Speaker: Gary Peters

THE FINDING TIMES WITH GOD

I’ve been sitting on this teaching since before sabbatical, and then fine-tuned it during sabbatical. Though it’s not from Titus, it has the theme of Titus. Our theme for Titus has been chapter 2, verse 1: “As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching.” 

Today, I want to give you some wholesome teaching that will hopefully be reflected in right living, something that I have learned over my many years walking with the Lord. I want to talk to you about the finding times of God. 

One of my mentors, who went to be with the Lord a couple years ago, Pastor Rick Howard, taught at Bethany Bible College and also pastored Peninsula Christian Center. Just a hero of mine in the faith. 

He’s written numerous books, but he wrote a book called The Finding Times. I love the book, and I hated it at the same time. I loved it because it brought insight to my life. I hated it because of what it dialed up. 

Because when you’re going through finding times– it’s when God uses circumstances to reveal our heart. How many love to have your heart revealed? May happen in about a month from now, at Thanksgiving, month and a half, may happen sooner than that, may happen this afternoon after the Broncos game. I don’t know. 

Deuteronomy 8:2 says, “You shall remember all the ways which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years.” Forty is representative of a time of testing. Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted and prayed for forty days, and then He came back full of the Holy Spirit. Went in, baptized of the Holy Spirit, came out, full of the Holy Spirit.

He says, “I’ve done this in order to humble you.” I’d much rather be humbled by God than humiliated before man, but God will oblige you if you need to be. Anybody ever been humiliated before man? I’d rather be humbled before God. Amen? 

Putting you to the test to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. Our native response to tests are pass or fail. I don’t believe that’s what God’s after here. God is interested in progress, in growth, in maturity. 

The question I want to ask us this morning: are we learning? Are we learning from what we go through to bring us to the next stage? Romans 5:1-5 says we’re justified by faith, and we have peace with God, therefore we’re able to rejoice in tribulation. 

I think it’s weird. They seem opposite. We have peace with God, but then we can rejoice in tribulation. I thought if we had peace, we wouldn’t have tribulation. 

Jesus said in John 16:33, “That in the world you’ll have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.” So, we were able to rejoice in tribulation because tribulation brings endurance. 

How many love endurance? How many need endurance? Don’t pray for it. It’ll come. Endurance literally means, like, having an umbrella over me right now. Endurance is made up of two words: it means to come, to be called under. And what we do, so many times, is we run away from what God’s doing, then we have to face it again down the road. 

But if we come under what God’s doing, then this tribulation brings endurance, and endurance proves my character. And my proven character gives me confident hope, and confident hope will not disappoint. 

See, the progress of God is not a test, pass or fail. The progress of God is learning that in tribulation, you can have endurance, and that endurance proves your character, and when your character is proven, you have hope for the next time you go through it again. God brought me through this once, He can do it again. That’s the Christian life. 

I want to look at three chapters. We will not read them all because it’s longer than the Book of Titus itself, and it’s the story of the Exodus, chapters 15, 16, and 17. I would encourage you to read them this week and then go back and listen to the podcast. It’ll probably make more sense. 

The question I’m asking is: how does God lead us out of our exoduses, out of our transitions, out of our times from one season to another? 

Look at the natural world, there’s seasons of life. There’s seasons in our world. We’re in fall, we’ll have winter, and then spring, and then summer, and it repeats. We have seasons of life. There’s midlife, there’s older life, there’s the aged. And I’m almost seventy, and everybody tells me I’m supposed to be old, but sometimes I don’t feel old, but my body tells me I’m old. 

Our life is marked by change. My parents passed away a few years ago, and it’s after mom and dad passed. My first granddaughter went to college. It’s after Em went to college. Our life is marked by transition and change. 

How do we respond? We see in Exodus 15, the beginning, there’s a song of deliverance. But I remember reading a Bible newsletter that came from Dave Wilkerson, probably thirty years ago, and he had it titled, “Right Song, Wrong Side.” 

