, I was diagnosed with cancer. Well, how providential. I mean, that somehow doesn't fit. And yet, we have to be careful, because if we make that kind of a distinction, we're going to have a hard time relating to the trials that God gives us, because we think they come from somewhere else. They don't. So all predictable outcomes are providential truths. What's that? All predictable outcomes. Hallelujah. Yeah, what do you mean? Explain, if you would. I'm not sure I'm following. Everything that happens is a result of God's active management. Now, We have to be careful because God is not responsible for our sinful response to our circumstances, and yet God is actively involved in giving the circumstances and in our response to those circumstances. We've got some illustrations of that when we get a little further along, all right? That's session three, again. What's that? That's session three. Can we skip session two? No, we can't skip session two. Seriously, this is the... I mean, we need to... move along in the thought process. Otherwise, we get to session three and we're dealing with a bunch of theological truth. And so we walk away great theologians because we understand the sovereignty of God and the attributes of God and this and that and the other. But if you don't understand some of these things preliminarily and then how they all fit together, they're not really helpful. The providence of God, understanding the doctrine of the providence of God, how helpful is that? Well, it's not helpful at all if you don't understand what it really is, how it really works, why it is, and all of that, and we're gonna do that, I promise you. As a matter of fact, that's gonna be a homework assignment. No, it's gonna be a, whatever. I'm probably the only one that needs this, but will you help me understand the difference between sovereignty and providentiality? OK. Sovereign is the subject we're covering in section three. And Providence will deal with immediately following sovereignty in section three. So we will? Yeah. No. I'm being silly. OK. Sovereign is God's right and ability as the creator, ultimate ruler, the final authority, okay? We talk about a king as a sovereign. He's the ruler, okay? Well, his sovereignty is limited because he's only sovereign over his subjects, all right? And he's only sovereign in the sense that there's some things he can do and some things he can't do. But so sovereignty is a term that speaks of the power, the right, the authority. And so when we talk about sovereignty, that's what we're talking about. And again, we'll deal with it in more detail. Providence is how is that sovereignty worked out? How does how does the sovereignty of God translate into the? the daily Elements of my life. Okay, if God is sovereign, how does that how does that work out? Well, it works out in things like You know You think about everything that's happened to you this morning, okay and I was in the shower this morning, and Jan says, there's water running under the door. OK? We had this little stream of water that ran down the tile and all the way over to the sink. I mean, we don't think about that as, that's not a trial or a test. It might have been a little bit of frustration for her, or anxiety. I don't know how she would classify that. But that's a result of God's working. what we did, all right? Because then we had to find something to mop up the water, and okay, so things change. God is at work providentially to manage his creation. And that providential management encompasses the... The nuclear glue, Okay, scientists can't figure out what holds. protons together in the nucleus of an atom because they're like charged particles and they should they shouldn't be they shouldn't hold together they should repel each other but there's some force that holds them together okay they haven't figured out what it is it's God well you know you look at you look at the the solar system and you look at the the universe what keeps it all in order so that everything just doesn't crash together it's it's God's providential working so that Certain things happen the way they happen. That's all part of God's direction. And again, we'll cover that some more, all right? But critical to our ability to deal with what's going on when we're facing problems. Why does that cause us a problem? That should be number two on your outline under B. Why are these a problem, or why does this cause us a problem? We don't understand why God would do this. Do you think of examples in scripture where that was expressed? The classic is, Job. Isn't that all of Job's complaint from beginning to end? Why is this happening to me? Why are you doing this, God? If I had a chance to make my case against God, God, if you'd just show up here and let me make my case against you, you'd find out that you made a mistake in doing what you're doing. I don't deserve what's happening here. I don't understand why God would do this, so I respond to it in a wrong way. I respond to it improperly. You know, Paul's thorn in the flesh. He prayed three times that the Lord would remove it, not understanding what it was. Now, God was gracious and told him what it was to keep him from thinking too highly of himself. But initially, he didn't understand why the Lord was doing that and was praying for it to be removed. Listen, Thomas Watson says this, Christian's mistake in supposing that when God afflicts, he ceases to love, right? Affliction is his pruning knife. He would rather have the branches of his vine bleed than be unfruitful. He prunes us that we may bring forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Okay? This is the spiritual response to the trial. It's wrong thinking. It