WEBVTT 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.280 Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast. 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:11.599 We exist to awaken this generation to new life in Christ. 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:13.039 Thanks for tuning in. 00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:16.399 To find out more, go to awakeningchurch.com. 00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:28.559 Well, you know, whenever there's a national event like the coronavirus that's going on right now, it seems there's a way we should react, you know? 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:38.399 It seems like there's a way in which all human beings are supposed to react, and it seems like the only options are fear or indifference. 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:50.240 It seems that the options right now are to go along with your life in some type of blissful ignorance or to punch somebody for a roll of toilet paper at Target. 00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:57.520 Those seem to be the options of the general worldview of our life if you just kind of listen. 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:04.319 For our society, you know, a virus like this is equated with fear, and that that makes sense to us. 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:07.519 Something like this happening in our world, it just makes sense. 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:09.599 Yes, we should be afraid. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.760 But aren't there other ways to live? 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:21.599 Aren't there other options to live within a time where something, yes, is a serious threat and yes is a serious problem, but are there other reactions other than fear that can happen? 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:27.040 I really enjoy and have friends that work with the Christian movement in China. 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:42.879 And it was interesting to hear that in China, just five days ago, there's a report of churches in areas where the virus was an imminent threat, that Christians are actually handing out masks and sanitation materials and praying for people. 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:53.920 Like Christians are not holed up in isolation, but unafraid, are courageously learning to love their community in an intense time. 00:01:54.319 --> 00:02:04.079 And it's that kind of thinking that actually drops us into our series today called A Holy Contradiction, because it's rooted in this simple question. 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:20.960 Are there ways and areas of life where Christians should not just go with the flow of society and the flow of the general zeitgeist, but to move in an opposite direction and live as a holy contradiction, like the Christians in China? 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:21.360 Right? 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:25.840 There are certain pockets of Christians right now that are living contradictory lives. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:28.960 How are you courageous in a time that is threatening? 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.639 Or put it in a different season in a different time period, right? 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:35.360 A time that is anxious, how are you living with peace? 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:35.840 Right? 00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:38.159 Those seem contradictory. 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.560 All of the things in our world should prove that we should be filled with anxiety. 00:02:42.719 --> 00:02:46.560 But somehow, in some way, Christians are to live against the grain. 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:51.680 It seems contradictory to meet such a threat with courage and patience. 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.319 But is that kind of response possible? 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:55.919 That's what we want to explore. 00:02:56.080 --> 00:03:04.080 To answer these and many other questions, we're going to begin a long season in our church, a decent season in our church, through the New Testament book of James. 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:06.080 If you have a Bible, you can actually go there. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:10.879 You could go to the end of your Bible, it's after Hebrews, but if you're in the Peters, you've gone too far. 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:12.879 Or on your app, you can just type in James. 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:13.599 It's that simple. 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:15.520 You can go to James chapter one. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:22.800 We're just gonna take, in this three-week series, a holy contradiction, the first 12 verses of the whole book. 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:24.960 So we're not gonna do the whole book in three weeks. 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:29.280 We're gonna just take a chunk of the first chapter in just three weeks. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.919 The book of James is a New Testament letter or an epistle. 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:38.240 This is a way of saying it was written to a community by a church leader. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.159 That church leader was James. 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.879 And he begins his letter this way in James chapter 1, verse 1. 00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:45.680 Look at this verse. 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:54.560 It says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings. 00:03:54.719 --> 00:03:56.400 That's the way you started letters. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:03.360 Back then you didn't sign your name at the end of the letter, you signed your name at the beginning of the letter to show who this was from. 00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:07.840 Let's look just at the kind of like schematic of the book of James. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.319 The author is James the Just. 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:13.280 This is how he's referred to in church history. 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:16.560 He was the brother of Jesus, which is a crazy thing. 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:17.439 Let's just pause there. 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:21.120 He was the brother of Jesus and an overseer of the church in Jerusalem. 