In The Valley - Sunday, March 5, 2023

Testing, testing, testing, test, test, testing, testing. If you ever need to turn that up on there, you can just do it via, right there, test, test, test, test. That is bad, does it?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good morning. It's good to see you here this morning, and we'll go ahead and get started with a Scripture reading and singing in just a moment. So we're going to start off in just a moment with the song that you may know, but I don't think that we have ever sung here, and so I want to just sort of lead into our Scripture reading by just talking a little bit about that. One of the things as we look to who God is and what he has done, one of the things about God is that he knows everything. Now he's the beginning and the end. Matthew will talk about how he knows the number of hairs on our heads, which for some of us is more than others, that nothing is hidden from his sight, that a sparrow can't fall to the ground.

I would like him noticing that God knows everything, and he knows us more deeply and sees us more clearly than we see ourselves. Now if you think about us, we are oftentimes sort of tend to be forgetful people, except I think maybe in one category, or at least this is true for me. And that one category is that I find it very easy to remember all of the mistakes, and all of the sins, and all of those things that I've done that you're not supposed to do. You know, we probably all experience that moment where we've woken up in the middle of the night, and we start thinking back through our life, and there's that moment where we go, "Man, I can't believe that I did that." And so one area where we have become experts in remembering is oftentimes in our own shortcomings.

And what's remarkable about God's grace and mercy is that the God who knows everything, who knows us more deeply and clearly than we know ourself, who knows our sins more clearly than we know them, what He does is, the Scripture talks about this, that He separates them as far as the east is from the west, that He remembers them no more. The one thing that we struggle to forget, the thing that always pops up in our remembrance, God in His mercy remembers them no more. Now this is not some sort of divine amnesia where God just simply forgets, but rather this is God in His forgiveness no longer holding our sins against us. And so we're going to begin by singing in just a moment a song entitled "His Mercy is More," as we think about how God does not remember the sins of His people.

And we're going to begin by reading from Micah, the seventh chapter, where God has been pronouncing judgment upon the sins of His people. And at the end of this chapter, He is going to say something glorious about how He forgives and how He shows mercy. So let's go ahead and be standing, and we're going to read from Micah, the seventh chapter, this morning. So if you would, read with me. "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham,

as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old." This is the word of the Lord. Father in heaven, we praise you for this glorious word of mercy and grace and of forgiveness and hope. And so we thank you this morning for your mercy and for your forgiveness. Be with us as we worship together, and we look at your greatness and your goodness and your love for us. May you encourage us in the depths of our souls. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So this song is "Mercy is More." I think it may be new to some of us. However, it is pretty easy to pick up, so if you want to kind of listen and then sort of start singing along as you feel comfortable, it's pretty easy to pick up, especially the chorus. So we're going to go ahead and give it a try.

What God could remember the wrongs we have done. Our nations all knowing He counts not their sum. Thrown into the sea with our bottom or shore. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Stronger than darkness. You every more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. What patience would wait as we constantly roam? What Father so tender is calling us home? He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, new every more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

What riches of kindness He lavished on us. His blood was the payments. His life was the cost. We stood beneath the debt we could never afford. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

You are here, moving in our midst I worship you, I worship you You are here, working in this place I worship you, I worship you You are here, moving in our midst I worship you, I worship you You are here, working in this place I worship you, I worship you We make a miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness My God, that is who you are We make a miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness My God, that is who you are You are here, touching every heart I worship You, I worship You You are here, healing every heart I worship You, I worship You You are here, turning lives around I worship You, I worship You You are here, bending every heart I worship You, I worship You Way maker, miracle worker

Promise keeper, light in the darkness My God, that is who You are Way maker, miracle worker Promise keeper, light in the darkness My God, that is who You are God, that is who You are God, that is who You are God, that is who You are You are. Let's pray. Let's pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

On Jesus' way. Silent as He stood accused, Feet in mocked and scorned. Bowing to the Father's will, He took a crown of thorns. Oh, that rugged cross, my salvation, where Your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, "Hallelujah!" Praise and honor unto Thee. Sand of heaven, God's own Son, to purchase and redeem. And reconcile the very ones who nailed Him to that tree. Oh, that rugged cross, my salvation, where Your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, "Hallelujah!" Praise and honor unto Thee. Now my death is paid, it is paid in full by the precious blood that my Jesus spilled. Now the curse of sin has no hold on me. The Son sets free, O is free indeed. Now my debt is paid, it is paid in full by the precious blood that my Jesus spilled. Now the curse of sin has no hold on me.

