James Joy in Trials
Notes
Transcript
What does God want them to know? There is joy in trials because it makes us complete…we get humility, freedom, compassion, faith
Why? we get joy humility, freedom, compassion, faith
What does God want them do? Be steadfast and believe
Why? we get joy humility, freedom, compassion, faith
James intro
Three questions we need to ask
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.
Who is the letter written to?
it is written to the churches who are facing dispersion....the church that has been dispersed
Why are they dispersed? By their own will? No by because of persecution from Rome and Jewish religious leaders
Does this mean that it is not written for us then??? No
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Besides that, have we not in our country at times felt pushed out by the governmental powers that be
What is the purpose? Why was it written?
James is writting a practical Christianity letter, basic Christianity to the early church…here is the practical ways to live your faith....
Some also call it the book of Proverbs (the practical wisdom book in the OT) for the New Testament.
Who wrote the letter?
James the half brother of Jesus who was a Pillar in the early church in Jerusalem…he was a leader of leader
Some might say of course he is…he’s Jesus brother…makes sense…it did not make sense before the resurrection of Jesus
Why?
James didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah until after the resurrection.
He walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus, heard Jesus
But it wasn’t until the resurrection that he believed
It was the revelation that changed his life
James didn’t believe in Jesus he gave his whole life to Jesus
We are going to walk through this chapter by chapter
JAMES
The first thing James wants to address is something we all face, we all struggle with, we all in our flesh do not like
Anybody want to guess, without looking, what James is going write about first to the church who is under persecution?
Trials
Anyone face a trial? A hardship
ALL OF US
ANYBODY BEEN IN THE WORLD THE LAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS??
What James is going to do is give us a Godly perspective on trials
show us God’s way of handling trials
If there is God’s way, there is another way
What’s the other way we face trials? WHAT IS THE WORLDS WAY OF DEALING WITH TRAILS??
FACE THEM HEAD ON??
We avoid them at all costs
Our WORLD AND HUMAN FLESH AND WILL OFTEN says “AVOID, AVOID, AVOID…THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY AND THERE IS…WHICH IS TO LAY DOWN....BUT THAT IS NOT HELPFUL”
THIS IS WHAT Reachers Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt DISCOVERED this in their EYE OPENING ground breaking research and said the popular belief today “what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker”
DON’T DO HARD THINGS
AVOID THEM
DO NOT STRUGGLE
LET THINGS GET HANDED TO YOU
“don’t go down hard street, trial street because you might die”
BUT IS THAT TRUE! TRIALS ARE BAD, HURTFUL, HARMFUL, MAKES YOU WEAKER???
NO, LISTEN TO WHAT JAMES SAYS
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
Wait a minute....time out…no, no, no James....they are the antijoy…you want no joy, go through trials
All joy....this is going to get good…when you meet trials....what!?!?!
James, James, no, no, no
WHY JOY?
HOW ARE TRIALS JOYFUL?
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
TRIALS TEST YOUR FAITH
IT TESTS WHO OR WHAT YOU HAVE YOU FAITH, CONFIDENCE, TRUST IN
IS OUR CONFIDENCE IN GOD OR SOMETHING OR SOMEONE ELSE
Is it on the rock or sinking sand
OR IF OUT FAITH IN IS SOMETHING ELSE DURING THE TRAIL....IT MOVES US TOWARDS GOD WHEN IT MOVES US TOWARD GOD WE BECOME STEADFAST.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE Steadfastness???....THE GREEK WORD LITERAL MEANS…TO HYPERSTAND DURING DIFFICULT SITUATIONS.
What trials do to us is GROWS OUR FAITH that it HYPERSTANDS and the biggest reason why we become strong is because we cling to the one who is strong.
We are not weaker, but stronger
We know this in the natural…to become STRONGER to get STRONGER by running from the GYM or LIFTING LITE WEIGHTS? no we become stronger by going to the gym and lifting heavier weights and heavier weights
Many of us know this, right....that your greatest moments in your life when your FAITH became strong was when you faced a trial.