00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:29.120 So he's related to Jesus Christ, which makes it shocking that chapter 1, verse 1, he says he's a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:36.000 Is that while he was related to Jesus, he recognized the Lordship and majesty of Jesus, that Jesus wasn't just a teacher. 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:43.600 His brother wasn't just a teacher, his brother wasn't just a prophet, his brother wasn't just a healer, his brother was God incarnate. 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:52.079 And James pauses and says, I live my life in service to my earthly brother, who's actually the eternal father. 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:53.519 Pretty crazy. 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:55.600 You have brothers and sisters? 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.199 Would you ever say you would never say that? 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:00.399 You would never say that. 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:01.519 I love my siblings. 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:02.959 If they're watching, I love you. 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:05.120 I would never say anything like that about them, right? 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:19.360 But James the Just, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, says that he wrote this letter in 40 to 45 AD, meaning that's seven to ten years or seven to twelve years after Jesus would have been crucified and rose from the dead. 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:24.959 So we're actually very close to the think about 10 years ago is 2010, right? 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:26.480 You can remember what happened then. 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.439 It actually, you know, for some of us doesn't seem that long ago, right? 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:30.560 I got married 10 years ago. 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:32.639 It doesn't seem that long ago to me. 00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:37.040 And he was writing mainly to a Jewish Christian audience. 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:44.480 Okay, so he oversaw the church in Jerusalem, meaning he was actually pastoring a lot of people who were Jewish converts. 00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:50.000 We have to remember, the Christian movement, when it began, was a Jewish movement of conversion. 00:05:50.240 --> 00:06:01.759 And actually, one of the largest big like theological emergencies in the first century was the fact that not just Jews became Christians, but Gentiles, non-Jews were becoming Christians, and that was a huge issue. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:14.240 And so what James is doing is he's leading predominantly Jewish Christians and writing to predominantly Jewish Christians throughout the Palestine-Syria regions north of Jerusalem, okay? 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:26.959 But we're pretty sure, because this book is currently in our Bible 2,000 years later, we're quite sure that the book of James was circulated throughout a large network in the Middle East of home churches and city churches. 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:35.279 That this book, because it was written by such an authoritative figure, was circulated with incredible authority around the early church. 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:40.000 And he's when that's when he's writing, he says, to the dispersion, the twelve tribes. 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:41.759 You say, what is he talking about there? 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:56.319 These 12 tribes, this dispersion, was the way the Jewish people, and James, who was a Jew, leading Jewish people, would have talked about the regathered, spiritually renewed Israel, which is the church, the new people of God. 00:06:56.639 --> 00:07:18.800 That actually the dispersion, the displaced people who are Jewish all over the world, the tribes that had been scattered throughout the ancient world, were now being regathered, and even Gentiles were beginning to join, and that this people group, this dispersion, was the group that God would use now for his new redemptive purposes. 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:26.720 He would take Israel, as he always said he did, and he said, I'm gonna make Israel a nation for the nations, a blessing to bless other nations. 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:30.399 And that God will use Israel in a powerful way to gather all people. 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.040 And that's what begins in the early church. 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:43.199 The church begins to live like a dispersion or as a contradictory community, because the people of Israel always lived as a contradiction. 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:45.519 They always had things that were weird about them. 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:51.360 They would always live, Leviticus told them to live holy as God was holy. 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:56.240 And all holy means is unique or set apart, right? 00:07:56.560 --> 00:07:58.399 Holy, we think, is morally pure. 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:02.639 And yes, God, when we speak about God, he's morally pure, but he's also other. 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:05.120 That's what we mean when we say holy. 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:16.240 And so God's people, Israel, and the church back 2,000 years ago, and the church today, in all of these different timelines, will live as a holy contradiction in their world. 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:24.240 They'll be dispersed throughout the world in all kinds of regions, but they'll live differently, set apart as a contradictory community. 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:34.080 And James, in his intro, will get right into one way this the community of God will live contradictory, and that's around this area of trials. 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.960 Look at what he says in James chapter 1, verse 2. 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:38.639 He says, Count it all joy. 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:39.919 You may have heard this verse before. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:41.679 This is a famous verse. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:47.120 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. 00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:52.639 For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:59.679 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:03.519 Count it all joy when you meet trials. 