The Son sets free, O is free indeed. O that rugged cross, my salvation, where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, "Hallelujah." And all will run to thee. See the stone is rolled away. Behold the empty tomb. Hallelujah, God be praised. He's risen from the grave. Oh, that rugged cross, my salvation, where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, hallelujah, praise and honor of you. Praise and honor of you. One of the remarkable things about the arrival of Jesus, stepping into our world, in Matthew chapter 1, it's described that you should call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. And I want us just to consider for a moment what that means that God is with us. Because Jesus, as he steps into our world, what you

find is he does not remain distant from us. And so that when we come with our struggles, and our hurt, and our brokenness, Jesus doesn't just know about them intellectually, but he has walked where we have walked. And so as you move through the garden, you see Jesus in situations that are remarkably familiar. You find Jesus at times where he is hungry, where he is tired, where he is thirsty, where he is in ministry, and he is so tired that all he wants to do is lay down on the boat and take a nap. And most of us have experienced those days, maybe not with ministry, but with work, and with family, and stress, and pressure, and all we want is a nap. And Jesus has walked with us there. But Jesus has also walked through those darker difficulties with us. He knew what it was

like to struggle with family. He knew what it was like to have close friends who sometimes disappointed him, and one who ultimately betrayed him. Jesus knew what it was like to experience the joys of this life. His first miracle happens at a wedding in Cana where he helps the celebration of this couple's beginning their life together to continue. And Jesus knew what it was like and knows what it is like to walk through loss. One of the shortest verses in the New Testament, John chapter 11, verse 35. And as a kid, I memorized this kind of as a joke because it's so easy. It's just simply, "Jesus wept." But while it's just simply two words, it is remarkably deep and wonderful. Because here is this picture of Jesus who stands next to the grave of a friend.

A friend he is about to raise from the dead, but surrounded by the hurt and loss, Jesus weeps next to the grave of his friend and with the family and friends. And so, Jesus hasn't just walked through the joys of this life. He knows what it's like to walk through the loss. And ultimately, Jesus will step and walk to that hill where he is crucified. And in doing so, he takes the weight of our sin and our brokenness upon himself and pays the price for it. John, as he begins his Gospel, begins it in this remarkable way. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and he was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." And it begins with the glorious picture of Jesus, who has existed from eternity past. And he is the light that overcomes our darkness, but then we see this in verse 14, "And the Word became flesh. He came and was with us in our joys and our hurts, ultimately paying for our sin. He dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory as the glory of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." And down in verse 17, "For from him, from his fullness, we have received grace upon grace." And so as we break this bread and drink this cup this morning, I want us to remember that we have a Savior who is from us.

Whether you're in the midst of the joys of your life this morning, or whether you are in the midst of hurt and loss, to remember that you have a Savior who knows, not just intellectually knows, but knows because he has walked that road before you, and he is with you. A Savior who knows you, who loves you, and ultimately has given his life for you. So let's pray, and then we will partake together. Father, we thank you that you have poured out upon us grace upon grace, that you have sent your Son to step into our world, to take our place. He has died for our sins, and he has risen for our victory, and I ask that you would help us this morning, whether we are joyful or whether we are hurting, that you would direct us to comfort that is found

in the good news of the Gospel. We thank you for Jesus, and it's in his name we pray. Amen. If you would take the bread with me this morning, as Jesus did, and when he had given thanks for what God has done in redeeming Israel out of slavery as they celebrate the Passover meal, he will give this to his disciples, and he will say, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." He will say, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, this is all you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

