Facing Trials and Trusting God

you all want to win this do time a decision now thank you very much for ushering us into the presence of God I know that some of this today may not be what some of you are expecting but I have to be obedient to my Heavenly Father I have to submit totally to the lordship of Jesus Christ and I will tell you this the Rick and Bubba show has been allowed the grace and mercy to to be on the air for now our 26th anniversary thank you very much I will tell you this though and I mean this sincerely if those 26 years have not done anything to advance the kingdom of God or point people to the redemption found only in Jesus Christ these 26 years have been a monumental waste of time because what we're going to talk about here today is why platforms like this are truly allowed to any of us who have been redeemed by Jesus it's it's it's really an honor to be with you at this church on this day and I recognize the levity of this I will tell you this I'm thankful for your pastor for for trusting me with this opportunity I don't take that lightly I thank you for your team and how they've been taking care of my wife and taking care of me as the church is supposed to brothers and sisters and giving us a weekend of for us to to grieve and mourn and and to spend time together as husband and wife putting us up in a beautiful location that members of your church have allowed my wife and I to stay in and I could just thank you over and over again and then there's knows of you that may be watching this or you may be here in the room that over the last 12 years you're you're very prayers have been used by God to get my wife and to get me out of bed to put our feet on the floor for another day of advancing the of God that it all works together and I want you to know right out of the gate that my wife and I and my family are extremely grateful for you if I could say one thing to you today on the topic of pain and suffering and calamity my first thing that I would say to you as we begin to unpack this message from God today is I would encourage you not to waste it don't waste it CS Lewis said a beautiful statement he said pain and suffering is God's megaphone for a sleeping world there's something about pain and suffering that God is able to accomplish things that just really aren't going to be accomplished any other way and we're gonna walk through this today one thing I want you to understand as well when the adversary may attack you or the world may seem confused and as as Shawn mentioned my wife grinded out five years writing a book called Bronner which is the name of our son a journey to understand and and what she did is she spent five years on her face and before the Lord and in his word and you know what she came away with she came away with the truth that God has never been silent on this topic the Bible talks about it quite a bit and I will tell you this as someone who has stood at a church very similar to this my home church with a little baby blue casket behind me holding the body of a two and a half year old son can I tell you that when people come to you in these times especially when they claim to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ and they claim to have access to the Word of God and they claim to be in a intimate relationship with with the one and only Living God and then they approach you in your moment of pain and you're looking to them for them to have the answers that God has provided and they look at you and say well you know sometimes we just don't know why can I tell you that falls a little flat and and what we've discovered through pursuing this and I want this to be a day that that chain in some lives I hope is that really when people come to you in your time of anguish and they say as if the Bible has nothing to say about this well sometimes we just don't know why sadly what that really is if they were being honest is they would come to you and say I don't know the Word of God well enough to give you what you needed right now I didn't I didn't do what God told me to do I didn't love the guy I didn't love the Word of God enough I don't know God well enough to give you what you need in your time of pain you'll have to find it on your own did you know that since we went through this process and I get emails after emails and moments after moments of talking to people who are burying their children or burying people that they love and they'll come to us and say tell me what what what this is about and you know what I've been able to do because of these 12 years I can send them all five verses and within about ten minutes you know what they'll say you know what thank you that's what I needed for the first moment I just had hope now doesn't have anything to do with me but has everything to do with the Word of God so today we're gonna we're going to do what we can do to kind of stop all this you know the church see the problem with this is that people look to the church when we go through persecution when we go and persecutions coming to the Western Church thank goodness thank goodness because if you look through scripture every time the church is persecuted if you look around the world every time the church is persecuted it thrives and when we go through persecution you know what happens we wheat some of y'all out that have this cultural Christianity that doesn't change anybody's life including your own I had to come to that conclusion of my own life when when a man pointed to me you know growing up in the Bible Belt and I lived a life of Perpetual sin and a pastor had to look me in the eye and say I