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:12.240 James is saying, when things don't go your way, you do not have an obstacle, but an opportunity. 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:19.039 That opportunity is to live in such a way that might contradict the people around you. 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:22.399 In other words, you can have joy in the midst of trials. 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:24.480 How can you live that way? 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:26.240 Well, let's pause for a second. 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:28.559 What does he mean when he says trials? 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:33.360 Trials, I'll use trials, pain, suffering kind of interchangeably today. 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:44.799 Here's how I would define trials the unexpected, uncomfortable, uncontrollable circumstances of pain that can cause us to want to bail on faith in God. 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:46.480 Let's just read that one more time. 00:09:46.559 --> 00:09:55.039 That is the unexpected, uncomfortable, uncontrollable circumstances of pain that can cause us to want to bail on faith in God. 00:09:55.200 --> 00:09:56.480 Have you had a trial? 00:09:57.679 --> 00:10:05.279 Have you walked through a season that you didn't expect that was uncomfortable? 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:08.000 And that you couldn't control? 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:12.799 And suddenly you were like, is this God thing worth it? 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:20.960 Trials of various kinds, he says in James chapter 1, verse 2. 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:24.879 Counted all joy when you acquired trials of various kinds. 00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:30.480 One thing I love about the Bible is that it tells us that suffering is deeply complicated. 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:35.440 That suffering has many forms and types. 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:43.440 And there's a temptation, I think, and many Christians have taken it unfortunately, to simplify pain and trials. 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:46.799 What I mean by that is they want to make it just one thing. 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:51.200 And they want to make trials to just be God sends all trials. 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:53.120 God makes all trials. 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:55.840 God is the author of all suffering. 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:57.440 And they simplify it. 00:10:57.519 --> 00:10:59.600 Or God is not the author of any suffering. 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:00.480 He has no control. 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.519 He's totally left his hands off the earth. 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:12.960 But you know, the Bible, when you read it, and actually, particularly with the Bible reading plan, when you read the wisdom literature, you'll see that the Bible affirms a complicated world. 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:19.679 That trials are the result often of what the Bible calls sin or rebellion against God's ways. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:28.559 So oftentimes, the reason things are hard or the reason suffering has occurred is because we have rejected God's wisdom and gone our own way. 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:30.320 That's all through the Bible, right? 00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:33.039 And you've seen that in your own life, I've seen that in my own life, right? 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:46.720 The other way is through brokenness, or the scripture calls it like iniquity, which is like a bentness that the world has, a fractured nature about our cosmos that goes into the cellular level of this creation. 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:48.080 What do I mean by that? 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:58.000 I mean that sin is not just moral wrongdoing, it is the effect of moral wrongdoing upon all creation, which leads us to not live in a perfect world. 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:08.240 You see, God created a world that was good, and he filled it with people who had choice and a world that had choice and a world that also had abundance. 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:11.200 He said, Be fruitful and multiply, tons and tons of things happen. 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:22.799 And as you trace the storyline of scripture after Genesis 3, you start to realize there is just something wrong with the world and creation, and it leads to things like disease and disasters. 00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:31.759 But another kind of various kind is so there's sin, there's brokenness and iniquity, but also a various kind of trial would be like spiritual. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:38.960 One of the things the Bible absolutely affirms is that God is involved in this world. 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:45.039 And that sometimes the trouble that is brought upon our life is from God, but sometimes it's not. 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:47.360 And that's an important affirmation. 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:56.720 Also, sometimes because we live in not just a physical world but a spiritual world, that the suffering in this world is not God but the his enemy. 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:06.480 And it's this complicated picture that James alludes to when he says, Count it joy when you inquire uh when you encounter trials of various kinds. 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:11.360 Not everything that happens in this world is God's will. 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:18.559 That's why Jesus told us to pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:22.159 There are active agents working against the will of God. 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:28.240 You don't live in a world where it's just your voice, your head, God's voice, God's head. 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:34.320 You live in a complicated, broken, spiritually fractured world. 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:37.840 And experiencing that is painful. 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.759 This is the way because of that pain, we've tried to explain it. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.679 I I kind of crib here from Tim Keller, but also other sources and kind of put some things together my own. 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:56.639 I have five stories I think were told about suffering through the world, and let's just put them all up uh, well, let's put them one up one by one. 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:56.879 Yeah. 00:13:57.039 --> 00:13:58.480 The secular story. 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:03.120 The secular story is that trials are an accident, right? 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:08.399 There's no rhyme or reason, there's no author, there's no control, they're total accident. 00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:12.320 So arrange your life and society to avoid it. 00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:13.519 Have you believed this one? 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:16.240 I've I've been there before, right? 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:21.679 It's okay if when I walk through some of these, you go, wait, I thought that's kind of how it goes. 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.480 Because these are the ones I think the stories we've kind of been told. 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:33.279 And a secular mindset, which has no uh categories for the spiritual, is going to say something like, Trials are an accident, so arrange your life in society to avoid it. 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:35.039 The fundamentalist story. 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:42.399 If you grew up in a rigid fundamental background, trials are inevitable, they will come, so endure it and receive honor. 00:14:42.639 --> 00:14:46.399 Now you're gonna hear parts of this that are gonna be sounding true. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:47.679 Are trials inevitable? 00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:50.320 Yes, trials are inevitable, suffering's inevitable. 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:53.600 But this fundamentalism which says, man up, right? 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:54.480 You ever heard that? 00:14:54.559 --> 00:15:00.080 Or suck it up, just get through it, grind it out, tough it out, move forward. 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:02.720 If you endure that, you're an honorable person. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:04.879 Stoicism would teach this too, right? 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:09.840 The Greek philosophy of stoicism, fundamentalist story says they're inevitable, just endure it. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.799 Have no feelings, don't lament, just walk through as an honorable man or an honorable woman. 00:15:15.039 --> 00:15:17.519 There's also a story of the mindfulness story. 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:23.120 You'll see this in a lot of Eastern religions, particularly in Buddhism and Hinduism, but it's also crept into the church. 00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:26.080 It's crept into Christian theology, and I don't think it's right. 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:32.320 The mindfulness story says that trials are a kind of illusion, and so you have to detach yourself and become enlightened. 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:42.399 Now, I know some of this phrase might have helped you at some point in your life, so I don't want to like totally, you know, destroy this or whatever, but I kind of hear that when I hear people say, let go and let God. 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:59.759 I just kind of hear that idea of like leaking into the church that like we don't have to, we just have to, we don't have to even think about our trials, just forget about them, forget about our suffering, and just ascend to a kind of spiritual plane wherein we engage with uh, you know, nirvana, right? 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:01.600 That would be the Eastern teaching. 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:06.159 Or some kind of like meditative state that leads us to transcendent peace. 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:08.000 That's the mindfulness story. 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:13.759 The next one is the moralistic story, which tells us that trials are a result of your wrongdoing. 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:15.279 Maybe you grew up this way. 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:17.840 Do good, you'll be blessed. 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:20.000 Do good, and you'll be blessed. 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:25.759 Trials are always a result of you doing the wrong thing, and so when you do the right thing, you'll live a happy life. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.639 That's overly simplistic and moral, right? 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:33.360 Now, you'll read the Proverbs, and the Proverbs will actually sound a little bit like this. 00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:36.080 But again, it's important to read all of the wisdom literatures as well. 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:37.279 I love about the Bible. 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:39.360 Because then you meet Job. 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:44.480 And Job is the man who lived Proverbs and he suffers. 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:52.000 And Job helps you reckon with the question: what happens when you follow the rules to a T and you still experience trials? 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:53.759 How do you trust God's wisdom? 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:55.120 Powerful stuff, right? 00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:57.679 But the moralistic story is an oversimplification. 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:02.960 How about the hedonistic story, last one, which is that trials are confusing, so forget it and have fun. 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:06.880 Have a glass of wine, go on vacation. 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:09.920 I know life is hard right now, but just have fun. 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:12.319 Hedonistic means pleasure seeking. 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:15.599 Just go have sleep with whoever you want, enjoy life. 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:17.440 Like just it's YOLO. 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:19.279 You only live once. 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:21.279 It's the hedonistic story of our world. 