SPEAKER_00: Hello, I am Anthony Garcia.
SPEAKER_00: I am so grateful that you tuned in to our social media or to our video ministry here.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for taking the time to listen to these messages.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that they're a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any other questions or ways that we can minister to you, I would be glad to connect with you.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you again, and I hope this message is a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter number one this morning, and uh we're kind of alternating between the book of Genesis and the book of James.
SPEAKER_00: I think we'll find this helpful in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of narrative, and uh we even went over some genealogies this last Sunday, and now we're in the book of James, and the book of James is immensely practical.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of it reads similar to uh uh the wisdom books in the Old Testament, kind of like the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: You read through the book of Proverbs, and there's a lot of different instruction, parative, words of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's much how the letter of James is written.
SPEAKER_00: And it's uh it's built upon these Christian paratives, which the letter assumes who the letter is intended to go to.
SPEAKER_00: It's assuming that there is already salvation in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It has the feel of a pastoral letter, or even you can think of like a pastoral blog, to where there's these little exhortations all throughout the book to believers.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's read.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you would, I'll invite you to stand one more time together, and we're gonna read just in verse number one, down through verse number four this morning.
SPEAKER_00: James chapter number one.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
SPEAKER_00: My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
SPEAKER_00: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, and as I pray out loud, I invite you to pray in your heart to the Lord and ask him to speak to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for your goodness to us.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you, Lord, for the blessings that you give us.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you, Lord, for the blessing of, again, the blessing of this country that we live in, and uh the blessings that you've offered to us of the gift of life, uh the opportunity to gather this morning, the blessing of uh electricity and air conditioner and uh this uh building that we have here.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I thank you for all your servants who have gathered this morning to hear from your word, and thank you for those serving in the nursery today, in the children's ministry, music ministry, hospitality, various areas, Lord, within uh your body, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that we get to gather together in your name and edify one another, encourage one another, and point each other back to you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, I pray that you would help us to be pointed back to you from this text this morning as we face a very real reality and truth concerning trials.
SPEAKER_00: Help me, Lord, this morning as I deliver your word, fill me with your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Help me because I am a needy servant, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in need of your help to speak clearly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in need of your help for my mind, for the thoughts that uh uh you've laid on my heart from this passage to flow accurately.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray, Lord, that as I'll give a great account, Lord, for what is taught from this pulpit, I pray that what is taught today would be helpful, would be truthful, um, would be glorifying to you and exalting to you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so help us this morning as we hear from your word.
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for how you've already spoken to me.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for how you can speak to us today.
SPEAKER_00: I pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for standing.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated this morning.
SPEAKER_00: James is the author here of the Epistle of James.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us a common epistle greeting where he introduces himself at the beginning and he introduces us to the original audience here, all in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: Now, James, he says, is a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father, God the Son being one, recognizing that Jesus was in fact fully man and fully God.
SPEAKER_00: And James writes here, he says, I'm a servant of God.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that this James, and we're not gonna look at all the passages this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We might do that a little bit more on Wednesday night this week, but understand here that this James is actually the half-brother of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's the half-brother of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Uh James is here and he is writing this later on in life as he has now become a pastor and a leader in the church at uh Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this within the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: But if we backed up and we went to the New Testament, what you would see is that James originally, when Jesus was walking on this earth, James was not a believer in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His family rejected him initially, but we have other passages that point us to this change in James' life, to where now he is a believer.
SPEAKER_00: And he does not pull from his bloodline or his uh uh uh his status as a brother of Jesus, but instead he identifies himself as a servant.
SPEAKER_00: I am simply a servant of God, a servant of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Through the audience, he says to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
SPEAKER_00: All the way back in 722 BC, the Jews began to be scattered abroad in different regions due to other uh enemies coming in and uh taking them, whether that was the Babylonians or the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: And so these Jewish people they were starting to get spread around the region.
SPEAKER_00: But then in the book of Acts, you start to see that many of these Jews they come to faith in Jesus Christ, and so now they're Jewish Christians.
SPEAKER_00: But something takes place in the book of Acts and all throughout the book of Acts where there is great persecution on the church.
SPEAKER_00: And because of this persecution, these Christians begin again to flee, to spread, to be scattered abroad.
SPEAKER_00: And so James writes here this epistle to an audience of Jewish believers who were spread out due to what?