They sang the song that they should have sang before the Red Sea. You say, Well, the horse and rider wasn’t thrown into the sea. Yet, that’s how the song starts out. “I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and rider, He’s thrown into the sea.” 

But the faint thing is, when we walk by the understanding of who He is, we see things before they happen because He calls those things which are not as though they are. And so, He wants us to sing the right song on the right side. 

And the other thing there is, many times, the vehicle that we think is for our destruction, i.e., the Red Sea, Egyptians closing in, became the vehicle of their deliverance. The Egyptians never challenged them after the Red Sea. 

And some of you need to walk through what God’s asking you to walk through because you think it’s going to bring your destruction, it’s actually going to bring your deliverance because it’s going to cause those things, which you have been trialed time and time again, to fall off. That’s the Christian life. That’s the growth that God wants to bring in our life: the test. 

There’s three tests that Israel faced, and we’re going to look at those very quickly because I’ve got twenty minutes. David Mitchell pointed out in our communication team email when I sent out my notes– by the way, I don’t know if David’s here. Happy birthday, David. It’s his birthday today. Tell David happy birthday. He’s not here, but maybe he’ll listen to the podcast. 

And he said that part of the way Israel looked at what God was doing in their life was because they just came out of four hundred years of slavery. And the thought dawned on me when he said that, is the longer we’re in slavery, the more this is our narrative, but the less we are in slavery, the more this isn’t our narrative. 

These tests, the further we get away from our slavery, we should respond differently. If today God dials something up that you’re not responding the way He wants you to, maybe you’re not set free from some slavery in your life. Fair enough? But again, it’s not pass or fail. It’s learn and move on. Though the righteous fall seven times, they will not be hurled headlong. 

BITTERNESS

The first question is the question of bitterness. One month after the Red Sea, they face bitterness. It’ll be one of the first tests of your life, and it’ll be a test over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. 

And the test is this: why is God allowing this to happen to me? If God is God, why is He allowing this to happen to me? 

“Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea and they moved out.” Three days after the Red Sea, bitterness is tested. They traveled in the desert for three days without finding any water, and they came to the oasis of Marah.”

What’s an oasis? Relaxation, some water, probably some trees, get out of the heat. Brought them to this oasis, but the water was bitter. If you’ve ever driven from here to the West Coast on 80 and gone through parts of Salt Lake and Nevada and seen the salt flats, seen the mirage. I think it’s interesting Brigham Young thought that Salt Lake was the place God had sent us, and the water was salty. 

Anyway, “Moses cried out to the Lord, and He showed him a piece of wood, and he threw it into the water and made the water good to drink. It was there at Marah that the Lord said before them the following decree as a standard to test their faithfulness.” He said, “If–” this is an if/ then– “‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying His commandments and keeping all of his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians.’” First time healing is mentioned in Scripture. “‘For I am the Lord who heals you.’” 

Mark 6:19, John the Baptist stood up and said to Herodias and her husband, who was her former brother-in-law– twisted– she divorced her husband and married her brother-in-law. And John the Baptist said, What you have done is not right, and it says Herodias nursed a grudge. 

It means to be ensnared. Bitterness ensnares us. I know people that are angry and mad at somebody that has been dead for twenty years. My question is, who are you hurting? She nursed this grudge. I picture a mother breastfeeding this baby, and it grows out of that breast milk. 

She nursed the grudge. She was ensnared by the grudge, then you know what it resulted in? I want John the Baptist’s head on a platter. And guess what happened? In a party, they brought his head on a platter. Nice people. 

You want to read a great book sometime, read Thrones of Blood. It’s on the lineage of Herods in Scripture, Thrones of Blood, the lives of the Herods. Nasty, nasty people. But why? Because they were bitter. 

Some points regarding bitterness, it’s interesting that this is the first test: bitterness lies to us about the character of God, who He is, and the nature of God, how He acts, and how He accomplishes His will. 

It’s a question you will have to answer time and time again in your life. I call them times of critical mass. You will have times where, whether or not you believe it or not now, you will have times where it’s like, Is this all a joke? Is this really happening? Is God really real? If God is real, why is this happening to me now and in this circumstance and in this way? It will happen. Don’t freak out. It will happen. 