We're going to be sort of as a jumping-off point this morning in 1 Peter 1:6-7, and we're going to spend some time talking about this. We've been trying to walk through a little bit of what the gospel is and what the gospel does. And so we have seen that the gospel is good news, not good advice. It doesn't come to us with a list of demands. Rather, it comes to us with grace that Jesus has taken our brokenness, given us his righteousness, because he stood in our place and defeated sin in our place. And we talked a little bit last week about how that good news of the gospel brings us to this worship that then empowers our Christian life, that we will be able to leave sin behind through the strength and grace given to us by God, and we will be able to pursue righteousness because of

what he has done. And so this morning, we've all probably been there where life takes an unexpected turn, a place where maybe we walk into a valley of darkness, right? We all want the joy of the mountaintops, but we know that the reality of life is that sometimes we will walk through those dark valleys. We see it reflected in the 23rd Psalm, where the psalmist talks about the still waters and the green pastures, but then he walks also with the Lord through the valley of the shadow of death. And so I want to talk about sort of the gospel as we come to those valleys and difficult places of life. So we're going to pray and then we'll jump right into it this morning. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus and grace and hope, your spirit, and I ask that you would fill us with your spirit, that we

would see the good news, not just when life is going well, but that we would be moved to worship in those moments of struggle and difficulty and loss and fear. And when it seems that life is overwhelming us, that you would remind us that we are not alone. So I ask for strength this morning and clarity that you would help us to see this good news in a clear, real, and practical way. Be with us. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And so 1 Peter 1:6-7 just simply say this: "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested with fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

And one of the things that Peter affirms here, and that we see throughout Scripture, is that the life of God's people is not always sort of a straight line to the glory of heaven. The oftentimes winding road that takes us both through those mountaintops of joy, and those valleys of discouragement, suffering, hurt, and loss. And this here is dealing with a church and with us who will frequently find ourselves in those valleys. And I want you to understand that the trials that Peter talks about this morning, we are not talking in terms of a mild inconvenience, right? He will say, "You have been grieved by various trials." These are not simply like you've stubbed your toe, or you wake up and you're out of coffee, or you wake up and you have a flat tire and it's really inconvenient because you've got to change it and get it fixed.

He's not talking about those small inconveniences of life that we so often whine and complain about. When he talks about trials, what he's talking about is this picture of adversity and affliction and trial. And what he's talking about there is this weight that ultimately threatens to sort of crush our faith. In fact, that's what is meant by trial because trial has this picture of testing. And when you see this word here in Peter, what he means is that what is happening to those people and what will happen to us is there are times where it feels like the weight of our sorrow and our grief, our sin and our brokenness, there's so much that's going to crush us. I remember when we were kids we had a game on one of our really old computers,

and it was supposed to be this physics game that taught you about designing bridges. And so what you do is you build the bridge with different materials, and then you drive progressively bigger and bigger vehicles over it to see how much it can hold, and frequently we would delight in driving bigger and bigger vehicles over it until what? It just sort of explodes and crashes. And the picture here of trials is, not just a small inconvenience, but here is your life of faith, and here comes the truck of affliction. And the question in the mind, not in the mind of God, but in the mind of us, is am I going to be able to survive when that drives over my faith? We're not talking about minor inconveniences. The picture here when he says grieved,

it's a picture of a heavy weight that crushes us down. And he's not talking about a specific situation, although the trials for this church in 1 Peter is the trial of persecution, but he doesn't say that. He says various trials. He's saying that we will experience, as we walk through this Christian life, times when it seems like everything is going to crush us with the grief and the weight of a broken world. And so he comes to this not as an inconvenience, but he also comes to this not as a hypothetical situation, right? These difficult circumstances and seasons, they're not just a hypothetical situation, right? We're used to it's hypothetical. What happens if this happens, or this happens, or that scenario happens, right? If you want to become really familiar with hypothetical scenarios, watch any news show about politics.

Well, this might happen, and this might happen, or this third thing might happen, right? Sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't. You and I are really good in life at coming up with hypothetical scenarios, right? Well, if this happens, then good happens. If this happens, then bad happens, right? And a lot of times those scenarios just simply remain in our head. And Peter, as he writes this to the church, as their faith is being sort of coming down, there's a truck of trial coming toward their faith. He's not talking about a situation that's all in their head. He's talking about the reality of what is happening. As Christians, we will face opposition, we will face suffering, we will face grief, we will face hurt, and we will face loss. And it's not a very cheerful way to start our text this morning.