SPEAKER_00: Due to persecution, in the middle of struggle, sometimes treated worse than slaves, sometimes put out of their home due to the political powers or through peer pressure that was around them.
SPEAKER_00: These people that James is writing to are in the midst of trials, are in the midst of affliction, are in the midst of difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: They're believers in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so Pastor James writes to them and he encourages my brethren, my fellow believers, those of you that have taken the name of Christ, and it almost seems crazy when you consider their particular predicament that he says, count it all joy when you fall into all sorts of trials.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, embrace trials with joy because God uses them to mature you in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Embrace trials with joy because God uses them to mature you in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We have to recognize this morning that how you face trials, how you face tribulations, how you face difficulties in this life is very important.
SPEAKER_00: And unless we gain a biblical perspective on it, unless we know what the Word of God teaches about trials and afflictions, then we won't be able to face them properly.
SPEAKER_00: And James, in his pastoral heart, he recognizes this with his brothers that are suffering, that are going through real persecution, that are going through real trials and afflictions.
SPEAKER_00: And so he writes to them this encouragement, this exhortation, this imperative for the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: So we've got to look at a few thoughts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And the first thought there, if you're following in your notes this morning, is we have to understand the reality of trials.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of trials.
SPEAKER_00: James writes here, and he says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.
SPEAKER_00: James does not write if you face a trial, he writes when you face a trial.
SPEAKER_00: You may have heard it said, it's been said for many generations, right?
SPEAKER_00: That you are either in the middle of a storm, you just came out of a storm, or you're preparing to go into a storm.
SPEAKER_00: This is a reality.
SPEAKER_00: Trials in this life, tribulations in this life, afflictions in this life, they actually exist.
SPEAKER_00: We should expect this life to be one that has hardships.
SPEAKER_00: There's difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: The expectation that this life is perfectly comfortable is absolutely easy, is just a walk in the park, is a very modern way of thinking, but it's not a biblical way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 11.23.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul, arguably one of the most godliest Christians who ever existed, right?
SPEAKER_00: We know Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We know the Apostle Paul and how he spent his life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet in 2 Corinthians 11.23, at the end of that verse, he says, in stripes above measure.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've I've faced stripes above measure.
SPEAKER_00: I've been in prison more frequent.
SPEAKER_00: I've faced death more often.
SPEAKER_00: He says, five times I was whipped 39 times across my back.
SPEAKER_00: He says, three times I was beaten with rods.
SPEAKER_00: He says, one time I was taken outside of the city, and the people of the city grabbed large rocks and they threw them and hurled them at me in order to kill me.
SPEAKER_00: And he got back up and he crawled back from that city and he went and he continued to preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul says, three times I was shipwrecked.
SPEAKER_00: Then he goes on in the remaining verses and he keeps saying, in perils, in perils, in perils, in perils.
SPEAKER_00: You get the idea that the Apostle Paul recognized that this life, though he was doing a worthy thing, an important thing, a God-glorifying thing, it was not necessarily comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Face trials, tribulations.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter 4 12 says, Beloved, think it not strange.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that this is a foreign thing concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, don't think this is strange.
SPEAKER_00: That you're going through a difficulty, that you're going through a trial.
SPEAKER_00: The fact of the matter is that sometimes in life, probably if you took the time to think about it, maybe a weekly thing, a daily thing, perhaps, that things don't always go as planned.
SPEAKER_00: They don't always go perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: There's struggles, and they might be minor inconveniences or mountain size problems.
SPEAKER_00: Now, they don't want to diminish the trial.
SPEAKER_00: The trial's real, and Jesus is the comforter, and he walks through those trials with you.
SPEAKER_00: But I think we have to remind ourselves this morning that there is a reality that trials do exist and they will persist.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes your brother and your sister-in-law move in.
SPEAKER_00: Arthur and Lauren moved in and they had to uh help me get that house ready, right?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they move in, and now we have more people in the house that need showers, and sometimes you know what happens?
SPEAKER_00: The plumbing gets messed up.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to become a plumber all of a sudden, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's a nuisance, it's an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have that planned to have to fix that particular issue, right?
SPEAKER_00: But things break.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta fix them.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the job that you were promised, it falls through.
SPEAKER_00: You were counting on it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes your crazy kid starts a fire in your house and you lose everything.