don't see any evidence of redemption in your life and I said I have you know I've been baptized twice and you know what he said well you certainly can't tell it must just been water because I had lived a life of debauchery and rejection of the church while claiming I was a Christian didn't know anything about the Word of God had very little prayer life in attended church as a cultural obligation now I want you to think about this for a minute as we deal with that before we dive in raise your hand if you're married in here okay raise your hand if you hope to be married one day you have somebody special or something like that okay can you imagine if I when my wife's coming to the eleven o'clock service can you imagine me go into my wife and tell him here that I loved her she said well thank you very much I said here's how it's gonna go I'm gonna tell you I love you every Sunday if it doesn't rain if it's not too inconvenient for me to get to church or get to see you I'm gonna tell you I love you not every Sunday but most some Sundays you know it's not too much trouble and I'm gonna bring you songs and I'm gonna bring you poems and I'm gonna tell you and I'm gonna I'm just gonna talk accolades about you and how much I love you I'm gonna hug you and I'm gonna hold you now about lunch about lunch you not gonna see me again now I'm go golf and I'm gonna see other women I'm gonna go do other things and and if it's not too inconvenient next Sunday I'm gonna come back after I've been with all these other women but all these other places and spent my time on all these other things but every Sunday we're not every Sunday most Sunday well some Sundays I'm gonna tell you that I love you till about lunch do you think my wife thinks I love her then why do you think Jesus buys that garbage what do you think he buys it can I see that he doesn't and so what he might do because He loves you enough what he might do is allow you to suffer for your choices and suffer for the choices you've made so that suffering would bring you into such an intimate relationship with him if you don't reject him that when you finally truly get to know Jesus you discover that he's so wonderful he's so powerful and he's so life-changing then your obedience and your devotion to him begins to flow from His goodness you're not doing anything to earn your salvation but you truly have experience salvation and can I say for someone who went through that process it's true those of you that may or may not know our story twelve years ago today I was speaking at the strength of Stan conference and Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge Tennessee with Scott Dawson evangelistic association they had us set up to where you could go you know you speak in one room and then you get in a van and you drive to the next room that's in the same town speak to them then you get in the van and you go speak to another room and you do that twice so really you're literally walking in as the worship leader and or the band or whatever is ending the last song and you preach and they put you back in the van you go over to the next room and do the same thing my wife and I had five children at the time and man I'm gonna tell you what both of us who were redeemed by Jesus through our marriage counseling in 1996 we went and were discipled by the local church and we were growing in our faith and and everything was changing about the people we were because of the power of Jesus and and we just fell in love with his church and fell in love with his scriptures and fell in love with him and and so in 1999 but in 1999 sherry was pregnant for the very first time so when sherry was pregnant in 1999 she had this incredible pregnancy and she had taken on two children from the life that I had lived before and was a stepmother with two small children not exactly what a woman's looking for in Romeo or Prince Charming but she took it on and she was helping and she we were we were being transformed we were putting these children in church and then she was gonna have to give birth for the very first time and she was wonderful and beautiful and healthy and everything with the pregnancy was going great so we go to the hospital the night that it looks like she's getting ready to deliver but she had not progressed very far they kept her told the rest of the family take your time we're gonna be here a while we're just getting started everybody get a shower and just the two of us were there and then she grabbed her stomach and began to scream and I knew that something wasn't right about that there shouldn't be that kind of labor at this moment and then all the medical team began to scurry around and this moment that sherry had dreamed of she's holding onto her stomach they're looking at all the information they're getting from all the stuff that was connected to her and they look at me with very very intense looks and they say something's wrong we have to get the baby now we're gonna have to do an emergency c-section we got to put her to sleep we think that the baby has been cut off from oxygen we think she may be bleeding internally and the baby's in trouble and your wife's in trouble so they rushed her back now this moment of us talking to each other and me helping her comes into her being put to sleep and now surgery so I remember kind of being aimless and standing around and and I and I I had you know tried to put on Scrubs and so as I was standing there out in the hall confused a doctor comes in to scrub in he looks at me said are you the father I said yes and I said what am I supposed to do he said you need to pray now