It doesn't seem like it's very much good news to be found here, right? There's trials in our life. They are hard and they are not imaginary for all of us. And I want you to think about how we often react when those things come into our life. Right? Sometimes we just respond with anger, right? And we lash out. Maybe not even at the trial itself, but we lash out to maybe even those who are trying to help us. Or maybe we become overcome by grief and discouragement, and we just shut down. Sometimes we try to run. Sometimes we try to avoid. And sometimes we'll even move deeper into sin to try to overcome. Oftentimes, we do not react well when these seasons come. And so I want to talk just for a minute about what we can learn about responding to these trials from these two verses.

So I want you to hear them again. "In this you rejoice, though now for a while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." And so there is something startling about how Peter writes about a crushing trial filled with grief in the life of the Christian. Do you notice what he says first? He says, "First of all, in this you rejoice," so he begins it talking about rejoicing, and then he's going to end it speaking about praise and glory and worship, which is also a picture of rejoicing. And I don't know about you, but for me that is startling because when everything goes wrong,

the last thing that I want to do has been, "Man, this is great! Yes, I should worship! I should rejoice!" My tendency is to complain and become angry and bitter. And so Peter is making this assertion here that there is some kind of reason for this in the life of the Christian. And what Peter is saying is that both at the beginning and the end of the valley of trial, there is an opportunity for praise. Now I want to stop and clarify two things, and I think these are incredibly important for us. When it comes to talking about worship and joy in the midst of sorrow and loss. And the first thing is this, is that joy is not a one-size-fits-all kind of behavior. And what I mean by that is that joy will express itself differently depending upon the situation.

And so I'll give you an example. If there is something that you and I are very excited about, or our kids are very excited about, what happens, right? It overflows in this joy where you celebrate it and you talk about it, and you want a fountain of joy just bubbling out of your life, right? When something good happens to us and we are joyful, it just is like a firework of joy in our life. And those moments are wonderful, but joy is not always a fountain of joy, and it's not always a firework of joy. There are times where joy is not revealed in an explosive way, but joy is revealed through our tears. And one of those moments that in such clarity, and partly it was in such clarity because of the events that surrounded it.

And there was a period in our life several years ago where, in the span of just a couple weeks, I was officiated one funeral and was attended another. And the first funeral, and I've shared this with some of you just in person before, is that it was like one of the most hopeless funerals that I had ever attended, right? There was no hope. There was no future. It was just complete discouragement and loss. But then, a few weeks later, we went to a second funeral. It was a funeral for my third and fourth grade teacher. And she was somebody who had a pretty big impact on my life, somebody who had constantly kept a relationship with our family. Like, as a bachelor, her and her husband would come and stay with me on the way down south to visit people,

and they would always leave me with a Lowe's gift card so I could buy more towels or a bathmat for my bathroom, because it's like, no woman's ever going to want to live here if you keep living like this, right? And she was a wonderful lady, and incredibly humble. So we go to her funeral, and it's this huge church, and it's filled with people. And we're singing these old hymns as a congregation. And it's in the midst of this surprising loss. But you get a glimpse of heaven and the joyousness of the hymns. And then her little elementary students who she had been teaching, Romans chapter 8, get up in front of this church, began to recite Romans chapter 8 from memory in the midst of her funeral. So everybody is emotional, but it's an emotion of loss but mixed with joy.

Because her life was a testimony to the goodness of God. And in that church, as we worshiped together, as we heard the Word of God, it was a moment of joy and sorrow. And he says in his epistles that I'm sorrowful but always rejoicing. And so joy isn't always an explosive. Sometimes it can be this peace and dependence and this assurance that God is in control, even when there's tears running down your face. And so you have this picture of joy, and we need to understand that when Peter writes about joy, it doesn't necessarily mean you're dancing and skipping. He can mean that your assurance is in God. And even in the midst of this trial, your hope and your trust, and you know that things will be okay, even as the tears run down your face.

