8/31/25 SERMON NOTES - FORGED IN THE FIRE week2 | TYLER KIRBY | Tyler Kirby
Psalm 115:1 NLT “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name goes all the glory…”
1John 4:4 NLT “…the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world."
Title: Suffering as a Test of Faith
C. S. Lewis – “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shout in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Series Verse: Job 23:10 NIV “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”
Job 23:3,8-9 NIV “3If only I knew where to find Him; if only I could go to His dwelling! … 8But if I go east, He is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find Him. 9When He is at work in the north, I do not see Him; when He turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of Him.”
“He knows the way I take”
-Job admits he doesn’t see God … but Job knows God sees him.
-Job expresses total trust in God’s sovereignty
Lamentations 3:31-33, 37-38 NIV “31For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. 32Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. 33For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone…37Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?”
“He has tested me I will come forth as gold”
‘tested’ - to prove the genuineness of
-Job believed the end result of God’s refining would be transformation
-Job knew that his suffering wasn’t punishment from God, but a test administered by God.
This ‘testing’ is a process called ‘refining’
Isaiah 48:10 NLT “I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.”
Suffering is God’s refining fire…
1. Exposing sins to be removed, so His image is seen in us.
‘refined’ - removing impurities to make a precious metal pure.
Proverbs 25:4 NLT “Remove the impurities from silver, and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith.”
2Corinthians 3:18 NLT “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord -who is the Spirit - makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.”
God’s not experimenting with us; He’s refining us with purpose.
2. Revealing the authenticity of our faith.
1Peter 1:6-7 NIV “6In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
-Fire exposes fake gold in the same way that suffering exposes shallow faith.
Matthew 13:20-21 NIV “20The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.”
-Genuine faith clings to Christ when life goes sideways.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIV “17Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
3. Shaping and strengthening our faith.
James 1:2-3 ESV “2Count it all joy my brothers and sisters when you meet trials of various kinds 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
(steadfastness, perseverance, endurance - means the capacity to continue to bear up under difficult circumstances; firm and unwavering under pressure)
The presence of suffering is not the absence of God’s love and care - it’s the evidence of His commitment to our growth.
James doesn’t say if trials come, but when.
Romans 8:18 NIV “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”