You gotta love family feuds, right? Poor Penny is caught up in a tough battle with her brother and her husband over just what to do to save the farm. Ever get into one of those, ahem… discussions with your family? Maybe over a prized heirloom or how to handle an aging parent or who should or should not be invited to a wedding? I’m sure no one HERE can relate. Surely none of US has been in a difficult family situation where the blood bond of family turns into a blood bath of an argument that pits brother against sister or parent against child. I mean I’VE never had any trouble with my family… had to make sure to say that in case any of them listen to the sermon on the internet later this week.

“This isn’t about the past.” Penny says near the end of the clip. “This is about life being ahead of you and you run for it. You never know how far you can go unless you run.” What a great, inspiring line! The uncertainty of the future, that thing that so often freezes us from action and turns us inward in life, that same uncertainty can be a wealth of blessing and excitement if we are just willing to run.

Isaiah had these inspiring words for those of us, all of us, facing the struggles of life:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

What great hope for us! What a great promise that God is with us, even in the midst of the trials of life. Because the truth is we will have trials. Jesus promises that:

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

Life, it does seem, comes with trouble. Some of this trouble we just finished talking about – temptation. Whether we are aware of it or not, there is evil out there tempting us to stray from the will of God. That’s just a truth of life in this fallen and sinful world. We are selfish at our core and want our own way and very often that leads us into opportunities to sin and, sadly, we take those opportunities. Temptation happens. But there is another source of trouble in our lives, and that is the testing of our faith by God. Just as we are tempted by Satan to draw away from God, so too we are tested by God to draw closer to Him. And this is the key distinction that we need to make – temptations draw us away while trials draw us closer. While temptation is an opportunity to sin, trial is an opportunity to grow stronger in faith. James puts it this way:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

The testing, the trial, of our faith is what produces in us endurance for the race. It is trial that helps us become more confident in ourselves, in our faith, and in God.

Growing up I would help my dad out with projects around the house a lot and most of the time I would be his assistant – handing him tools and fetching supplies, but sometimes he would ask me to do something while he watched. Talk about pressure! My dad expected that I would not only do it, but do it right. It was tough work having him watch me. But when I would finish the task right, my excitement could hardly be contained! My dad would tell me, “Good job” which, though it wasn’t much, meant a lot coming from him. Trials in life are a lot like that. God steps back and allows us to work while he watches, giving us confidence in who we are and our faith in Him. By letting us step forward on our own, God gives us a chance to grow confidence to endure through the long race of life.

Friends, I touched on this last week, but let me say it again – the world has a different race in mind for you and the ultimate end of any race beside the race of faith is an incompleteness that will never fulfill your soul. The world wants you to give up your race and settle for less. It wants you to exchange your pursuit for the eternal rewards of faith for the dim reflections of greatness that can come in this life alone. “Why risk it?” the world says. “Why try to be great? Why think you can make a difference? Why think that the creator and sustainer of the universe cares about you and wants to transform you into the person deep down inside you know you were created to be?” There are thousands of reasons the world gives for not pursuing the goal of Christ. But we will never be complete if we settle for less than the abundant life that God has for us. That’s exactly the word that James uses in the passage I read just a few minutes ago, “that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” It’s actually the same word for mature or fully ripe. It is in enduring trials that we are move closer to our goal of being like Jesus, being holy as He is holy.

So how do we endure trials and come to a deeper faith in Jesus Christ? It begins when we first trust in Jesus.

We talk a lot in church circles about having faith in Jesus. We often speak of it in relational terms – accepting and entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is good language because that is exactly what will save us – that personal acceptance of the gift of Christ. I hope that is something that is true and active in your life. But faith is really about a trust that God is real and at work in our lives. Here is how the writer of Hebrews defines faith:

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.

Hebrews 11:1

A great way to build faith is to remember where God has walked with you. This was exactly David’s practice when he went to face the giant Goliath:

The LORD who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine!”

1 Samuel 17:37

When we can see and remember how God has walked with us in the past, then we can have confidence that God will continue to be with us in the future. Faith is that confidence, that evidence, that even though we may not be able to see clearly how things are going to work out, we can trust that God will be with us.

But trust as a belief isn’t enough. We must also willingly act on that trust. A friend of mine used to use this illustration to distinguish between belief and faith. One can believe, he would say, that a chair exists. One can even believe that it has four legs and a back and that it is properly designed to handle the weight of a person sitting. But belief becomes faith when one is willing to not only believe in the chair but is willing to sit down in it.

We can, particularly in this well educated society we live in, fall into a faith in Jesus that is merely just an intellectual exercise. We can believe that God exists. We can believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We can believe in the cross and the resurrection. We can even believe that God has the power to save us and that by trusting in Jesus we can have eternal life. But until we are willing to step out and act on that belief, until we are willing to rest our lives in the hands of God and rely on Him for our very life, we only have belief.

But if we are willing to trust that God is at work and step forward in faith, even into the scary uncertainty of an unknown future, then we can truly grow in endurance and more towards a spiritual maturity that reflects more of Christ in our lives.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is one I read earlier, Isaiah 40:28-31. In fact, it’s so good I want to read it again:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you ever feel weary? Do you ever feel faint? Do you ever feel like you’ve given your all, completely exhausted all your strength, worn yourself down until there is nothing left to give? Friends, here is the greatest news for the trials of life – we may grow tired and weary and worn out, but God does not. We may think that life is too much, but nothing is too much for God. No matter what trials we may face, we can have confidence, have faith, that God is bigger and stronger than our trials. And just as God gives us opportunities to endure trial and grow in Him there is also the promise that God’s strength is there available to us to endure. If we are willing to just wait – to hope, to expect, to look eagerly for – then God will give us strength.

“You will never know how far you can go unless you run.” Trials to choose to follow God are a certainty of life just as temptations are to stray. But God’s promise to us is that if we put our trust, our true faith that is more than just an intellectual exercise but a lasting trust and hope, if we put that trust in God and hope and expect in Him to be at work in our lives even in the uncertain future, then He will give us strength.

Are you faint? Are you tired? Are you weary on the race of life? Then trust in, wait on, expect hopefully the promise of the Lord working in your life. Wait on the Lord and gain renewed strength for your trials. Mount up on His wings of glory and let Him soar. In the power of Christ run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.