assumes that because this bad thing is happening to me, God doesn't know what he's doing. God isn't paying attention, or God doesn't love me, or God is punishing me. I forgot to read this morning, or I didn't read as much as I should this morning, or I didn't get to pray through my whole prayer list this morning. That's why I had the flat tire in the rain. That's why God's punishing me, right? I mean, you've heard that, haven't you? Maybe you've even thought it. I know in the past, that's how I used to think. You relate things. You think it's a quid pro quo kind of situation where I do good, God's got to do good by me. I do bad, God's going to do bad by me. That's not the way it works at all. And we need to understand that or we'll never respond properly to the situations that we face. So the first thing is we don't understand why God would do this. Secondly, a B there is we relate only good things to being blessed. When we talk about being blessed, the root word of blessed or the root idea is happiness. But it's not a happiness, a worldly happiness. It's a spiritual, soul-satisfying, complete fulfillment It's that kind of sensation. It's that kind of feeling. It's that kind of connection to God. You've all experienced it. I know you have. If you're a believer, you've experienced it. We don't experience it maybe as much as we should or could, but we've all experienced those moments when we're just totally at peace with God, where we're just overwhelmed with God's goodness to us and God's love to us. And we respond in prayer, in song, in praise to him. That's what blessing is all about. It's that condition that is the fulfillment of what it means to be a human being. And the world looks for it everywhere else but God, okay? We have the Lord and we have access to that blessing. But it doesn't come without a, typically without our purposeful determination to do what we need to do in order to experience it. I think of Psalm 119 Where the psalmist says how blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk in the law of the Lord? How blessed are those who observe his testimonies who seek him with all their heart? Okay, then there is a there's a purposeful determined effort to do what I know God says to do to seek him with all my heart that will result in my relationship with God and my my my of that relationship and how I feel about it described here as blessing. It's a good thing, isn't it? So often people think of blessing as some kind of material thing. Those may or may not be blessings. Blessing is something that happens only on the inside. It only happens when I have that right sense of God and I have that spiritual work of God in me as a result of my thinking right and doing right. situations God's providential work in this world causes us a problem because we don't understand why God would do it we relate only good things to being blessed and then see it's not what we want right we just don't want this to happen this way and that could be a little thing or that can be a great big thing We don't want it. And that takes us back to Romans 1, the natural man's thinking about who God is and God's control and God ruling and my submitting to his authority. Adam wanted to be like God. And we've inherited that from him. We want to be like God. So when things happen, if it's not what we want, we're miserable because we think we should be determining what takes place. Including the length. Pardon? Including the length of the trial. Oh, yeah. Every aspect of it. Joe did pretty good at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. He said it was the length. Right, as it wore on. I mean, and we can understand why. You know? I mean, Job did well, as far as I'm concerned. If I look at how I would have handled this. He didn't want it to happen. That's interesting, isn't it? Isn't it? He asked if it's possible that this cup pass from me. Okay, Jesus in his humanity understood what he was going to face and the prospect of it was was horrifying. And Jesus was not afraid to express his humanity and what he was feeling. And that's exactly what he did in Gethsemane. But what we see consistently is not my will, but thine be done. And we're going to see that God's work in us is conforming us to the image of Christ. And that's where he's taking us. If we could get to the place where Jesus was in Gethsemane, we'd be in great shape. And God is moving us along that way. So with all that said, what should be our response to these kinds of events? Philippians 4.4 says what? Rejoice in the Lord always, except for trials. No, again, I say rejoice, right? Right. Rejoice in the Lord, except when you're having a difficult time. No, that wouldn't make any sense. Rejoice in the Lord always, always, always. Are there exceptions? No, there's no exceptions. It's always, it says what it says. James 1, 2, consider it all joy, the command. When you encounter various trials, And then the text that we've been working from, essentially, here's Romans 5, 3, where we exult in our tribulation. And we're going to see what the basis for that is. How was Paul able to make that statement? Where does that come from? 1 Peter 1, 3 to 9, Paul says, in this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials. The rejoicing there is on purpose. It comes as a result of understanding who we are in Christ, what God has done for us, and where we're going. Your outlines are all filled up, aren't they? We'll take questions. Anything that's really urgently pressing? That's not covered in Lesson 3. Alright, so we'll take a 10, 20 minute break. Lesson 3, two hours? Lesson 3 is as long as you want. I'm free all day. 15 minutes. Okay, so be back here at, what's that, about 20 up.