I'd only been following Jesus for three years at that point and and I knew who Jesus was and I was learning the scriptures but I was I was an infant spiritually and I remember starting to pray to God and I said look I know enough about you that you are the giver and Taker of life and I'm just praying right now Lord that she would save my wife and save my baby that was that was the the extent of my theology at the time I'm learning about you I know you I know I've been redeemed I know that you know about this and I'm asking that you would give life this time please don't take it and I looked inside and they saw the doctor holding a beautiful baby boy he points to the baby gives me a thumbs up he points down to my wifey he gives me a thumbs up he said hey they're all right they're okay we're gonna we'll get her you know sewed up and wake her back up and and and you can come in here and hold the baby just a minute let us look him over and man I begin to praise God praise God for the giving life and thank you for hearing my prayer thank you for saving my wife thank you for say my my little boy and something happened to me in 1999 long before 2008 I heard in my spirit God speak back to me clearly but what if they died would I be any less great what if your wife and your child died right now are you still praising my name do you still think I'm the giver and Taker of life and what I do is right and I remember thinking man that's a that's a heavy I can't what - tell me about that that's a good message but then sherry gives birth to another son and then gets pregnant with another son and I remember the day that she said this they looked at the sonogram and she could tell by the nurses face she said it's another boy isn't it and the nurse said yes and I said honey are you all right she said I am all right she said because the Lord has spoken and listened to this statement I believe that the world needs godly men he must keep giving us boys so we'll raise some and having no idea the power of that statement so 2008 we have five children the show is growing the platform is expanding I'm speaking the shows doing this where God's blessing us in ways we had never imagined both of us come in from a little small towns in Alabama and I'm pray over my family and I go to speak and God's moving and then my phone starts vibrating as I'm going from session four to session five and it was not abnormal for me to get a call from a house of five children and a wife if I was away and I pick up the phone and I hear my wife she says you got to get her by there and pray 12 years ago today that's the honey what's happening she said I'm not I don't know how this happened but somehow the baby has gotten out of the house he's gotten into the pool and he's drown and the paramedics are trying to bring him back you got to get a buddy to pray all right so I prayed over my family I gave my life to you I'm trying to use the platform to point people to you I prayed over my family before I left I'm here preaching and I said lord please don't let him die but see now I've been the follower of Jesus for nine years now he has been sanctifying me and growing me in his perfect timing and he's ready to allow my biggest tests up to that point allow it everybody with that allow it how many here say that you think that God couldn't stop it they just couldn't even have the ability to well I don't serve that god I don't think you do either if you know him so what happened next he allowed because he couldn't certainly stopped it and I'm trying to get to now an airport they got somebody to take the next to session I remember Scott Dawson saying he looked as I was backstage trying to fair what to do he said and I saw an aura I literally saw a light he said it's like I could see the Holy Spirit holding you and comforting you and as I got in the car and beginning I had a friend driving me to the airport they were trying to get a plane to me I'd actually driven there but it would take too long to drive I had to get to my wife I had to get there and I called the hospital to check on him I said my son William Bronner Burgess is there they're working on him I'd like an update they put me on hold and then the chaplain picked up as soon as the chaplain picked up you know what's coming now and the chaplain said mr. Burgess are you alone and I'm in it bigger than the person driving me I said I'm never alone I don't live life alone anymore as I felt the power of the Holy Spirit with me and the chaplain said your son has passed away and I said it's anybody with my wife he said yes I said please let her know I'm on the way so I get on the plane and I remember looking out the window and I was shocked that the moon was where it was supposed to be shocking why why is this him still in order there should be no moon there why's everyone not crying and screaming what's wrong with the world but I've been with Jesus for a very long time and still had a lot to learn but he had me ready for this and I remember saying out loud in the airplane father what are you teaching me what is this because I know you could have stopped it so what are you teaching me and I heard in my spirit as clear as a bell perplexed I want the world to be perplexed they think you love me because I bless you they think you love me because I redeemed you I've allowed this to happen so I'll be glorified I want them to see that your faith in me is real no matter why I'm gonna give you a platform now that you've never had before I've actually had people say have you ever heard Rick speak and semester yeah and they say before 2008 or after because if