My coming back to Jesus moment, defining moment, happened during a trial, where every day I clung to Jesus
Jesus help me, Jesus help me
Some of us need to hear this today because you are going through a trial and it is hard and you on the verge of giving up and God is saying “JOY” I am growing you up
Here’s the deal too many of us need trials because we would not on our own GROWN in the area God wants us to grow in on our own.
Ask the persecuted church, the church that faces trial all the time…how is there faith?
Not only do we become STRONG, HYPERSTAND during trials.....it grows our faith
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
These TRIALS when we go through them you become all that GOD has called you to be
They as
PERFECT (finished)
COMPLETE (whole)
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
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.
this is how important this is
YOU WILL NEVER BECOME ALL THAT GOD HAS CALLED YOU TO BE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH TRIALS
We do not grow just by a sermon alone...
We read and pray everyday
The early church had few bibles but great faiht
We are over educated but have little faith in American
Who are stunted…the enemy has stopped us with
COVID was a trial and many people grew in their faith, it soared and others fell away
WHO DOES does TRIALS make us PERFECT and COMPLETE?
What are the things TRIALS can often do greater than reading our Bible, hearing a sermon, praying
The practical question is how do TRIALS make us PERFECT and COMPLETE
4 ways
2. Makes us Humble
What happens in the human life is we by grace run to Jesus saying we need help! Help me with my sin! Help me to find a job! Help with money!
You see this with KINGS and JUDGES of Israel
GOD HELP ME, GOD HELP ME
SOLOMN
then what happens
We get a job, we get promoted, at first we are like thank you thank you God
LOSE YOU JOB....GOD I NEED YOUR HELP
God is not being mean…He will provide for us....HE is moving our focus back on Him
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, 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 that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The reason I have this trial is to keep my humble
TO keep my dependant upon God NOT on PAUL
Some of us God is saying the reason you have that TRIAL is so you will remain dependent upon me....be humble
3. Gives us Freedom
How does a trial produce freedom??? It forces us to let go go of something we are clinging so tightly too.
- You can’t have this
- A test to know what our function idol or God is, is there something in our life that we say no God you can have all of that but not this
We are holding unto something we should let go of....
A relationship, a job, a bad habit
God is saying it is time for that to go, it is time for you to move, it is time for you to be done with that person.
I knew towards the end the relationship I was in with someone in college was not the person God had for me....but God waht is going to happen? I was trying to reason with God
Maybe it is a relationship.....I have known plenty of people (me included) who were fired or let go…but it gave us freedom to be with who God has called me to be with.
HE IS NO FOOL WHO GIVES UP WHAT HE CANNOT KEEP TO GAIN WHAT HE CANNOT LOSE- JIM ELLIOT
4. Grows our Compassion for others and empowers us to encourage others
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
One of the reasons we go through a trial is not just so our FAITH can GROWN, HYPERSTAND, but it wasn’t just for you…God brought you through that trial so that you may help others through a similar trial.
God didn’t bring you through DIVORCE of DEATH OF A LOVED ONE ONE just for you but so that you would help others through it...
You have the experience
You have the heart
What trial have you been through that God wants you to share as a testimony???
Don’t walk in shame from you past
Walk in victory because you have been delivered.
Divorce
Death of a loved one
Physical problem
Financial
Abuse
Addiction
Depression
Anxiety
Season of doubting God
Divorced person can speak greater into divorce than I can
Anxiety and depression and SPIRITUAL HEALTH, I have experience (I’ve been there, I know the hopelessness, the sleepless nights) and heart for it
4. Character and Hope
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
How do does Godly character come?
How does it produce character and hope?
Who you are with in general, but specifically in the trial determines who you will become
When you in a trial who you are with determines who you will become ten fold
how do we get hope? We are walking with the God of hope and the people of hope
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation
God is saying count it JOY when you face trials because I am growing you, growing your faith, character, compassion, humility
What trial are you in right now?
If you are not in one, you will be....don’t say that....
The Christian life is
you are in the trial
you have just ended a trial (a time of great rejoicing)
you are about to go back into one
this is a cycle God uses for our growth
It is not easy, but it is God
COMMUNION
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
endured: hyperstood