Join us as we examine the four ways God humbles humanity, featuring poignant examples from scripture. We discuss how challenges and suffering serve as conduits for spiritual strength and how, through humility, one can align closer with the divine will. This episode is a reminder of the profound grace available to us when we humble ourselves before God.
00:24:45 The Role of Suffering in Spiritual Growth
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Amen. Amen. and why it was necessary for God to put safeguards in place when he created man in his own image and likeness. Discover four ways God humbles man. So he allowed Israel to wander those 40 years. He could have taken them in in a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t have taken long for him to take them in. But when they begin to murmur and complain, amen, he said, all right, you’re not ready to go in. I brought you out of Egypt. I got you out of Egypt, but now I’ve got to get Egypt out of you. Amen? And we see that and we allow for it in baby Christians. We allow when baby Christians, you know, blow their top or get upset or going to quit or, you know, we realize they’re babies and we think, well, you know, they’re just fresh out of the world and we got to give them time. We can’t just… beat them down. We got to work with them. We got to help them. Amen. But for those who have been walking with the Lord for a long time, amen, God will stick us in the wilderness to humble us and to show us things that need to come out. Amen. And here’s the thing. When we realize that we can’t fix ourselves, How many know that? You cannot fix yourself without the help of the Holy Spirit. I’m sorry, you just can’t. And man can’t fix you either. Amen. It takes the word of God. It takes the Holy Spirit to fix us. Amen. And he alone can fix us. If you’re battling with some kind of problem, if you are battling with a habit or the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eye or even wrong thinking up here. Amen. If you’re doing what Lucifer did and you’ve got this self-focus, you’re always focusing on yourself. I’m going to focus on myself and I’m going to fix myself. You’re not going to fix yourself doing that. You’re going to get a distorted view of who you are. Amen? You’ve got to say, I live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. That’s what’s going to fix me. That’s what’s going to heal me. Amen? So when we realize we can’t help ourselves, then what are we going to do? We’re going to run to God. When I realized how weak I am, I used to think, oh, I’m so weak, and then I would feel so hopeless. And hopelessness would then… Bear out. I did nothing. I had nothing. So that only reinforced my feeling of weakness and hopelessness. But when I really truly came to the place that I realized in my weakness, his strength is made perfect. That when I am weak, I am so utterly dependent on God. And I can go to him and say, Lord, I can’t do this. Vain is the help of man. I need you. Amen. Amen. That’s the best position I can get in. Amen. When I know that I need the help of God. Maybe your marriage is in disarray. And you’ve been trying to work it out and fix it. And it’s not getting better. It may be getting worse. Both of you have got to surrender it to the Lord. You’ve got to surrender it to God. You’ve got to surrender it to the godly counsel of his word. And if there’s deliverance needed, you’ve got to get delivered. Amen? Because God allows us to go through these things to humble ourselves. Amen? We all love Psalm 34. And I love verse 2 that says, My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall heal thereof and be glad. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles. Amen? So when we humble ourselves before the Lord… then we’re in a position for God to mend us. One of the best illustrations I can give to you on this is about Peter. So let’s turn in the New Testament to Matthew 26. And we’ll read some and I’ll paraphrase some because you should probably be already well versed on this particular story of Peter and the Lord. Matthew 26 and looking at verse 33. Jesus is getting ready now to go to the cross. He’s getting ready to endure all of his sufferings. And he says to his disciples, but after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. And Peter answered and said unto him, though all men should be offended because of thee, yet I will never be offended. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, that this night, before the cock crows, you shall deny me three times or thrice. And Peter said, Though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee. And likewise also said all of the disciples. This is also recorded in the book of Mark and it’s also recorded in the book of Luke and we’re going to turn to Luke 22 because Luke tells us something the other two writers didn’t tell us and what he tells us is really important. Now, Mark said that he said, I will not deny thee in any wise. Do you hear the boasting? Peter is boasting. Not me. Everybody might deny you. The rest of these other 11 guys, well, Judas had already left. But not me, not Peter. I will never, ever deny thee, no matter what. Now we’re in Luke, the 22nd chapter. And let’s look at verse 31. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said, Lord, I’m ready to go with thee both to prison and to death. And Jesus said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou hast thrice or three times denied that you even know me. Jesus said, Satan has desired to have you. The Greek word is much more powerful than desired. It actually means to demand. Think about that. Satan has demanded to have you. Satan took a personal interest in tempting Peter. You know, all I can offer is some speculation here. We know Peter’s history. We know he was impetuous. We know one day he was rebuking Jesus and the next day he was saying something phenomenal like, you’re the only one that has the keys to eternal life and you are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God. And other days he was telling him, you don’t have to go to the cross. So we know that Peter was very impetuous and very impulsive. Amen? And so Satan took a personal interest in tempting Peter and said he’s demanded something, gave Satan the idea that he could go to God and demand to be able to tempt Peter. Something gave him that idea. Now, we said this prior in another message. We saw what he did in the case of Job. He went to God and said, the only reason why he serves you is because you keep showering him with blessings. Take away the blessings and I’ll tell you what he’ll do. He’ll curse you and die. And God allowed him, Satan, to tempt Job because he had so much confidence in Job. He said, go for it. Go ahead. Just can’t take his life. Because he knew that Job would come out on the other side, and he did. But now we see Satan is demanding the right to be able to tempt Peter. And God is going to allow him to do it. But Jesus said, I have prayed for you. Oh, thank God we have a high priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. When we stumble, when we fall, when we fail, he ever lives to make intercession for us because he’s able to be touched with the feelings of our infirmities because he is a high priest made like unto us. Amen? So Jesus said, I’ve prayed for you that your faith fail not. And here the word fail in Greek means to utterly fail. It means to fail for good. Now, Peter did fail. Peter failed in his flesh because of the fear of man. Well, I should say the fear of woman. The fear of young ladies. Because some young ladies at the fire were saying, I know you. You’re a Galilean and you are one of those disciples of Jesus. No, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who that man is. He let a little young lady, probably a teenager, the fear of man caused him to fail. And did he deny the Lord? Yes, he denied him three times, just like Jesus said he would. Amen? But though Peter failed, his faith did not fail. And sometimes you will fail and I will fail in our test. We fail and we know we have failed. We know it. Do we say that’s it? I’m never going back to church again. I’m done serving God. I’m out of here. No, our faith doesn’t fail. Our flesh gets weak. Amen. We get ourselves in compromising positions and we fall into temptation. Amen. But yet in our heart, we love God. We know that he is our father. We want to make things right. We want to be reconciled to our father. And Jesus is sitting up there on the throne next to God and he’s saying, my child wants to be reconciled to you, Father. And God says all they have to do is ask. It’s done. It shall be done. Amen? So Peter did fail, but his faith did not fail. He got knocked down. How many of you ever got knocked down? But we get back up. We may fall down, but we get back up. We don’t stay there in our failure. We don’t let failure be fatal. Because we serve a merciful and gracious and forgiving God. Amen? And we get back up and we not only receive forgiveness and cleansing and washing, but then we ask the Lord, strengthen me. Strengthen me so that I don’t fall into this snare again. And that’s what Jesus said to Peter. He said, when you are converted… That’s a strong word. When you are converted, go and strengthen your brethren. Amen? Peter failed because he got into self-boasting. He boasted and he boasted in front of everybody. Amen? And so God had to humble him. He had to allow him to be tempted. Satan heard that, ran to the throne of God and said, did you hear him? He says he will never ever deny. Everybody will but not him. Let me tempt him and see what he does. We have something and Peter had something that Job didn’t have. We have a covenant. based on the blood of Jesus and a high priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. And God said, all right, you can. And God knew that he would fall. because haughtiness and pride goes before a great fall. Amen? And God knew that he would, but Jesus said, when you are converted, now this word means to return to your faith, return to your post, return to your position, and then when you’ve done that, I want you to go and strengthen the brethren. Amen? Strengthen the brethren. Now, I have to tell you that later on, and this is another message. It’s my lovest thou me message. Later on, after Jesus was raised from the dead, he appeared unto them at Galilee, and boy, did he put Peter through it. You all know he asked him three times, do you love me? And you know every time Peter said yes, and you know the third time he cried and all of that. Jesus each time said, well, if you do love me, feed my sheep, feed my lambs. He did that in front of the other disciples because had he not done that, they probably would have rejected Peter from being their leader. They probably thought, you ain’t telling me what to do. You denied the Lord three times. But the Lord did it in front of all of them to show them, hey, Peter is still my guy. I am still putting my trust in Peter to be able to lead the new church that will come. Amen? He put his trust in Peter and he did it in front of the rest of the disciples so that they would know that Jesus was putting his stamp of approval on Peter’s ministry. So failure is not fatal. Amen. God uses it to humble us. So he said, when you return to your faith and return to your position, then I want you to strengthen your brethren. Amen. And I got to tell you, I know Peter never got over that. He held on to that for the rest of his life. Let’s turn to 1 Peter 5 and read a couple things that Peter said. 1 Peter, the fifth chapter, and verse 5. Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another. Mutual submission. Amen? And be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. and he assists the humble. So humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and he may exalt you in due time or in the right time. If God exalts you, it’ll be when you’re ready for it, and you won’t get a big head. If man exalts you and it’s not your time, you might get a big head. And that’s really tragic because then you may mess up and you may never recover like you were. I don’t mean get forgiven. I mean it may kind of… Have people have doubts about you then because you weren’t ready. Amen. He will exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour, whom you resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. I don’t care what you’re going through. You’re not the only one going through it. Amen. Now let’s look at verse 10. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while. Uh-huh, it’s what it says. After you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. Now, I like that part, perfect, establish or establish, strengthen and settle you, amen? Ah, but see what goes with it, amen? After you have suffered a while, after you have gone through these things that we’ve already labored on at length, amen? Suffer here. The word means in Greek, it’s pathos, and we bring it over in the word sympathy. Suffer with someone. Amen. And it means to have afflictions come to you from without. And, of course, that can take on many different ways. And things that cause you to suffer, you will suffer internally in your emotions. You may suffer in your heart. You may suffer mentally, spiritually. Amen? And you can suffer literally if you are living with unsaved people that Satan uses constantly to make your life miserable. Amen? But after you’ve done that, after you’ve gone through it a while, and I do want to encourage you with this, a while in the Greek means a short time. Because God is not interested in destroying you. He doesn’t want to put sufferings on you until it’s going to destroy you and then you’re done for. That’s not the mind of God. He allows us to go through sufferings and remember, God is faithful. 1 Corinthians says, 10, 13, God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will also with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to endure under it. So he says suffer a while. It’s only for a season. It’s not forever. Do you know that the sufferings of Job only lasted a few months? And yet he lived to be 140 years old. 140 years old. And he didn’t even suffer a whole year. Now when you put that in perspective, months compared to 140 years. I know while you’re going through it and God knows that man went through it. He lost everything. But God restored it double. And he lived to be 140 years and only a few months of his life was he in that severe trial. Amen? So here that’s what the word means. After you’ve suffered a while, the God of all grace will make you perfect. Now, I got to stop for a moment on this word, because most of the time in the New Testament, when you see the word perfect, it is teleos, T-E-L-I-O-S, teleos. And it means to be complete, to be entire, to be whole, to be missing nothing. Amen. But here it’s a different word. And I didn’t know this till this morning. Actually, I stumbled on it. The word here is akribos, A-K-R-I-B-O-S. acrobose. We actually bring it into the English as acrobat. I want you to think of a tight rope walker. I want you to think of Ephesians 5.15 that says, walk circumspectly. How many of circumspectly is kind of a curious word? What does that mean? It’s the same word, acrobose. circumspectly in Ephesians 5.15 is the same as acrobose here that we’re reading in 1 Peter 5.10. And we get the idea now what it means. So if you are an acrobat, specifically a tightrope walker, How many knows you’re going to be walking very carefully? How many knows if you’re on a tightrope and you’re above the Grand Canyon or the Niagara Falls or stretched between two skyscrapers in New York City, you’re going to be walking very precisely? And carefully, you’re going to be checking your balance continually. Amen. And when you feel that gust of wind coming, you’re going to stop and get your bearings before you take that next step. Amen. That’s what the word means. It means to walk carefully. It means to ponder the path of your feet. It means to walk actively. Accurately. And that’s what God will do for us when we’ve come through some sufferings, when we’ve come through some hard places. Afterwards, we’re walking carefully. We’re walking precisely. Amen. We’re walking in a path that God lays out for us. And we’re not here and there and everywhere. Because our sufferings taught us something. They weren’t for nothing. They weren’t wasted. God never wastes anything. It would take me a month of Sundays to tell you all that the Lord has done in me and through me and for me through my sufferings that I went through. Amen? So after you’ve suffered a while, God’s going to perfect you. And then he’s going to establish you. And that means to make stable, to make firm. Amen? And then he’s going to strengthen you. And here, do you know that this is the only place in the New Testament where this particular word is found? And then you’re thinking, well, Sister Sharon, I hear strengthened all over the place. Yes, but they’re different Greek words. Here is the only place where this Greek word is found. Stenoa. And it means