you heard him before 2008 you haven't heard it yet he didn't know the things that God has taught him to his pain and suffering and in the hospital there my wife paints a picture in her book that I'll never forget she said she's holding the body of our child the doctors are working on him they finally take him away from her and sit her down and they keep working and they look at it and they say we're gonna have to stop he's not responding and this is Romans chapter 8 where it talks about how sometimes the Holy Spirit intercedes and prays what you ought to pray what you ought to pray she said I heard coming out of my mouth I couldn't believe what I was hearing I couldn't pray it but the Holy Spirit prayed for me not my will be done Lord but your will be done who she learned that from Jesus for you and me when he's about to find out is there another way to get this done or maybe we don't get redeemed he says father is another way to accomplish this in the garden where he's so stressed that his capillaries are bursting and he's bleeding in his sweat but what did Jesus teach us to say when he said it himself father not my will be done but your will be done and he was resolute to the cross my wife had the Holy Spirit pray that for her I don't know that you have a Bible today I hope you do or something with your Bible on it if you'll turn to first Peter chapter 1 6 and 7 this is what you have to understand about those of us that claim to have the power of Jesus and when we're facing trials if you ever say well hey sometimes we don't know why well can I tell you we're not going to say we don't know why anymore because really you don't have to give me any past these two verses look at what the Holy Spirit says through Peter and this you rejoice underline that though now for a little while underline that if necessary double underline that you have been grieved by various trials double underline this so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than 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 so Rick why does God allow us to suffer so he can be glorified and what this is it look at this in this you rejoice though now for a little while you know what my wife and I say to everybody that comes grieving to us when they've buried a child my wife is still giving this you know she says it won't always be like this this is just this is just us seeing that this isn't heaven some of you in this room you got to stop trying to make heaven on earth it doesn't exist this is not yet I get so sick when I hear people try to take worldly attributes and say well if I get to heaven and we don't get to do this what are you talking about you really care if Albarn Alabama play in heaven are you serious can I tell you the great I am couldn't care less who wins the arm bow can I tell you that football may be a great game but it's a lousy God in heaven is going to exceed any experience you've ever had with your hobbies I hope we get to catch a big bass in heaven what can I tell you that Jesus himself said if he tried to explain to us what the new heaven and new earth would be like John got a glimpse of it that he'd have to use words we wouldn't understand did y'all know that God is better than anything this earth has to offer do you really believe that well he's willing to give you the shot to learn it he'll grind it out of if he has to he loves you enough to do that the writer of Hebrews says what he disciplines those that he loves just like an earthly father disciplines and his children and it hurts for a little while but later you're thankful for it so so first of all we may be grieved for a little while and look at these two words if necessary y'all okay with that if necessary are you ready for the are you okay with this 12 years ago today God said that was necessary you okay with that said we got to stop trying to make God something we want him to be and we better concentrate on submitted to his authority so he transforms us into something he would rather us be I get so tired of us trying to make God you know what we're gonna order God around here's how here's what I want you to do here's what I wish you would do I wish you were like this that's blasphemy so what he says is when you suffer it might be necessary it might be necessary for you to transform me might be necessary for other people that aren't gonna come to Jesus in the other way do you realize that when I got up and God gave me the power to give a memorial service at our church to on the Tuesday after he went to heaven that our IT guy put that on something called YouTube YouTube was invented the year Bronner was born and then this platform that had allowed the show we took a supernatural moment of dad who just buried his son getting up and talking about who Christ is and God challenged the church he challenged us all to find our hope only in him and it was the number one viewed video in the world for a week thousands of people gave their life to Jesus because of pain and suffering people in my family have been redeemed because we had to walk through this together and they saw God in a way they'd never seen him before so when you're allowed to go through pain and suffering don't waste it it may be necessary and then it gets down to this you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith did you know when people who turn away from God when they suffer you know what that means they failed the test their faith was revealed to be artificial it was revealed to be faith so he says I allow these things to happen so that there's going to be a testing of the genuineness of your faith I'm gonna