SPEAKER_00: That happened to my family?
SPEAKER_00: That was me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're up all night taking cover of your family because they're sick.
SPEAKER_00: And then right after that, you get hit with something else, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you lose the job.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get diagnosed with something that was unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: You weren't anticipating it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even really have the answers of why.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes someone says something ugly about you behind your back or maybe even straight to your face.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you face discouragement because the plan isn't working out how you expected.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, we must understand that there's a reality of trials in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Trials are inevitable.
SPEAKER_00: This life was never going to be paradise.
SPEAKER_00: As long as there's brokenness, as long as there's sin, as long as there's this world, this life is not going to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be paradise.
SPEAKER_00: The next life is.
SPEAKER_00: We can look forward to that, but this life, there's a reality of trials.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're unaware of this truth, life will be more frustrating if you think this life is supposed to be a paradise and then suddenly you're hit with a trial, your whole world can come crashing down.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not dismissing the difficulty of the trial.
SPEAKER_00: It can be very real.
SPEAKER_00: And there's at times opportunities where we lament towards God and we give God our care and we say, Lord, why is it like this?
SPEAKER_00: Can you help me through this?
SPEAKER_00: But we have to understand that trials persist in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Not if, but when.
SPEAKER_00: When the trial hits.
SPEAKER_00: Nor should we walk in this life, though, in a pessimistic view that everything in life that can go wrong just is gonna go wrong.
SPEAKER_00: We can live instead with the reality of trials, not to think that it's strange, and as well as the reality of God's plan within the trials.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he says diverse temptations.
SPEAKER_00: Or we could say it this way, various trials.
SPEAKER_00: Trials come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: It can be, okay, a minor inconvenience or a mountain size problem.
SPEAKER_00: Both are trials.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we have to understand: a trial is anything that you need God's grace to persevere through.
SPEAKER_00: It's anything that you need God's grace to persevere through.
SPEAKER_00: It can be a minor at times inconvenience where we at times we maybe even think of them as, oh, that's a first world problem.
SPEAKER_00: And we have those, right?
SPEAKER_00: It might be an inconvenience, but it's a very real, though uh not a mountain size.
SPEAKER_00: It's a trial that you need to persevere through in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: On our wedding day, Liv took her friends to uh Dunkin' Donuts, and as she was pulling into the Dunkin' Donuts, she hit the curb the wrong way and her tire popped, right?
SPEAKER_00: Man, that stinks.
SPEAKER_00: Your wedding day.
SPEAKER_00: Well, a while back, maybe a month or two, maybe longer than that now, uh, I was driving down the freeway in my truck, and I must have hit something, and the tires were about done, and my whole tire like exploded, and I'm on the side of the road there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Tire pops.
SPEAKER_00: Last summer when I was out preaching in Ohio and uh Arthur was here and they were taking the van out to go pick up the kids, you know what happened?
SPEAKER_00: The tire popped.
SPEAKER_00: And we look at that and we think, wow, that's that stinks, it's an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's something that we can fix, we can address, but it is a small trial that we have to persevere through and we have to have the right attitude in.
SPEAKER_00: But if we don't know this reality, if we think that everything's gonna be perfect, if we think that nothing's ever gonna happen to us and nothing bad is ever going to happen at all, well then we can be very dismayed when that trial comes.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the end of the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: A tire popping.
SPEAKER_00: But if you experienced a flat tire, you know it's a bit of an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: The trial's anything that you need God's grace to persevere through.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: Other times our trials are mountain-sized problems that alter our life forever.
SPEAKER_00: There are real illnesses that affect our life forever.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: We need God's grace in that trial, we need God's grace to persevere through it.
SPEAKER_00: Trials come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
SPEAKER_00: You will face them.
SPEAKER_00: John 16, 33, this is what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: These things have I spoken unto you that you might have peace in the world, ye shall have tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, you're gonna have difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have tribulation, you're gonna have trials, you're gonna have affliction, trials will come.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the question: how do we deal with them?
SPEAKER_00: Number two, the response towards trials.
SPEAKER_00: James exhorts these Christians when ye fall into all sorts of trials, count it all joy.
SPEAKER_00: This is the response that we're gonna we're supposed to have.
SPEAKER_00: By God's grace, we will have, and we'll look at this in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a couple different responses that we can have.
