How many things do you specifically remember from sermons, talks, and conversations more than 25 years ago? For the young... you'll have to get back to me! For those with enough miles on the road, the answer is usually "Honestly, not a ton!" That's the case for me. As a pastor, I think I've paid more attention than I otherwise would, and still much of it has melded together over time. The specific memories that remain are valuable.

Today, I’m thinking of three of those specific teaching memories. I remember this preaching series from the pastor I came up under in ministry, The Bread of Adversity anchored in Isaiah 30:18-22. (I’ve included the passage below.) I remember the teaching moment below about how we grow and are refined by God, from the same pastor. And I remember this short article from Jerry Bridges that I've had folded in my bible forever: The Compelling Power of Love. (The last one is kind of a cheat because I read it, didn’t just hear it, and I keep it in my Bible. Hopefully the tie can go to the runner.)

Here's the teaching moment I remember, from Pastor Tony Plummer of Grace Community Bible Church in Venice, FL. He said something like this, "God has given us three means of growth, refinement, and transformation by which we can know Him better and follow Jesus more fully, and only three. His Word and prayer, His people, and suffering." On its own, that's not quite right. I’m sure it’s different from how he said it, because I'm sure he did say it right. In my head and heart, I've sort of built it out in this way:

(My pastor said,) "God has given us three means of growth in grace by which we can know Him better and follow Jesus more fully. His Word and prayer, His people, and suffering."

- Along with His Word and prayer, let’s include the spiritual disciplines of withdrawal (fasting, solitude, etc.) and engagement (serving, giving, communion, etc.).

- Along with His people, let’s include the full resources of life together in the local church and also our relationships with other Christ-followers. Who you are and how you serve, contribute to, and pray for others, combined with who they are and how they serve, contribute to, and pray for you. Also, what we can be and do together in the world, as Jesus’ witnesses on His mission.

- Considering suffering, adversity, and trials: clearly God could spare or deliver us from any of them. Yet with the ones that remain, He has not. Not yet, anyhow. And here's the point: they’re not sideline items or just places where God's power hasn't fully broken through yet. Our experience of suffering, adversity, and trials is at the very core of how "He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be..." And I hope many of you hear that as the first line of the children's song, as I do. “How loving and patient He must be, He's still working on me!”

(Now, some trials are pernicious and different from what I'm writing about, at least in my mind. I'm writing about our garden-variety trials, those common to all and similar to what others experience. The painful parts of life in a fallen world. Surely, God can and does redeem the suffering connected to pernicious trials. God has much to say to us about that too, but it's not what I'm addressing today.)

Combining my three specific teaching memories, here’s what I think:

- We need to pursue discipleship in the atmosphere of the gospel. That’s the best way to grow in Christ and is what the Christian life ought to look like.

- At times, God will give us the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction. When He does, we are not forsaken, and He has not failed or forgotten us.

- We will be refined, transformed, and grown in grace through the hard things we endure. Through walking with Jesus in them, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We’re still at the center of His good plan for our lives in those seasons.

So, I’ve got: Discipleship in the atmosphere of the gospel. Never forsaken, failed, or forgotten by God when enduring hardship. On the contrary, refined, transformed, and grown in grace through hardship. I like that, think it’s right, and am glad for the reminder of it today!  

Maybe it can be a helpful reminder for you too.

 

PS: Here's Isaiah 30:18-22, emphasis mine:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”