test it to see if it's actually real and then when you pass that test look what's next he says gold perishes when it's refined by fire your faith will actually pass the test when it's refined by fire and when it passes you'll actually that suffering and your obedience and your commitment to the faith and your genuineness that was revealed and suffering will now result in the praise and glory the revelation of Jesus Christ people may see him only through that it pays it works do do I wish that had happened No do I see the result of it absolutely and do I submit to his authority that what he did was right a 100% and if I ever hear another person say I thought God loved us that just makes me want to I won't say it because we're in church you thought God loved you have you ever seen the cross hey God goes on record for how much he loves you and me when he goes to the cross hey if Jesus Christ never does another thing for me other than the cross other than the resurrection well then he's done enough I didn't deserve that I deserve to go to hell now some of you may think you don't deserve to go to hell trust me you do compared what to the holiness of God what did Jobe say now pardon this I don't have I didn't give you this verse for the string job gets down to the end job starts out and it says he is blameless and upright but at the end of his suffering he says and in 42 before I had heard you with my ears before the suffering now I see you with my eyes and listen to this and I despise myself what blameless and upright despises himself and then he said after the suffering he became so intimate with God that he understood even when he was blameless and upright compared to the rest of the Jerald but compared to god he was quite sinful and he repented in ashes and dust job did God allow job to suffer 100% he even told Satan we couldn't can do he brought it up Wow so that job's tests would glorify him but also job's tests reminded job that compared to a holy God he was still a sinful man you know why some of you don't take your sins serious you don't know God it's that simple you're not under any conviction because you never encountered the holy God so look at 2nd Corinthians 2nd Corinthians 12 7 through 10 2nd Corinthians 12 7 through 10 here is where the Apostle Paul who you know it gives us another example he says so to keep me from becoming conceited underline that because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations Paul's just told us that God showed him a vision that was bringing a lot of tension to him so now Paul's kind of becoming a big deal in the faith and this is what he says after it he says a thorn was given me in the flesh a messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from becoming conceited three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ and I'm content with weakness insults hardship persecutions and calamities for when I'm weak then I'm strong what did Paul do then he couldn't get the thorn removed why was this suffering not ending did he not claim it they not name it and claim it did he not have enough hat not have enough faith anybody here ready to say that Paul couldn't pray with enough power to get all this stuff he just listed off of it anybody prepared to say that be real careful with this health weapon try spirity garbage it's not biblical it is is from the pits of hell if the Apostle Paul didn't have enough faith to stop his suffering we probably don't even did the Apostle Paul said I guess I did that prayer rod I guess I didn't do the words right I maybe I didn't claim it does he say that no he says he understands the why he's been allowed to suffer to Humble him to be reminded that the cross is where God ultimately showed how much he loved it and it was where he was going is where the reward would be not where he is now and I put this challenge on you I'm convicted by this Paul writes to Timothy in 1st Timothy 3:12 or 2nd Timothy 3:12 he says remember to remind each other and remind the church as I'm handed off to you all who choose to live a godly life will be persecuted not some not some all who choose to live a godly life will be persecuted so I'm gonna say this to you as a challenge are you being persecuted at all from your faith you know when I'm not you know what I think I must not be living a godly life right now the world is perfectly okay with me because because the Bible said I should get some sort of pushback if I'm truly living a godly life from the lost or from the adversary I remember vividly vividly I remember this it was time for me to go back on the air and I didn't know what to do about this what does the show look like now and and I remember we have a little farm house and I remember going here and there was a chair right here and the doors right here and and I can't tie my shoes I can't move I'm frozen and despair how do wince the next time I tell a joke what's the next time we do something that is meaningless but it's part of earning the right to share the gospel how's all this gonna work and I said Lord I'm I'm sorry I can't do it I said I you want me to go out and start talking about you again and get back on the air and start this thing again I can't even tie my shoes and you know what the Lord said to Paul's point now you're ready are you ready you are so arrogant and you're so prideful you're so self-sufficient which I've been taught all my life to be self-sufficient he said I had to do whatever I had to do to make you so weak that now you're asking me to help you tie your shoes now I can use you in a way that I never could before your problem Rick Burgess was