Also, God’s not freaked out by our decisions because sometimes He wants us to come to those times of critical mass. Like Peter, I just see him scratching his head, Jesus, I don’t have a clue what You just talked about, but where else can I go? 

And Christian growth is this: us coming to the place where we say, There’s no other place but Jesus. We sang about it this morning. He’s consistent, unchanging God, all the time. He’s the God yesterday, today, and forever.

I always say this: He is God now, He will be God in the future, and He was God in your past. Who He is has to be settled in our heart. That’s why it’s first. There are going to be things that happen to you that you will question the nature of God. 

But it’s not God that needs to be questioned. And let me tell you this: this bitterness of, Why did God allow this to happen? You may never find out the why, and you have to settle that in your heart. Isn’t that encouraging? 

I say this all the time, I told the guys at the Bible study on Tuesday night, I had people come up to me and say, When I get to Heaven, I’m going to ask Jesus why that happened. And I say, When you get to Heaven, you’re not going to care. So, if you’re not going to care, let’s bring Heaven down to earth, and let’s live like it now. Amen? 

Now, it’s not that you don’t share your concerns and your cares with Him, but if you’re looking for the answer to why, He’s trying to get you to who He is– not what happened, not why it happened– but who He is. 

Hebrews 12:15, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God.” We have the grace of God available to us. God asks me all the time, Gary, are you availing yourself to it? Well, it’s kind of easier to get into the attitude. “See that no one comes short of the grace of God, and that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble. By it, many become defiled.” 

I’ve said this before: there’s whole family lineages, everybody is bitter. It’s no fun being around those people. Grandma’s bitter, uncle’s bitter, aunt’s bitter, mom’s bitter, dad’s bitter, kids are bitter. Everybody’s bitter. 

Why? Because somebody in that lineage taught them how to feel sorry for themselves and not appropriate the grace of God and their life, and always ask the question, Why? Why? Why? Why? 

You know the question we need to ask? Why me? Why was I saved? Why was I born again? Why did God select me out of all the people on this planet? Why am I, today, standing before you? Why does God show such kindness and grace to me? 

It’s the message of David. It’s the message of Solomon. It’s the message of the prophets. Who am I, and what is my father’s household that You brought such kindness to me? That’s the why we need to ask. 

Bitterness is something that God needs to deal with swiftly and ruthlessly. How do you forgive? By saying, God, help me forgive. If it takes a hundred times a day, you do it a hundred times a day. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you trust somebody. If your uncle was a child molester, you don’t let him babysit your kids, but you can forgive him. 

How do you do that? God, You haven’t held my charge against me, I release their charge against them. God, I do it if it comes up tomorrow. God, I do it if it comes up the next hour. God, I do it, I appropriate the grace to forgive. 

By the way, something I didn’t tell to the first gathering: we need to be careful about sharing our bitterness, it’s transferred. Sometimes I share my offense with my wife, then I deal with it. I deal with the forgiveness because I’m the one that’s had the offense to me, but now she’s carrying my offense. 

And by the way, guys, quit being a wuss. Sometimes our wives are the ones that speak for us because we’re too chicken to say something. Start standing up for who you are in Jesus and quit passing on offenses. 

It happens over and over: Do you know? What? Do you know what they did to me? I was a good boy, and they were not good to me. Again, none of you ever deal with that. Ask God to make you very sensitive to when bitterness is beginning to take root, or when you’re starting to lean.

And then the next thing is this: there seems to be some connection between bitterness and sickness. I am not saying all sickness is related to bitterness, but I am saying there’s a lot of sickness related to bitterness. 

I think it’s interesting when he talks about bitterness, the bitter water was healed right after that. It’s the first mention of healing, and it deals with bitterness and unforgiveness. It says in the Psalms, “My bones rotted, I dried up from within because I didn’t forgive the people.” How many have ever seen that in your own life? You don’t have to raise your hand, you just expose yourself big time. 

