In the Meantime: Faith By Fire

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/meantime-faith_by_fire.mp3[/podcast] Jesus told his followers that unavoidable trials aren’t aberrations; they are expectations. They can actually serve a beneficial purpose. Why? Because God can redeem, use, or work through the undeserved, unavoidable, circumstantial trials in our lives. In fact, last week, I concluded by saying relying on God to work in these times means that we allow God to relocate the roots of our joy in His grace and mercy rather than having our joy come from us. But in order for that to happen, we have to believe and persevere. Let me tell you how life in the meantime usually starts. It starts when sudden changes in your life happen that you can’t control and you can’t seem to get out of. It messes with your flow and then stresses you out so you’re clawing but you can’t get out. Here is an example you may not be familiar with, but your parents are definitely aware of: the owner of the building your parents rent their store in sells the property and the building comes under new ownership, the new terms of the lease of your parents are now doubled and then the economy starts to fail and your parents can’t keep up with the rent payments and they lose their business, they default on rent, the business fails, it’s over. The whole family is in financial ruin, making ends meet is unattainable. Why would God do that? What did your parents ever do wrong? Maybe something more relatable: you have a college degree, you worked so hard to get it, but you can’t get a job. Nobody wants to hire you. People say that all you need is a foot through the door, but you can’t get your foot through anything, nobody wants to give you a shot. You know you can do everything, but nobody wants to give you a shot. You’re still living at home with no income, you have a degree but you’re stuck in the meantime, you are not living the life you dreamed of. The adversity is insurmountable because you have student loan debt that keeps growing faster than your income. Maybe you’re married and you and your spouse desperately want a child. But there is no child. You’re just trying and trying and trying, and no child. Then you understand that you may have a child, but then the child dies through a miscarriage or the child dies as a stillborn or the child dies early through SIDs. Wow, how long is that meantime? It’s too long, and it doesn’t result in what you had expected. In all the situations, life is out of your control, but the result is the same, you’re in the meantime with nothing you can do except just hang in as much as you can. I want to open up to James 1 and start reading how our meantime may really be a development of our faith by fire. ² Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) I want you to see this: the meantime can be a period of testing that produces faith worthy of great offering. You’re in the meantime so that your faith can grow into something worthy. Just think about it: the things that hold you in the meantime, as I said last week, are designed for you so that you have no choice but to rely on God to get you out of it. That means in your meantime, your faith will grow so that it will not waver through the hardship of your meantime. You are being refined in the fire of trials and your faith will stand firm now in the turmoil and in the future when you are out of the meantime because of the meantime. James, who is the brother of Jesus, says the meantime is joy because in the meantime your faith grows strong. Your faith allows you to be steadfast. When your faith is “steadfast” or unwavering, then the power of your faith becomes something that will make you complete—it enables you to do things that you would not have been able to do previously. Honestly, some of us need to spend more time in the meantime. This long period of time that you think you don’t deserve, well you actually do because you’re not ready for what’s coming next. You can say that none of deserved financial ruin, or late starts in life, but tell me this: would you have been ready for what’s next. Better question, are you ready for what’s coming next? Some of us have way too many excuses in the form of people intervening and saving us from our meantime. We don’t learn anything and we don’t grow and we stay a wasted, worthless piece of dirt because of it. What if we would stop complaining about how we’re in a never ending meantime and actually cry out to God to make something of us in it? I want to dwell on this idea for a moment that James talks about in verse 4, “you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Have you ever thought about what that may mean, to be “lacking in nothing”? Just think about what you’re lacking right now. I don’t think James is talking about not being the meantime. I think James is talking about how in the meantime, you will have everything you need to get through the meantime. Your perfection does not mean that you’re not going to make mistakes, it means that in the meantime, you will have God in your corner pointing you to walk in the right path to get through it when you grow in your faith. Let’s keep reading in verse 5. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. ⁹ Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, ¹⁰ and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. (James 1:5-11) I want to shine some light onto what James is talking about here because he is describing the emotional state of a person when he or she spends long periods of time in the meantime. That’s right, people get double minded. People stop giving straight answers, they want to do multiple things with nothing really to do. They are lost, they are just here and there. They just kind of wander and don’t have anywhere to go. Look at what James says about people stuck in the meantime that lose their drive: “they are unstable in all his ways.” Like you know those people who don’t have anywhere to go and can’t make any decisions. They say they want to do one thing, then it’s another thing. Then they end up doing nothing. You’re in this meantime for a long time because you want God to help you out, but you can’t make up your mind on whether you want to follow God out of it. You’re in this meantime and you’re floundering because you lack wisdom. Circle that word “wisdom.” Wisdom in this sense is referring to knowing Christ and the way Christ works and what he does. James is telling his readers to ask God for Jesus in your life to permeate your life. When you have Christ permeating in your life, then your management of affairs, your intelligence, your ability to navigate out of the meantime will be faith filled and make you complete. You won’t be lacking in anything. The meantime is meant to grow you spiritually by teaching you to lean on God. Have you ever thought about that? That the reason you’re in the meantime is because without it, there is nothing you can do. The limit on your life prior to your meantime is just so small and you can only do the next thing after the meantime. It is only when you are in the meantime that your faith grows enough so that you can become greater than who you were previously, prior to the meantime. I hear it all the time, that if they didn’t go through what they went through, they couldn’t and wouldn’t have the perspective or the determination to get to where they are. The wisdom that you gain when you lean on God in the meantime gives you incredible perspective. Christ was the king of the meantime, in the meantime he was hanging on the cross to save the entire creation that would believe in Him. That’s the type of power God is honing in your faith when you lean on Him in the meantime. In fact every person who has become anything in his or her life has a similar story to tell about t heir meantime. We started the series by telling you the story of John the Baptist and how his meantime was just an opportunity to do exactly what he was born to do and the longer it went, the more God was able to use him to point to Jesus as the savior coming. Then we talked about how Paul didn’t think his missionary journeys were as successful or as romantic as the writer of the Acts, Luke, said it was. It was one meantime moment after another. We talked about it a few weeks ago, when you are most weak, God is strongest. Let’s keep reading James 1:12. ¹² Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12) When you stay and hang in with God in your meantime, when you are steadfast in your trials, you will receive what God has promised you, that reason God created you. If you believe God can change your circumstances but chooses not to, you have the option to receive those circumstances from Him as an opportunity to grow your faith through the fire. Look at what God says in Malachi 3:2-3, “²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.” Everyone deals with unexpected, unresolvable tensions in life. But God brings purpose to pain . . . if we cooperate. When you’re “in the meantime,” ask him for wisdom. Ask him for direction. God is bringing you through the fire so that what you offer will be so much greater. It requires more faith from you. It requires you to grow a faith through fire. This is why you’re in the meantime. We believe God will use this meantime in our lives until He chooses to remove this. Ask God to give you wisdom to see your strength in Him and have faith to do as He says. Group Question: As you think about the adversity you face right now, what is one thing you can do to “let perseverance finish its work”? If you choose to “endure to mature,” how might your current circumstances grow your faith? What can this group do to support you?