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:24.079 Trials are confusing, forget it and have fun. 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:27.680 But for us, for us, there's a Christian story. 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:34.400 And I think I would summarize the Christian story as this trials are a process. 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:38.720 Stay faithful and be transformed. 00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:43.200 Trials are a process. 00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:53.200 As we stay faithful and remain under God's life for us and with us, we will be transformed. 00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.440 Notice that I didn't say stay faithful and transform yourself. 00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:14.480 I actually believe that the operating work of God begins in us in a new way when we endure suffering and we allow the Spirit of God to do the transformative work as our life feels depleted and empty. 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.079 All throughout your Bible, it talks about trial as a process. 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:19.680 Look at Psalm 66. 00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:26.000 This is a song from the ancient Hebrew scriptures that James would have been, probably had it memorized, let's be honest. 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:28.559 For you, O God, have tested us. 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:33.599 There's a process, you have tried us as silver is tried. 00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:36.000 Look at the end, at the end in verse 12. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:40.559 Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:46.880 So you've took you took us in, you've tried us the way silver would be tried, but you brought us out. 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:48.079 Process. 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:58.559 Job, when he's in the middle of his suffering, he cries this prayer that I think if you're going through a trial right now is a beautiful verse to memorize. 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:09.839 Though he slay me, which is a really dramatic way to put it, I will hope in him, yet I will argue my ways to his face. 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:19.759 God, I'm going through something that is so painful, but I know on the other end of this is something I cannot see. 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:24.000 In the meantime, I'm gonna let you know I disagree. 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:34.079 If you are going through pain, you have the freedom to argue your ways to God's face. 00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:38.880 Jesus Christ in the garden would teach us that it gets enemy. 00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:50.480 You have the freedom today to worship at awakening and argue with God. 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:53.680 But I would say, take this whole verse. 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:56.240 God, I will hope in you. 00:19:57.039 --> 00:20:00.559 But I so I don't know what you're doing in my life right now. 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:06.240 Proverbs, the ancient wisdom book, verse, chapter 17, verse 3. 00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:12.559 The crucible is for silver, the furnace, the fire is for gold, but the Lord tests the heart. 00:20:13.119 --> 00:20:18.000 So just the same way that gold's got to go through a process, the heart must go through a process. 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:20.000 The heart must go through a test. 00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:22.480 How about Romans 5 in the New Testament? 00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:31.119 Paul almost, in a strange, beautiful Holy Spirit matchmaking way, almost exactly writes what James writes. 00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:36.640 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings or our trials. 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:37.359 We glory in them. 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:37.759 Why? 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:46.000 Because we know that suffering, and if you're looking at your Bible or you've got it on your app, highlight this, produces perseverance. 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:48.880 Perseverance character and character hope. 00:20:49.519 --> 00:20:53.440 Suffering is a process that produces something in you. 00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:59.119 Suffering is a factory for character development. 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:05.119 Suffering works in our life in such a way that it transforms us. 00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:08.640 So how do we get to the joy of it? 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:15.920 Well, let me clarify because all these writers seem to be saying the same thing, that suffering is this process. 00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:19.759 But hear me very carefully and closely here. 00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:33.039 That just because good is on the end of suffering, or abundance is on the end of suffering, or transformation is on the end of suffering, good is on the end, doesn't mean that the thing itself is good. 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:35.599 Can we talk about this for a second? 00:21:37.119 --> 00:21:40.880 You went through something in your life, a trial. 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:46.880 And God will make it into something good, but it's still evil. 00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:54.720 There's twisted theology that makes you start people will tell you you've got to start seeing the abuse as good. 00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:55.279 No. 00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:59.599 The abuse is wicked, cancer is evil, disease. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:04.400 Is sin is a result of this sinful world, this broken world we live in, right? 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:10.960 There's no place in which we should look back on our life of the suffering point and go, that was a good thing. 00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:15.759 It's a hard thing, a difficult thing, a trial, suffering, evil. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:26.559 But God is so good and so transcendent that he takes the very thing that is defined as evil and he works it, rearranges it, recapitulates your life to bring it to a place of good. 