PROVISION

The second question is the question of provision. Can God take care of us? And it’s the story of the manna. “The whole community set out from Elim and journeyed through the wilderness of Sin.” By the way, that’s not like sin, like they sinned, but they were sinning, “In Sin between Elim and Mount Sinai. And they arrived on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt.” 

This is the one month. And listen to what they said: “‘If only God had killed us back in Egypt.’” Do you really mean that? No. “‘If only God had killed us back in Egypt,’ they moaned. ‘There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted.’” You know why? Because you were slaves. We forget what we’re saved from. “‘And now you’ve brought us into this wilderness to starve us to death.’” 

Again, the Lord God says, Tell them this: tomorrow morning, they’re going to wake up, they’re going to find this fine wafer, like a cracker, all throughout the camp. And when they saw it, they go, Manna. And you know what manna means? What is it?

And when we go through things and God provides, sometimes we’re like, What is this? I was expecting You to do it this way. And God says, I want to do it that way. And we’re going, What is this? It’s manna. 

For forty years, they ate manna to the point where later on in life, they go, We loathe this miserable food. They said, We want quail. God says, You want quail, I’ll give you quail. It’s going to come out your nose. 

How many have ever puked so much it’s come out your nose? When you say, What is it? And you reject what God has done, and you want something else, He’ll make you sick of it. Provision does not always look like we imagined. 

The question is, how do we handle both lack and abundance? Paul, in Philippians 4, says, I’ve learned the secret of contentment. I’ve had a lot and I’ve had little, but I’ve learned this: contentment in who He is, and My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches and glory, and I can do all things through Christ. Those are both from that context, and it’s in the context of giving, by the way, guard against complacency. Years later, it’s the same complaint in Numbers 21, we don’t have time to read it. 

You know how you overcome trusting God in the provision? By being generous. It’s the one time God says, Test Me. One time in Scripture, we can test God. He says, Give the tithe and the offering and see if I don’t open the windows of Heaven. Jesus says, “Pressed down, shaken together, running over.” 

You want to learn how to trust God for provision? Deuteronomy says that the fear of God is taught by giving the tithe. And if you can’t give the tithe, start giving away something, a consistent something, and watch God build your trust. 

We don’t need your money. God doesn’t need your money. He needs your heart, and He knows if He has your money, He’ll have your heart. And it’s your resource– it’s not just money– it’s time and your talent. 

Generosity is the key to overcoming the fear of provision because it says that some Israelites hoarded back on the sixth day because they wanted more, and they woke up the next day, and it was rotted, full of maggots. 

GRATITUDE

The third test is the question of gratitude. Is God with us? Exodus 17: “At the Lord’s command, the whole community of Israel left the wilderness of Sin and moved from place to place. Eventually they camped at Rephidim, and there was no water.” 

So, they’re back at this stage once more. “The people complained, ‘Give us water to drink.’ ‘Quiet! Are you complaining against me? Why are you testing the Lord?’ But tormented by thirst, they continued to argue with Moses. ‘You brought us out here to kill us.’” 

Everybody, look at me. I want to encourage you: God will allow you to have want. You’ll be tormented sometimes by things. What? Yeah, tormented by thirst. Why? Because He wants you to know that He’s God. 

Notice at the end of this, they named the place Meribah, which means arguing, and Masa, which means test, because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, Is God here with us or not? 

Every one of us in this room are going to have seasons in our life where we will question whether God’s with us or not. Heard of the fear of God? You know my definition that the Lord gave me years and years ago? The fear of God, to me, is this: knowing God’s with me.

It’s all in fear and trembling, but knowing God is with me does two things: it comforts me when I don’t think He is, and it reminds me that He is when I’m about ready to walk away from Him. I need to know God’s with me, and it’s a basic test.

Within months of leaving the Red Sea, they tested the Lord and said, Is God with us or not? Guess what? If you argue with God, you’ll lose the argument, and if you argue with the devil, you’re going to get beat upside the head. That’s a Kenny Peters phrase. 

I saw an Instagram post from Pastor Belinda– I love her Instagram. Some people need to get off Instagram because what you’re saying is not nice. She said this: gratitude breaks the chains of resentment that shackle you to bitterness. 