The second thing that Peter is doing, and I think this is very important for us to understand, is that he is not praising the trial. When he talks about rejoicing, he's not going, "Man, bad stuff is going to happen to you, and it's going to be awesome." That's not what Peter is doing. He's saying bad stuff is going to happen to you, and it's going to hurt, and it's going to make you cry, but God is awesome. Do you notice the difference? He's not rejoicing in the hurt and the sorrow. He is rejoicing in the goodness of God that is revealed in the midst of the hurt and sorrow. He sees light more clearly than in the darkness. And so we need to understand that Peter is not celebrating the brokenness of hurt. He's celebrating the goodness of God in the midst of hurt.

And I want you to see how he does that. First of all, in the midst of trials and in the midst of suffering, we are able to rejoice, maybe not explosively, but through our tears sometimes, because of what God has done in the past. Because God's faithfulness in the past, we can trust Him in our trials now. And we can look forward to the future for joy. In fact, you see this very explicitly in this text. Look at 1 Peter 1:6 where he will say, "In this you rejoice." And what's interesting is he's not talking about the trial here. He's going, "Look back to what I just said." So let me read the whole thing in context. "Blessed be, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are now being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in this you rejoice." And so Peter says, "As the church, and as we enter the valley of trial, our rejoicing is not that we are going into the trial, but as we look back to what God has done, we understand that we have a firm place to stand, that God has shown mercy, that He has caused us to be born again, that He has given us a living hope that no matter how bad it seems outside of us, there is hope in God, that He secures us, and that He shows us mercy, and that He will bring us safely home." And so the first thing

Peter does to enable our worship and our joy in the midst of trials is cause us to look back to what God has done in our life. He's saying, "Look at how God has saved you, how He has shown you mercy, how He has given you this inheritance, how He now guards you. Understand that because of His faithfulness in the past, He will not abandon you in the present." And because of what God has done in the past, He is preparing you for the future. All of those things we read in 1 Peter 3-5, you know what they are? They're a foundation for faith that does not waver. It doesn't waver because God doesn't waver. He is the one who has saved you. He is the one who has shown you mercy. He is the one who has given you an inheritance. He is the one who is guarding you.

And so by looking back to what God has done, we are planting our feet firmly upon the rock that is Christ. The rock that when the storm blows and the wind rages, and it looks like we will be overwhelmed and crushed, we realize that we stand secure because of what God has done in the past. The second thing that happens in the past that helps us is God prepares us for these trials. I don't know if you've ever had that experience of needing a tool that you didn't have. A couple Saturdays ago, when they were putting up the TV, I was running back and forth to try to find a tool. It's like, "Well, we need this." And so I go look for it and run back, and I ended up going up and down those stairs a whole lot, not because I was really trying

to go up and down stairs, but because we needed to have the tools, and tools I had laid out were not the right ones, and it was unprepared, and it's just a frustrating experience when you can't find the tool to do the job that you need to do. One of the things that God does in the past for us, as we face trials in the present, is that He has equipped you to face those things. He has equipped you through His mercy, His grace, His faithfulness, His promises, through the gift of His Spirit in your life, that when you get here, you're not running around up and down the stairs trying to find the tool you need, because God has prepared you for what you need. In fact, Peter will begin 2 Peter 1 by saying, "God has given you all that you need for life and for godliness." The second reason we're

able to rejoice, we're first able to rejoice because of what God has done in the past. Now, secondly, we're able to rejoice because of what God is doing in the present. Listen to this: "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary. You have been grieved by various trials, so the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than the gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Right? These times of difficulty, Peter is saying, are going to work to refine and to strengthen your faith, right? And so when you take gold, and there's a whole bunch of TV shows about guys who gold pan, guys who gold mine, one of the things they do when they get their little flakes of gold, you know, they try to rinse it out as much as they can,

then you melt it down. And one of the things that happens when you melt any kind of metal, the impurities that are within that metal rise to the top and they are scraped off. And so when this happens with things like steel, what happens is those impurities that would make the steel weak or maybe brittle are able to be removed. And so what you find is that in the midst of trials, God is doing something for your holiness. That in those trials, He is allowing those bits of brokenness and self-reliance and pride and maybe even anger to rise to the surface so that He can scrape them away and purify you. These impurities that hinder our fullest enjoyment in God's goodness, God is taking away for our good. One of the great examples of this in 2 Corinthians 1, Paul begins by talking about their suffering.