not that you weren't strong enough to be a man of God you weren't weak enough your self-reliance was still alive so I killed it and now you're gonna know me in a way you never did before when you start asking me to help you breathe man my life has never been the same it's never been the same Jesus says in John 16:33 something very interesting it's one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible John 16:33 Jesus says I've said these things that in me you may have peace Wow if I were to ask all of you in this room what you really want you might come with a lot of worldly answers but at the end of it all what you really want and every fallen person wants I want peace hey Rick things just gonna get worse around here aren't they yeah is everything gonna be all right so Jesus tells us that what he's going to say next is going to give us the peace that we all look at somebody say Amen and look at this next line Oh in this world you will have tribulation not you might you will in this room you're in it you're coming out of it are you going in it right everybody shake head understand tribulation well you know why that's happening well my goodness the king of the world just said in this world the falling creation you will have tribulation so don't be surprised when it happens Peter tells us again in first Peter stop acting like something weirds happen to you when you come under calamity of course you're coming under calamity you belong to God in the world hates you and God will allow you to suffer to be refined so he can get you to a place that you're totally dependent on him people say this all the time hey Rick I just taste something you know I just don't think I can do this you can't but he can I can't speak at my son's memorial service but he can I can't go back on the air and start this again but he can I can't get up and face another day after bearing the two and a half year old son but he can and when we can't do that you know we had like just like the world would act so they don't see Jesus you know what they say and I don't like this either Rick if you had if you had rejected God if I love this you want me somebody told us that standing here one time you know most marriages don't get through this hey thanks that's that's great today thank you for that do you know that's a lie from the pits of hell you know what marriages don't make it the ones that were already in trouble the ones that are under the authority of God they thrive because of the promises of Scripture you know when people turn away from God and pain and suffering we're people that weren't solid we've been before testing the genius of your faith and you know people say but Rick but Rick but Rick these things people do when they face pain and suffering is perfectly natural and that's why it's wrong we're not called to be natural we're called to be supernatural and beyond the power of Jesus that causes us to respond in a way that the world is shocked and they say how is that happening and then we point them to the power in Jesus and here it is but when you face that tribulation you take heart hey here it is who's ready to celebrate because I have overcome the world I think about first Corinthians 15 9 and 10 when Paul who murdered people and persecuted the church and he says I shouldn't have be an apostle because I persecuted the church I was wrong I was passionately wrong some of you are passionately wrong I thought I was doing the right thing and it was wrong I was jailing people and killing people and now God has changed me and he he's not what changed your personality he's gonna put it to work for the kingdom look I'm the same guy always was except things he gave me instead of me working against him I'm working for it and he said to Paul with the same passion that you're trying to persecute the church I'm gonna take you and now you're gonna advance the church and he's saying I shouldn't be an apostle and the only thing good about me is because of the grace that was given to me by Jesus but here's the biggie for the grace of users in the room like I used to be but that grace won't be in vain I don't have to earn my salvation but I'm gonna have a response to my salvation and Jesus will never look at my life and say when I went to the cross and I died for and suffered for Paul it wasn't worth it it didn't produce anything how does he look at your life does the grace that he afforded you does it seem like it's in vain is he getting any sort of return on it well just take this promise as we come to the time now for you to respond Jesus Christ said clearly you should be at peace and the joy of your heart should always be there because if you're under my authority and you give in your life to me and I've redeemed you no matter what you face I've overcome it and as long as you belong to me and as long as you've been redeemed by me I've solved your biggest problem and that is reconciling you back to holy God so you don't die forever has that is that problem being solved in your life do you have that power and you have that hope are you under the authority of Jesus will you pass the test have you passed the test that Jesus's power is evident in your life if Jesus Christ hasn't changed you it's not because of his inability to do it something's wrong with you and today is a day to get it right

Channel: Olive Baptist Church

Views: 1,913

Rating: 4.7837839 out of 5

Keywords: church online, online church, Sunday mornings, local church, Pensacola, Jesus, Southern Baptist Church

Id: J5UZDUlgQjg

Length: 39min 55sec (2395 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020