SPEAKER_00: And the Old Testament gives us many examples of the most natural response that we have towards trials.
SPEAKER_00: And the most natural response that we have towards trials is that of the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, they were delivered from bondage, they were delivered from slavery, they're being led by Moses through the wilderness into this promised land that they haven't seen yet, that they haven't got to yet.
SPEAKER_00: But as soon as they're in this wilderness, as soon as they've been delivered, they are immediately faced with a trial, a testing of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And how they respond to it, the example that they leave for us is a negative example.
SPEAKER_00: They respond in disillusionment and complaint.
SPEAKER_00: They're disillusioned about it because they've been freed from slavery, they've been freed from their hard labor, they've been freed from being ruled by another, and yet when they run into the problem of water, they think, oh wow, I'm gonna complain about this, and we had it better back there.
SPEAKER_00: We had it better in slavery.
SPEAKER_00: You know what this is?
SPEAKER_00: They were disillusioned in the middle of the trial into thinking that they had it better back here.
SPEAKER_00: Did they?
SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't have it better in Egypt, they were slaves.
SPEAKER_00: The Egyptians were taking their children, their babies, from the womb and throwing them in the river to be killed.
SPEAKER_00: They had to hide their children.
SPEAKER_00: They worked day and night for in slavery to another.
SPEAKER_00: They lost their dignity.
SPEAKER_00: They did not have a thing better in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in the middle of a trial, they get disillusioned to think, I wish we were back there.
SPEAKER_00: We had it better over there.
SPEAKER_00: And when we are met with trials, this can be a temptation for us as well.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I started living for God.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm always trying to do this for God.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been faithfully trying to read the word and be a witness, but now my friends have kind of ostracized me, and nobody wants anything to do with me.
SPEAKER_00: And this thing fell through, and that thing's not going right.
SPEAKER_00: I had it better back then.
SPEAKER_00: No, you did not.
SPEAKER_00: Did not have it better before Jesus Christ, who rescued you from your sin, who promised you eternal life, who promises to walk with you and be with you every single day and every single moment.
SPEAKER_00: You are tempted to be disillusioned that you had it better back there.
SPEAKER_00: And in the trial, we're tempted to complain.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the children of Israel did.
SPEAKER_00: They have no water, they complain.
SPEAKER_00: They have no food, they complain.
SPEAKER_00: They have food that they're tired of, they complain.
SPEAKER_00: They have too much of the new food that they were originally tired of, the manna, and now they're tired of the quail, and now they complain and they complain and they complain.
SPEAKER_00: But what God was trying to do is he was trying to test them.
SPEAKER_00: He was offering a trial so that they could learn to lean on him in greater dependence.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're not careful, we can fall into the same trap.
SPEAKER_00: We're disillusioned.
SPEAKER_00: And we can make our complaint towards God.
SPEAKER_00: And we think God just wants to make my life miserable.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, no, he doesn't want to make your life miserable, but he does want to make you mature.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to make your life miserable, but he does want to make you mature.
SPEAKER_00: We can respond to the trials in a life of complaint.
SPEAKER_00: But at the heart of complaining is a misunderstanding of God's purposes in the trials.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what James, Pastor James here in the epistle, this is what he addresses for us.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we need our heart change.
SPEAKER_00: Complaining comes when you only see the trial, not the purpose behind it.
SPEAKER_00: Complaining comes when you see the delay and not the destination.
SPEAKER_00: It comes when you see the struggle but not the completion.
SPEAKER_00: Louis Zamperini has one of the most compelling stories in the book Unbroken, where he was an endurance athlete who uh prepared and went to the Olympics.
SPEAKER_00: He was a prisoner of war for many years through World War II, and he came back and he also later, through uh the evangelistic crusade meetings of Billy Graham, became a Christian and was able to go back and forgive his torturers through that POW camp that he spent life in.
SPEAKER_00: But when he was training for the Olympics, his brother being his coach, he told Louis Zamperini, he said, one moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Louis, a moment of pain.
SPEAKER_00: The endurance that you have to go through is worth the glory that is ahead.
SPEAKER_00: The moment of pain, the endurance that we have to go through within the trial is worth the maturing, the glory that we're going to reach through God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: We're only refined through the fire.
SPEAKER_00: We're only purified through the trials.
SPEAKER_00: You have to remember that diamonds are only formed over time under intense pressure and intense heat.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have a choice of how we will face these trials and temptations.