Not knowing I was going to teach on this, I grabbed that point. Gratitude is more than attitude; it’s perspective, it’s an outlook on life. I am normally, by the grace of God, a half-full person. The glass is always half full to me. If I don’t understand it, God’s going to do something. If I don’t like it, get over it. God didn’t ask my permission. 

I told you the last time I taught, half the time when people get into my office, the answer is, Stop doing what you’re doing. Just knock it off. Stop it now. Some of us need counsel and therapy and stages or steps to go through to knock it off, but we need to just knock it off. It’ll be better for you. 

Pastor Greg always says, What’s the run rate on that for you? Have you met somebody that’s thirty years old and done drugs all their life, and they look like they’re seventy? What’s the run rate on that behavior you’re doing? It’s a good question for all of us to ask. 

Settle the question of God’s abiding presence. Whether you realize it or not, He is always. I was raised in a home and in a church where Jesus was almost like the Boogeyman. When you did something wrong, He got you. Guess what? The fear of God is not that. 

The fear of God is He’s with me whether I do something wrong or not. He may not like it. I can quench the Holy Spirit. I can grieve the Holy Spirit. But the fact is, He never quits loving me. Never stops being His abiding presence in my life. He doesn’t jump out of my car when I’m doing eighty in a seventy-five because He wouldn’t drive much going to Denver with me. Follow me? 

How do you process pain in torment is a great question. You know how we first process our pain and torment? God, I don’t like it. Here it is. I don’t like it. Who wakes up in the morning, going, I want to be rejected today. Please reject me. Make me feel bad about myself and everything else in the world. 

Nobody wakes up like that. But guess what? You’re going to go to work, probably this week, and somebody’s going to reject you. You have a test, right then: am I going to accept that pain in rejection? What’s your native response? Learn to take the pain and questions to God. 

In closing, there’s three questions that we will be faced with: why has God allowed this? Will God provide what I need? And is God with me? 

Anybody facing those right now? Why has God allowed this? Will He provide what I need? Is God with me? And guess what? The answer, the solution, to all three of these questions is Jesus. 

Remember what Moses was told to grab? A stick of wood. What was Jesus hung on? A tree. He took our pain and our sorrow. That’s why I can have questions and even have pain in my life. And this is what I’m asking you: if you’re having a hard time understanding the pain in your life, ask the Lord to give you a revelation of what He did for us. 

Because when we understand that He was bruised, beaten, yes, beard plucked out, beaten, flesh torn off, and He didn’t deserve any of it, when I understand that, I can embrace what God is doing in my life. 

It’s not a popular message today, but every one of us are going to suffer some pain and loss, and it’s not fun. I buried both of my parents. We buried both of my wife’s parents. That loss will never be recovered. There’s things that have happened in my life. I’ve been rejected by the Church. Whoop de doo. So is Jesus. 

The second question of will God. He says this: I am the bread. One of the seven great “I ams” of Jesus in the Book of John. I’m the door, I’m the Great Shepherd, I’m the light of the world. I’m the way, the truth, and the life. I’m the bread of life. He’s the answer to our pain. He’s my continual provision. 

And the question of is God with you? This is Psalm 18. Throughout the Psalms, David makes this statement: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, and the power that saves me, and my place of safety.” 

Psalms 40 says, He took me up out of the miry clay, that muck and mire I was in, He set my feet on a rock, and because of that, many are going to see and fear and put their trust in the Lord because of what I’ve gone through with a different spirit than what the world goes through it. That’s the message of today. 

How are you handling these three questions? There’s going to be prayer teams at the front. They’ll have a yellow badge on a black lanyard. Grab somebody and have them help you. 

Father, thanks for today. God, I ask in Jesus’ name that we would all settle those questions, no matter where we’re at. And God, if we’re not facing them right now, remind us of this teaching. Remind us of this word, that Father, You are the bread of life. You are the rock. You’re the one that died for my pain. Thank You for Your faithfulness. We praise You in Jesus’ name, amen.