He'll say this, "We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, and that we were burdened extensively beyond our strength, so we despaired even of life." And if you're following this picture of being refined, that's the fire. "Burdened so deeply we thought we were going to die." And then he will say this, "Indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not," listen to this, "trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead." That's the purified goal. And so Paul is saying this trial that God allowed us to go through beyond our own strength, what it did was remove and purify the self-reliance that was filling up our life. And as we felt like we were being broken down and melted down,

this self-reliance rises to the top and is removed so that we can focus and depend deeply on God. Right? So God takes away Paul's sort of imagined prop of self-reliance and safety. And he feels this overwhelming sense of being abandoned, not because God didn't love Paul, but because God looked at Paul, and I said, "I want you to trust in something that doesn't fall apart. Your own desires, the people around you, those things will fail. I want you to put your life in the one who doesn't fail." And so God refines Paul in the fire. And so one of the things that happens in the present, and it's never pleasant, and it's never easy, right? It sounds terrible to be refined through fire. Growth is never easy. Growth is never without pain or sacrifice. If you are to grow, right, it requires effort and work and struggle and hurt.

And sometimes in the midst of trials, that's where God grows us most deeply. Second thing I would say is in the present, we are not alone in times of difficulty, right? Peter is clear. He will say that God is protecting you and guarding you. That's what he just got done saying. Ready for a salvation to be revealed at the last time. God is guarding you. You are not by yourself as you walk down this road. And one of the ways we see the closeness of God in those times of trial is through the closeness of his people. One of my favorite illustrations of this, I've shared this with you before, is in Acts, the 28th chapter. Paul is going to Rome in chains. And about halfway through that chapter, in verse 15, when the Christians in Rome hear that Paul is coming in, surrounded by Roman soldiers in chains,

what they do is they walk out that city, some of them as far as like 20-25 miles, and they meet Paul, and they'll surround Paul, and they'll walk into the city with him, and they'll say, "Paul's heart was encouraged." And Paul sees the closeness of God in his trials, because the church surrounds him and walks with him. And understand, this is not risk-free for the church. So I've visited people in jail before, and I've never had the fear that if I go in and visit a guy in jail, they're going to keep me. I'm done. I get to go home and do whatever I want. Now in the first century, when you surround a guy in chains, a prisoner of Rome like that, there's no guarantee you get to Rome and they say, "Alright, you guys can go home." You maybe end up in chains just like Paul.

And at the very least, you're going to be labeled with the same label as him. But the church is willing to sacrifice that to be able to surround their brother in Christ and walk with him through the valley that is filled with fear and uncertainty. And in that, you see the closeness of God. One of the greatest ways we see God's closeness is through our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need this group of people, not just in trials for us, but in their trials we must reach out to them to ask and encourage and help our brothers and sisters in Christ. And additionally, one of the things that happens in the midst of these trials, and this is remarkable to me, is that we grow closer to God. One of the great examples of this, we mentioned the 23rd Psalm earlier, but if you read through the 23rd Psalm,

you'll notice how the psalmist refers to God "changes." And so in the first couple of verses, he talks about God, right? He'll talk about how God leads him beside the still waters, makes him lie down in green pastures. God is doing these things, and then you get to that trial and that valley of difficulty, and he says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." And it's in the trial and in the difficulty and in the darkness and the fear that the psalmist sees his relationship with God become personal. Right? Up until that point in the psalm, God is there, yes, but he's kind of there, and he's leading me here, and he's talking about God, but when he comes into the valley of the shadow of death, he starts talking to God. Do you notice the difference?