to make you strong in your soul. To make you strong in your emotions. Amen? To make you strong. Some people, emotionally, they’re always in a storm. They’re always upset. And that’s not what God wants for us. Amen. And if we, through our sufferings, have you gone through something and you say, Lord, please let this test end. Let me get out of this place. I want to come through this test. I pray that. Do you? But I also pray, Lord, let me learn whatever it is you’re trying to teach me. I don’t want it to be wasted. Amen? He will strengthen you and he will settle you. And that means to ground you on a firm foundation. Have you ever admired God? Saints in the Lord, because you’ve looked at a life well lived and you see how solid they are and you know they’ve been through all kinds of things and you respect and admire how that they just stand. Amen. Let me tell you something. Anybody that God uses greatly, they have suffered greatly. in some way. Amen. And it’s what’s caused them to be steadfast and unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord because they’ve been through those things. Amen. And God has humbled them. And when God humbles a man or a woman, he can trust them because they know where their help comes from. They know where their strength comes from. Amen. We won’t go there because I’m not out of message, but I’m out of time. But you all know the whole story about… Apostle Paul, he said the only time he ever prayed for three things was what? Lord, remove this thorn from me. Remove this messenger of Satan that’s buffeting me. And God said, nope, nope, nope. Not going to remove him. I’ll give you grace, but not going to remove him. Why? Paul actually diagnosed himself and said, lest I should be exalted above measure. Amen. And he repeated it, lest I should be exalted above measure because of the revelations God has given to me. He allowed this thorn to come and he named the thorn. It wasn’t poor eyesight or some disease. It was a messenger, an angel of Satan come to buffet him. Amen. He gave the reason because Paul had a tendency to get lifted up. And I think that that was a throwback to his Pharisee days. Amen. The Pharisee days. I think it was a throwback to the days he was hunting down Christians because he knew that he was right and they were spreading heresy. So he had that tendency and God had to keep him in check. I’m going to close with my last example. And this would be in the book of Hebrews. You’ll recognize the verse right away. And you’ll recognize the person right away. Hebrews 5 and 8 says, Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. though he were a son, Jesus Christ. And verse 9 says, and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto them that obey him. So even the son of God, Jesus Christ, had to learn obedience by the things that he suffered. Amen? And if he had to learn obedience, then I know I do. Amen. And I know you do. Amen. Because God is not going to allow us to do what Lucifer did. Amen. And I tell the Lord all the time, Lord, I want to make heaven. If there’s anything in me that is a stumbling block to my own self. Or to someone else. Because here’s my thought. If I can’t help you, I don’t want to harm you. I want to help you make heaven. Amen. Come on, stand on your feet this morning. Amen. Maybe you’ve been in a long time battle and you really didn’t even understand why. And you don’t understand why it keeps going. Let me tell you something. God’s not going to leave you in the fire any longer than he has to. Right. because he doesn’t want to destroy you. He’s not going to leave you in the fire any longer than is necessary. So if you’re still in the fire, then that means something is going on. Either you are having a problem with doubt and unbelief and fear, and that’ll keep you from believing God, or there are some things, impurities, that God wants to get out. Amen? Because we’re told in Malachi that he’s a refiner that sits by the pot. that’s on the fire of the silver. And he sits there until he knows that the impurities are out. So if you are going through a prolonged battle and you want me to agree in prayer with you, that the Lord will show you something that you need to know, or if he’s already shown you and you just want to agree for victory, come on up here across the front and we’re going to agree in prayer with you. Amen. And some of you, you feel like you need something broken off of you. Amen. Something broken off of you. If you recognize any of these things in your heart, in your spirit, if you recognize, amen, that maybe the enemy has gotten in somewhere and allowed offenses to come and you want to be delivered, we want to pray with you. Amen. What a remarkable word. Four ways God humbles man. Lucifer, the light bearer, was the most exotic and wisest creature of all God’s angelic beings. After his lightning fall from heaven, along with one-third of the angels whom he convinced to join him in his rebellion to the throne God, God created mankind in his own image and likeness. This far exceeded the glory of cherubim and angels. Wasn’t this risky? If Lucifer fell because of his superlative beauty, could not man made in the image of God also be tempted by pride? Yes. So God put in place safeguards to keep pride from destroying man like it did Lucifer. This teaching, Four Ways God Humbles Man, is available on a two-CD set for a love gift to the radio ministry of $15 or more. Request SK221. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or go to our e-store on soundoffaith.org where MP3s are available. But to order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $15. Request SK221. Mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.