SPEAKER_00: We can have a victim mentality or a victor's maturity.
SPEAKER_00: A victim mentality or a victor's maturity.
SPEAKER_00: A victor's maturity knows the reality of trials, but also sees the reality of God in the trials.
SPEAKER_00: So what does James tell us?
SPEAKER_00: Consider the trial with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds kind of crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by this?
SPEAKER_00: When you get sick, yippee! Yay, I'm sick.
SPEAKER_00: When the roof gets a leak, alright, yes.
SPEAKER_00: The AC goes out, woohoo! Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you think Pastor James is saying?
SPEAKER_00: Consider it with joy.
SPEAKER_00: These trials hop up and down when all these bad things happen.
SPEAKER_00: Not exactly, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Not exactly.
SPEAKER_00: Considering this trial with joy is continued in verse number three and four.
SPEAKER_00: My brethren, count it all joy, consider it a joyful occasion when you fall into all sorts of trials, knowing this, knowing this, that the trying, the testing, the trial that you're in, the trying of your faith, it worketh patience, it works endurance, it works steadfastness, it works, we could say it this way, toughness in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But let endurance, let patience have her perfect work, let it come to completion, that you might be perfect or mature and entire, lacking or wanting nothing.
SPEAKER_00: What's James telling us?
SPEAKER_00: You can consider the trial with joy because you know, you know the bigger purpose behind the trial, you know the bigger picture in the trial, you know what God is gonna use that trial for.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing this.
SPEAKER_00: See, a victor's maturity sees the trial as an opportunity for God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what God's gonna do: He is either gonna show up and walk with you through that trial.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God all he does is he shows up and he walks through the trial with you.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't change the circumstance, he doesn't change the difficulty, he doesn't change anything on the exterior, but God is with you, walking right there, providing grace day after day after day.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who he did that for?
SPEAKER_00: Again, the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Three times he prayed, Lord, remove this thorn from my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is intense seasons of prayer where he's begging and he's asking God, Lord, would you please remove this trial, this affliction, this difficulty from my life?
SPEAKER_00: And God doesn't remove it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Paul, I'm gonna show up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna walk with you through this, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: You're actually gonna be stronger in your weakness than you would be without this affliction.
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually gonna show up in some supernatural ways, and I'm gonna strengthen you for the work that I have called you to.
SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes God, He's gonna show up in your life, and the circumstance might not be removed, but you're gonna know God closer than you ever knew him before.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God is gonna change it up.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, I believe, I believe that people that you can still be healed through prayer, that God can heal an affliction and ailment in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that he can still restore relationships.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that he can make the the issue that you're facing, he can change it, completely rearrange it, he can work in supernatural ways, and he shows up sometimes and he changes the situation.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he changes it.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts, the Apostle Peter is doing what is right.
SPEAKER_00: He is preaching the gospel, he gets thrown into prison.
SPEAKER_00: The church goes back and they pray and they seek the Lord and they say, Lord, would you please free Peter?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter is met by an angel, and the angel delivers him out of jail, and the situation, the circumstance is completely changed.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God can change the situation completely.
SPEAKER_00: But every time if we allow ourselves to face the trial properly, God is always going to grow us up.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna mature us in it.
SPEAKER_00: This is what James primarily focuses here.
SPEAKER_00: I gave us some things to consider in a broad sense of scripture, but this is what James is getting at in the text.
SPEAKER_00: He redirects the Christian that's facing trials to understand that God can grow you, mature you, change you as you consider the trial with joy instead of complaint.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we know, we know you have to know, you gotta recognize trials exist, but then you gotta know God's purpose behind it.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't get this view, if you don't look at your trials from a biblical perspective, then you're gonna continue to struggle with those trials.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be frustrated in the middle of those trials.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna know how to handle those trials appropriately and properly, like the children of Israel in the Old Testament, where they never came to maturity.
SPEAKER_00: The reason we consider the trial with joy instead of complaint is that we know God has a greater purpose within it.
SPEAKER_00: We know that God works all things together for good to those that love him and are called according.
SPEAKER_00: We know that God is at work in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_00: God's not out to make you miserable, but he desires to mature you.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the trial with joy, knowing God has a purpose behind it.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, this morning, the result of enduring trials.
