Don’t Waste the Pandemic

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You have probably heard the expression, “Don’t waste the trial.” It is an appeal to not miss the lessons that God might have for you in the tests, difficulties, and challenges of life. It is to see God at work in every circumstance, especially the hard ones. It is to embrace trials in order to grow your faith, your endurance, and your intimacy with and knowledge of God. It is also to acknowledge the sovereignty of God over all things and to see each life situation as something that God has ordained for you. And if that’s true, you don’t want to waste the trial.

Early in 2020, all 7 billion inhabitants of planet earth were plunged into a common trial. God has his purposes for it. Now, 14 months later, we are hoping that the end is near. But what have you learned? What purposes of God have been fulfilled in you, as a Christian? What’s different about you? Have you grown? Are you a stronger believer? Is your love for Jesus deeper? Are you more resolved with respect to the mission? As this trial winds down, it is critical to be asking yourself these questions and more like them because you don’t want to waste the pandemic.

Our teaching time on Sunday will be devoted to these questions and to not wasting what God has been doing.

Sermon Notes

Don’t Waste the Pandemic

Todd Dugard

2 Corinthians 12:10

 

I must not waste the pandemic…

 

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…for the sake of Christ 

 

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…but instead, be content with what God has allowed and ordained

 

Content—free from care because of satisfaction with what is already one’s own.

ISBE

 

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…showing his strength, not mine, in the midst of it, as I…

 

There is no value in the endurance of hardships and indignities in themselves. There is no virtue in suffering. Everything turns on the phrase “for the sake of Christ.” Only a fanatic would find contentment in self-inflicted suffering and miseries. But a Christian will find a special contentment in sufferings endured “for the sake of Christ.” This is because such a believer understands and has taken to heart the paradox of power—“For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The spiritual math is never, “my weakness plus his strength equals my power.” Rather, it is, “my weakness plus his strength equals his power.”

Kent Hughes

 

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…worship Christ

 

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…walk with Christ

 

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…work for Christ

 

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…and witness for Christ

 

I believe the time is coming when we will not be able to take our Christianity as casually as we do now.

A.W. Tozer