There's a difference between talking about someone and talking to someone, and it's in the trial that David stops talking about God and starts talking to God. So you see that God is working in the past to prepare us, to give us a foundation. He's working in the present to refine us, and to grow us, and to strengthen us, and to walk with us, to encourage us both by his presence and the presence of his people, and he's deepening our relationship with him. And then we see that in the midst of trials, we can rejoice because of what God will do in the future, right? "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than the gold that perishes, though tested by fire,

may be found to result in the praise and the glory and the honor at the revelation of Jesus." This idea of being found, may be found, is a future action. And so we see how God has been working in the past, how He's at work in the present. Now Peter is going to say, "Look at how He is at work in the future." For the Christian, times of difficulty should not destroy faith, they should confirm it, right? How do you know something really lasts? So growing up, you know, and most probably kids do, like sitting around the campfire, and one of the things kids like to do, I've seen it in my kids, I've seen it in myself, you like to throw stuff into the fire, right? And sometimes you like to make the fire a little bigger than it should be,

or you try to, you know, move it around, right? And you find very quickly, right, there's things, some things that burn. Sometimes there's things that burn a whole lot faster. Sometimes there's things that maybe burn explosively, but then there are things that don't burn in the fire. So when we start a little campfire and sit back there with our kids around the fire pit, right, all the wood gets burned up, cardboard gets burned up, the twigs and branches of our kids get burned up, but the fire pit in its steel remains strong. And one of the things we see about our faith, that when we are brought through the fire, what it does for us, it reminds us, has strengthened us, and that He is good, that even though we go through this trial, He will bring us through the other side, that we will not burn up, but we will come through.

We will come through the other side. One of the questions about our faith and one of the ways trials help us in the future is when we look back and we say, "How did I go through that?" And you realize the only answer and the only reason you were able to go through that fire is because God was the one who sustained you. I want you to know that there will be times of struggle and there will be times of loss and times of darkness. But in the midst of these things, God is at work. He's been at work in the past. He's at work in the present. And He will be work for your future and for your good. So I want to tell you three things. First of all, don't come to the valley of trials unprepared.

Now, God will bring His people through those valleys. But there is a way that is better to go through those valleys than it's not. So we have a friend who ran the very, very first Marine Corps marathon. And He did so not by training for those 26-point-whatever miles and coming up with a great plan and running a little longer every day, doing some long 12, 15-mile runs on the weekend. But just with His regular four-mile-a-day runs, He said, "You know what? I'm going to go run a marathon." And so He goes to this marathon horrendously unprepared. Now, He finished the marathon, but it was a whole lot harder than it had to be. Why? Because He wasn't ready. Now, God will bring us all through trials. But, if your foundation is firm, and you are rooted in the power and the promises of God, right,

it's going to be a different experience. And so I want to encourage you, don't wait until the trial comes to root yourself and ground yourself in God's promises and His goodness and in His power. Look at what God has done in the Gospel. Dive into it. Find yourself encouraged and taught. And secondly, don't come to the valley of trial alone. Now, there's one sense that we are never alone because God's always with us. But I would say this: there is a whole lot of us who have to walk in isolation, right? God's given us the gift of His church and His people. And one of the ways we see His presence is in the midst of His people. In fact, Paul, 2 Corinthians 5 will say, "We're ambassadors of the kingdom of God." Meaning, we are representatives of God's presence here on earth.

And when you and I isolate ourselves from our brothers and sisters in Christ, one of the things we are doing is we're going to come to trials, and it's going to be a whole different scenario. You can't, or you should not, run and hide from the community that God has put you in. So first of all, that's our tendency sometimes, right? Because I just want to sort of sit here, and I don't want to open my life. And one of the things that if we are to come through trials in a way where we see the presence of God, is we can't separate ourselves from that. But secondly, also be willing to reach out into the lives of others. Say, "Well, I don't know them that well, or I'm not that familiar with them." God calls us to reach out into the lives of our brothers and sisters to support them and to help them, right?

You need to be active just about receiving community and seeking it out, and nourishing that community. And I'll say this, for those of you who, like me, are introverts, this is hard, right? I find my energy being given to me not through being around people a lot, right? That's where I recharge. I love being around people, but it drains my batteries in the way that I recharge. And so for introverts, if you're an introvert, this is hard. And I want to encourage you to open up your life, to let others in, and I want to encourage you to reach into the lives of others, to encourage them and strengthen them. Even when it's hard. Even when you say, "Man, I'm not used to this." Right? It's one of the ways we see the presence of God.