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:28.160 That's how powerful he is. 00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:30.720 But it doesn't mean that the thing originally was good. 00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:37.279 And so, how do we then have this joy that he talks about? 00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:40.720 James says to count it joy. 00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:47.440 And it's partly to know that joy will come when we see what I've just outlined a little bit. 00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:56.799 It's this joy comes in suffering with a perspective shift that comes from faith in Jesus Christ. 00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:03.039 Joy in suffering happens with a perspective shift that comes from faith in Jesus Christ. 00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:12.720 What we're asking us to do is to step back from our suffering and to see the process that God might be taking us through. 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:29.759 To pause for a second to realize that suffering might be something that God is utilizing in our life, albeit strangely, mysteriously, we don't understand, but shifting our perspective to see that faith in Jesus, that comes from faith in Jesus. 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:33.759 Three ways that I would have us shift our perspective. 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:35.839 The first is how we see life. 00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:37.440 How we see life. 00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:45.279 The perspective could go like this: Life is about God's formation of my character in Christ. 00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:47.119 That's the perspective. 00:23:47.440 --> 00:24:00.720 We talked last week, Ryan closed our relational intelligence series and said that the pursuit of happiness or the deservedness of happiness, that I deserve to be happy, is not the framework we should operate our lives in. 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:03.359 It will lead to disastrous things. 00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:08.720 It will lead to letdowns in relationships, it will lead to us probably in unhappy marriages. 00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:12.079 It's strange that the pursuit of happiness itself leads us to unhappiness. 00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:13.839 Go back, listen to last week's message. 00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:15.279 So helpful. 00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:31.839 But we have to remember that life in general is not about my personal well-being, the achievement of my goals, but the life that I'm living is about God forming my character to Jesus Christ. 00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:34.079 That's why he says this in verse 4. 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.519 James says, and let steadfastness have its full effect. 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:39.680 You can look back at that verse in your bulletin. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:46.559 Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.200 Steadfastness, that's a very biblical word, is it not? 00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:50.480 It's kind of confusing sometimes. 00:24:50.559 --> 00:24:52.960 We don't often talk about, hey, how is work? 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:55.680 Well, um, I was very steadfast today. 00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:59.200 Uh but I actually this is a really helpful and beautiful word. 00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:01.119 In the Greek, it's hupamenoi. 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:04.559 It means the ability to remain under. 00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:06.799 Isn't that cool? 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:13.119 And what James is saying is he's saying, if you have the ability to remain under God, steadfastness. 00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:16.880 It's also called perseverance, if you heard that, it's a biblical term. 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:18.319 Perseverance. 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:34.240 If you have the ability to remain under your life with God and continue to exalt him as your Lord and walk in his ways and submit to his ways, when that it says has full effect, it says you'll be perfect and complete. 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:38.559 You won't lack anything if you're able to remain. 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:39.680 It's cool. 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:45.680 I love that scripture tells us, man, when you're suffering, one foot in front of the other. 00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:47.680 Like remain, right? 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:49.519 Just keep keep going. 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:50.559 That's the encouragement. 00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:52.000 Keep going in life with God. 00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:52.720 It's gonna be hard. 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:59.599 Keep going in life with God and remain under God's good word, and you'll be complete, lacking in nothing. 00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:00.960 It says perfect, though. 00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:03.200 Doesn't that make you kind of feel strange? 00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:06.319 The Greek word is telios, which is where we get telescope. 00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:08.240 It's the ability to see the end. 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:19.200 So it's more of a completion of going like when you're steadfast, you're going, God, I'm trusting, while I don't understand right now, I'm trusting the then, right? 00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:25.279 I'm trusting the telios, I'm trying to trusting the end of this will result in the building of my character. 00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:39.119 Because we know life is about my formation in Christ, and when I rearrange how I think about my life, I'm able to remain under you, God, knowing that every beautiful thing requires pressure, right? 00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:43.200 And I'm another beautiful thing that requires a little bit of pressure. 00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:46.079 That's why scripture talks about gold, silver. 