Faith and Endurance First B Jackson 2022-03-15 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Yeah. Hello and welcome everybody. How are you? Good. Good to see you. Could we give Naomi just a real big hand for making such a great dinner? Thank you so much, Naomi. And there's a lot of lasagna left and those oh my goodness. Those brownies are so good. But there's a lot of food left over and there's some to go boxes. And so if you would, would you please at the end of the night, grab a to go box and bring some lasagna home? Can you do that? Yes. Sure. Good. Good. Yep. I have one thing. I've got a request, if you're willing. And that is to get a group picture. We have our cameraman Luis. Where's Luis? Not here. There he is. He's gonna be up here on the stage. And if we could gather, Nick is gonna Nick is gonna kind of direct us. He's gonna tell us where to go. But if you would, if you just stand up, start kind of toward the middle of the room. And we'll get a yes. Shepherd a shepherd. Oh, man. All right. Welcome to Monday night, everybody. How are you on a Monday? Is it good to see a little more daylight? Yeah. You lost an hour of sleep, but you got some more daylight and it's good. It's good. So we finished the book of John last Monday and you're you're in for a treat because we're starting a new book and it's the book of James. Anybody read James before? Great practical book. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse, conversation style. But before we get to James, I'd like to worship together and just express our worship and adoration to God through singing. What do you say? Can we do that together? We'll stand, we'll sing. I see the evidence of your goodness. We were having a band rehearsal, and there's a line that says, the winter storm made way for spring, and it was snowing on Sunday. And Casey McCooey went, do they? But do they? So you could say that when we get to that in fulfillment, all over my life, all over my life. Help me remember when I'm weak. Feel me come or feel we'll leave. You lead my heart to victory. I life. See the cross empty grave. See the cross empty grave. Forgive it in Cezanne lives. All my sin are rolled away because Oh, God. It's so true. We can see the evidence of your existence by everything that we mean. All we gotta do is just walk outside on a on a beautiful evening. We look up at the stars, and it is just it it is amazing just by by your creation, but also, God, we have the story. We have the gospel story too of your resurrection. And, God, we have the the the evidence too of your Holy Spirit working in our lives. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. I count on one thing. The same God that never fails will not fail me. Now you won't fail me now in the waiting. The same God who's never late is working all things out, working all things out. I count on one thing. The same God that never fails will not fail me now. And you won't fail me now in the waiting. The same God that never late is working on Lord, teach us. Teach us to do these things, really, because it's not our natural inclination. Sometime I I can speak for me. I am a whiner. I'm a complainer. I know I am. And but yet, God, when we choose to praise, we choose to glorify, we can praise our way through. Help us, God, to worship our way through life and the highs and lows. And and James tonight, God, may James speak to us about about what you're building in us through trials and troubles. God, may we we be receptive tonight as we listen to to to what James has to say for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Before we get there, though, I wanna sing one more song together. Seated above, thrown in the father's love. Destined to die for what I forworn. God's only son, perfect inspite this one. You overcame power in hand speaking the father's prayer, You won't care. And because he does, we will. We will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of thy testimonies everyone over come. Let's sing that again. You can have a seat. Let's Alright. Another Monday night, another book of the Bible for Monday night, the book of James. And the heading tonight for James, we're gonna say verses one through 12, is faith and endurance. Anybody could use some more faith and endurance these days? I could. I could. Thank you, James. But real quick, wasn't John so good? You were here for John. Wasn't it such a great book of the Bible to study? If I could sum up John in one word, is belief. Jesus said, this is the work that God wants from us, to believe in the one that he has sent. No doubt about it. We do not earn our way to God. We do not earn our way to eternal life. Eternal life comes through belief in the person and the work of Jesus by grace through faith in Christ. That's that's the message of the gospel. Now that being said, if God saves us from death, hell, and the grave and gives us eternal life by believing in Jesus, which he does, then our belief, our faith should show that. Would you agree, church? Right? It