Secondly, don't move, or third, don't move through the valley of trial without understanding there is more to come than just this simple, difficult moment, right? This trial is not busy work. It's not simply a check box. It's not an initiation that you have to get through. This is something that provides value in your life. Now, the trial may not be good, but God is good. And He is going to use this moment to refine you. So when you find yourselves there, don't waste your trials. Let God refine your sins. Let yourself be open to community. When you see others in trial, reach out into their life to encourage them and strengthen them and help them. Understand that this moment, while it will not last forever, is an opportunity to grow and strengthen your faith. Grow and strengthen your faith through the goodness of God. Right?

There is more to come. There is more to come in this difficult moment. So I want to encourage you this morning as we consider those valleys that we so often walk through. Those valleys of darkness, and if you haven't been there, you will be there someday. Understand that in Christ, there is the only way that you will come through those secure and safe. And as Christians, we need to understand that God is at work before, during, and pointing us towards something good in the future. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for grace, hope. Thank you that you have reached into our lives and you have changed us and transformed us. And so help us as we walk through those moments of difficulty, that you would give us strength, that we would look back and see the foundation you have given us,

that in those moments we would understand that you are purifying us, that we are not alone, that you have surrounded us with your presence, and surrounded us with the presence of your people. Help us not in our pride to say, "I don't need anybody else." And help us not in our comfort to say, "Well, somebody else can help them." So grab a hold of our hearts this morning. Help us to see that you are at work. Encourage us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing about blessing God's name, even when things are difficult. So, we're going to sing "Blessed Be."

Blessed be your name In the land that is plentiful Where the streams of abundance flow Blessed be your name Blessed be your name When I'm found in the desert place Though I walk through the wilderness Blessed be your name Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise When the darkness closes And Lord Still I will say Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your glorious name Blessed be your name When the sun's shining down on me When the world's all as it should be Blessed be your name Blessed be your name On the road marked with suffering While there's pain in the offering Blessed be your name Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise When the darkness closes in door

Still I will say Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your glorious name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be your glorious name I want to thank you for joining us this morning, and thankful for those of you who are here in person, and for those of you who are watching online, we are very thankful for you. Just a couple of announcements. First of all, Wednesday nights, we are gathering 7 p.m. We're studying through the book of James, and so the way that works is there's a video, I would say brief video, but there's so much there that none of them are brief. And so there's a video, and then we spend some time discussing it. Sometimes we spend just a little bit of time discussing it, and sometimes, you know, it's past my bedtime and we're still discussing it.

I have an early bedtime. So I would encourage you, if you would like to join us for that, you can. If you would like to watch through the video sessions, and you're not able to be here and you have access to the phone or computer, we have a link that has sort of, we've sort of been archiving these as we started a playlist on, you know, the promo trailer, and then moving to session one, session two, all the way up to where we are now. So if you would like that, just let me know, and I can pass that off to you. Additionally, one of the things we did a test run on while Debbie was having knee surgery was our setup to be able to text out updates and prayer requests for her, so we were able to sort of joyfully text out that her surgery went well and she was getting ready to come home.

So if you don't get those text message updates, I added everybody that I think I had in my phone, because sometimes I save contacts, just save the number. So if you haven't got those, there's a form on the back. We just need a cell phone number, or if you don't get an email, you can throw that on there too. So we're just trying to keep our contact information up to date. So if you haven't had much information, we can fill it with you too. So we're going to go ahead and pray, and then I'm going to read from Hebrews, a passage calling us to put our hope in God and to trust in Him, and then we'll sing the doxology. So let's go ahead and pray. Father, thank you for your goodness, and thank you for your provision. Thank you that you bring us through safely to the other side.

I thank you for hope and for grace. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now, the writer of Hebrews will say this: "Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. So therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may find grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace to help in our time of need." Let's sing the Doxology.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.