00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:53.039 It requires pressure to make beautiful pearls, requires pressure under the deep sea to make beautiful things. 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:58.720 The best music you have heard, I would say objectively, comes from pressure. 00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:03.519 The Irish fiddle brought us folk music out of seasons of suffering and oppression. 00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:08.319 The African drum out of the early slave movements brought us rhythm and blues and jazz. 00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:11.839 Gospel music comes from there, soul music comes from there. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:12.319 Why? 00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:16.400 The most beautiful music happens in a space of pressure. 00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:19.119 Again, it doesn't mean that those things were good. 00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:24.160 It means that somehow, mysteriously and magically, good came out of it. 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:31.519 And for us, we view our lives that way, that there's there's something about our life that's happening that we can't see. 00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:39.119 And I tend to tell young leaders and young Christians this sometimes when they're going through a trial. 00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:45.839 And I say, this might shock you, you know, but I'm actually kind of excited for you. 00:27:47.200 --> 00:27:54.720 And the reason I'm excited for you is because I can see, and I've said this to some of you, by the way, in this room. 00:27:55.440 --> 00:28:03.359 It's because I can see God working something in your life in the midst of the difficult circumstance. 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:10.480 And I get excited about you remaining under God and Him producing something beautiful. 00:28:11.119 --> 00:28:16.720 And the only reason I think I can see that and say that is because I've been there. 00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:26.480 Is because I've been 19, 20, 21, and going through a couple of years of pain. 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:36.960 When I was 19 years old, well, when I was 17, I was in high school, and there was this girl that was a part of her friend group that got diagnosed with cancer. 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:42.640 And it was only a year and a half later, when I was 19, that she died. 00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:51.599 And I was in college and I remember reckoning with this fact that a young girl would ever die of cancer. 00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:58.799 And I played those stories I talked to you about, moralism, hedonism. 00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:04.720 I played those stories through my head through that time. 00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.759 And I argued with God. 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:15.920 And it was only months after Lauren had died that my friend had really spiraled into addiction. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:22.400 Another friend of mine, one of my closest friends, had spiraled into a deep addiction. 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:30.960 A deep addiction that caused him to betray me, lie to me, lie about me to other people. 00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:38.559 And in one of the more painful moments of my life, led him to take his own. 00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:49.279 And I couldn't pray for like that year, I would say. 00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:56.079 Because simultaneously to that, my parents were splitting up too. 00:29:56.880 --> 00:30:03.279 And so I'm 20 years old and I've followed Jesus for give or take five, six years. 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:11.920 I was starting to feel the call to be a pastor when this stuff was going on in my life, and I don't know if I had the ability to remain under God. 00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:22.720 And I'm not here to tell you that I'm somehow stronger or somehow somehow this great Christian because I got through that. 00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:25.119 I don't know how I got through that. 00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:30.720 I have guesses, I had people praying for me, people encouraging me. 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.559 I was in Christian community. 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:43.200 There are definitely things around my life that were helping me, but I really look at that season and I go, there is some way God was gracing me through it to help me remain under Him. 00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:46.880 And that's not the only season of suffering I've had. 00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.839 I had, when I was 24, I was a youth pastor. 00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:52.880 I did four funerals in 55 days. 00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:58.160 You don't get into youth ministry to do funerals. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:06.799 And when I've gone through these seasons of concentrated pain, it's strange. 00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:11.039 You always look back and you wish they never happened. 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:17.200 It's never, you never get to a point where you're like, I'm glad my parents split up, or man, that season was great. 00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:18.880 You never never really get there. 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:19.759 It's weird. 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:33.119 But don't you get to a place on the other end where you start to realize maybe the person I am today is more to do with that than the good stuff that I would call good stuff. 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:37.680 Maybe I'm a more humble, helpful, maybe, maybe I don't know. 00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:41.759 Maybe I'm a more humble, helpful pastor because of some of those difficult things. 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:56.319 It's not that they were good things, it's that God mysteriously worked these bad things to make good in my life, to where there's now a recognition of how life goes. 00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:59.119 I look back, I wish none of it happened. 