SPEAKER_00: The result of going through this trial with endurance is that we would be mature.
SPEAKER_00: Trials are a testing of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's a testing of where does your dependence truly lie?
SPEAKER_00: When the testing comes, when the circumstances are difficult, where is your dependence actually at?
SPEAKER_00: The testing of our faith, what does it produce?
SPEAKER_00: It produces the trying of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: It works patience, it works this endurance in your life.
SPEAKER_00: This another word we can use is steadfastness.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to allow the steadfastness to endure this trial, considering Christ, counting it all joy, and as you endure this trial at the end of it, God forms a more mature, a perfect, and entire believer wanting nothing.
SPEAKER_00: The testing of your faith produces this patience, this endurance.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this book, it's written to Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So they already have Christ living within them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't endure trials and afflictions through our own strength, but through the strength of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4, 13 is a wonderful verse, and sometimes you see athletes use this.
SPEAKER_00: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
SPEAKER_00: And I can score the goal this week through Christ, I can make the basket, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that's all well and good.
SPEAKER_00: But Philippians 4, the context of it, here's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
SPEAKER_00: That if I'm going through a mountaintop of life, man, I can praise God through it, I can be content through it.
SPEAKER_00: But if I'm going through a valley of life, I can still be content through it, I can praise God through it.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world can you consider trials with joy?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world can these Christians who are persecuted, who have had to flee their home, who don't have a home, who are facing uh just so much around them from social pressures and uh through physical pressures, how can they consider, James, a trial with joy?
SPEAKER_00: How can they do this?
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4.13.
SPEAKER_00: I can do all things through Christ Jesus, which strengtheneth me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus lives within you.
SPEAKER_00: You know Jesus Christ, he lives within you, and he can strengthen you through the difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: He can strengthen you through the trial.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we can endure trials through Christ's strength, who lives in us, because Jesus was able to endure the most significant trial on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 12 tells us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured, was steadfast, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, for consider him, consider Christ that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied and faint in your minds.
SPEAKER_00: How can we actually face the most horrific, difficult trials?
SPEAKER_00: It's only through Christ's strength.
SPEAKER_00: Trials come to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here this morning and you know Jesus Christ, we're gonna face trials.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here this morning you don't know Jesus Christ, you're gonna face trials.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone faces trials.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe the social media feed that shows all the highlights and you think, oh, well, they don't know Jesus and they're living however and their life is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: No, my friend, they face trials just like anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: There's a vast difference.
SPEAKER_00: You can face trials in Christ's strength.
SPEAKER_00: You can face trials knowing there's a greater hope.
SPEAKER_00: You can face trials knowing that he's growing you and forming you and maturing you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know Jesus this morning, I promise you'll face trials too.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes what God does is he allows those trials in your life to get you to a position where you realize that you need a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's what God does.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he did in my family's life.
SPEAKER_00: He allowed a difficult trial.
SPEAKER_00: Several.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you get a chance to talk to my parents and through our testimony, several different trials, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he used those things to what?
SPEAKER_00: To bring us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: So you might be here this morning and you don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna face trials just the same.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose behind it is not for God to make you miserable, but so that you can have a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: You're here this morning and you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: There's a real reality of those trials, but by God's grace, you can count it all joy when you fall into various, all sorts of trials.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing this, you have the bigger picture.
SPEAKER_00: You know the end of the story, you know the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: You know how God can use it.
SPEAKER_00: You know that he's either gonna show up, he's gonna change up, but he certainly is gonna grow you up.
SPEAKER_00: And so may we look to him.
SPEAKER_00: I am sure across the room this morning, probably several different trials that we're facing.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us to cast your care on him, for he cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: And later we'll look at, he he tells us that if you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
SPEAKER_00: You lack wisdom in the trial.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing in this, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: How can I what am I supposed to do in this Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Let him ask of God.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at that more next week.
SPEAKER_00: But let's go to the Lord in a word of prayer this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And why don't you just pray in your own heart today?
SPEAKER_00: I hope this message was a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you are in the Phoenix area, we would love to have you come in for a visit.
SPEAKER_00: We're located on Indian School and 23rd Avenue.
SPEAKER_00: If we can be a help to you in any other way, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
SPEAKER_00: Or would love to answer any questions that you had about the sermon, or maybe a question that you have about eternal life and a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to serve you and to point you to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for watching this message.