00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:06.400 I still don't think any of it is good, but I'm certain that God used it for his good in my life. 00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:16.720 And it's strange sitting at 32 now thinking, I don't know the kind of 32-year-old I would be apart from those things, simply because that's the way life works. 00:32:16.880 --> 00:32:19.680 We don't get to choose everything that happens to us. 00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:22.079 We get to choose how we respond. 00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:31.200 And suddenly I've looked back and learned that maybe we as Christians need to learn how to suffer. 00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:43.279 We need to learn to endure suffering, to persevere in suffering, and allow perseverance to do its thing, which is to develop in us a kind of character that looks like Jesus. 00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:51.200 That changes how we see joy, how we see life, but also how we see joy. 00:32:52.400 --> 00:33:05.200 And what I think about with joy is a new perspective, is this what brings me joy is not the satisfaction of my desires or the achievement of my own goals, but the formation of my character into Christ likeness. 00:33:06.799 --> 00:33:23.599 So I've through my life and through Scripture and God's grace have changed a little bit of my perspective to say what brings me true joy is not when I do something great, but when God does something great in me. 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:30.960 And sometimes God does his great thing in me when I am broken. 00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:37.519 But I recognize that formation of my character as the essential thing God is doing. 00:33:37.680 --> 00:33:41.359 The weird thing about humility is you can't achieve it. 00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:44.640 You can't conquer humility. 00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:47.920 In some strange way, humility conquers you. 00:33:48.079 --> 00:33:49.279 Isn't that interesting? 00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:59.440 It's like, as much as you want to make yourself a humble person, it's actually God's operating work in your life that makes you the humble person you ought to be. 00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:03.200 And oftentimes that is through circumstances you cannot control. 00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:07.119 Finally, how we see God. 00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:11.199 Not just how we see life or how we see joy, but it changes how we see God. 00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:20.960 And the perspective is this if Jesus was perfected by suffering or shaped into completeness by suffering, then I will be as well. 00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:29.760 I don't know if you've ever read this verse in Hebrews 5, but it's so weird and interesting and deep. 00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:32.320 And I've thought about it for a decade. 00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:34.159 Look at Hebrews 5 7. 00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:49.840 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, Jesus himself, with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 00:34:50.480 --> 00:34:56.159 Although he, Jesus, was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 00:34:57.039 --> 00:35:07.360 And being made perfect, there's that word, the telios, and finding his end completion, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:12.960 I guess I would just put it this frankly, I've thought about this a lot through my life. 00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:19.119 I just don't know if you can become like Jesus and not suffer. 00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:25.440 Because Jesus, we say, Chris, I want to be like Jesus. 00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:31.760 But if we want to be like Jesus, we gotta take all of who Jesus is and was. 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:33.119 That's what Philippians says. 00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:35.440 Paul says this in Philippians, I want to know Christ. 00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:36.400 Amen, right? 00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:37.360 I want to know Christ. 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:50.880 Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow attaining resurrection from the dead. 00:35:51.119 --> 00:36:02.880 I think, like, you know, maybe my generation of millennials, it's like, we want the resurrection Christianity, forgetting that the definition of resurrection is to get up from the dead. 00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:12.159 Paul goes, I want the resurrection, but I also want the participation with his sufferings. 00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:18.639 To be formed in the way of the cross means to be formed in the way of trials. 00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:26.079 To realize that God is operating in you the way he operated in Christ. 00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:44.639 Strangely, at the moment of his death was operating a power of resurrection, which tells us that our trials and our suffering and the telos the end of our suffering is not a grave, but a resurrection. 00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:51.119 That the end of our difficulties is not pain, but power. 00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:56.719 At the center of the Christian faith is a God who suffered. 00:36:56.880 --> 00:37:00.400 The cross welcomes us into a new understanding of suffering. 00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:04.400 Suffering not as punishment, but as a purifying process. 00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:07.360 Suffering not as judgment, but as redemption. 00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:16.960 Somehow, by staring at the cross of Christ, we see the plan for us does not end in our demise, but our glory. 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:25.679 Trials can only mean we'll become more like Jesus. 00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:27.679 Pressure means pearls. 00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:29.920 The misery precedes the music. 00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:33.599 This is not an adjacent lesson to Christianity. 00:37:33.760 --> 00:37:36.000 This is the center of Christianity. 00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:44.239 The gospel itself, that death has no power, that death has no sting, that we can pass through death to life into resurrection. 00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:51.840 Only because of the power of the cross, only because the power of the empty grave, only because the power of God can we see this.