just makes sense. Like, if we believe because a couple if then statements here. If we believe that Jesus forgives us and he does not hold our offenses against us. Thank you, God. Then we too ought to show forgiveness to others. Would you agree? Right? Or if yeah. It it can be hard. Forgiveness can be hard. We wrestle with it. Here's another one. If we believe that Jesus came to love and serve us, then we ought to love and serve one another. Right? Like, these things, they just make sense. When, John comes to mind when he says, now do as I've done for you. He doesn't ask us to do anything that he hasn't done himself. That's the beauty of the gospel. That's the beauty of God made flesh and made his dwelling among us. He showed us the way. He's shown us how to do these things. But again, we don't do these things like loving, forgiving, serving. We don't do these things to be saved and have eternal life. We do these things because we are saved and we're going to have eternal life. Right? Are are you with me? It's a what I'm trying to say is it is a response, the doing. It's a response to the goodness of God. We're compelled to do it. In a sentence, I wanna say it this way. Work cannot save, but saving faith is always at work. Saving faith is always at work. RightNow Media has a study on James. And if you if you like to to watch, like like, Netflix and stuff like that and you but you want to in a like, as a Bible resource, there's something called RightNowMedia. And if you want, come to Ray and I, and we'll get you signed up so you can watch all sorts of stuff. Great, great studies and videos on the Bible. This one from and it's free. It's free. But, this one from James, it described as, it is this. True faith produces fruit. A faith without action and without life change is ultimately a dead faith. Wow. The book of James speaks to the realities of living faith in Jesus, the kind of roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty discipleship. I like that. That's born out of an authentic relationship with the risen Lord. James writes to believers who know suffering, who face trials, and who ultimately desire a deep relationship with God. That's what James is about. James is here's another way to say James. The James is the gospel in work clothes. The gospel in work clothes. You know? Like, when you get to work, you're like, ah. You you ever pay attention to what you're wearing sometimes in your work? Some people don't. Like, I know Gary. If Gary's gonna go to work, he just kinda goes with whatever he's got on. I learned that from Diane. But the rest of us, when when we go to work, we put on our work jeans and our work clothes and stuff. We, you know, we we prepare ourselves for it. But the gospel in work work clothes, faith in action was another way to to say what James is. It's faith in action, and it comes out of a relationship. And that is probably the most important part of it. It's not just doing for the sake of doing. It's definitely not doing for the sake of earning eternal life. That's not it. It's a response. It's out of comes out of a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus. That's why we serve. That's why we do. Are you with me? So James goes so far to say as unless our faith produces good deeds, it's dead and useless. He's straight up here. But here's what I know. We don't want our faith to feel dead and useless. None of us want to feel that way. We want to do something with our faith. We're doers by nature. I know we are. We're happier when we put our faith in action. God designed us that way. But the point I'm trying to make is doing follows believing. Believing always comes first, always comes first. But the doing follows it. So this is the message of Jamie. It's just It's such a practical and encouraging book, and it's a great follow-up to John, I think. Because John is all about belief, and James is saying, now do something with that belief. So that being said, meet James, the half brother of Jesus. He calls his brother our glorious Lord Jesus Christ and a slave. He calls himself a slave to Jesus Christ. Now listen, I've got kids. I've got three of them. And if I heard my daughter Rachel, she's our oldest, say, call her younger brother Aiden, her glorious Lord, something would be very, very wrong with that statement. Which shows me, but this really does. It shows me that if James calls his half brother Jesus, our glorious lord and a slave of the Lord Jesus, Jesus was more than just a half brother. Jesus isn't just a nobody or half brother. Jesus was truly his lord. And I feel like that's saying a lot. So that's a compelling testimony, I think, from the half brother of Jesus. His faith was real so much so that said that James was stoned to death for living out his faith in Jesus. But it's all to say that everything that that James wrote, he lived with conviction. So when we get to this verse two tonight where it says, consider your troubles an opportunity for great joy, and we go, come on. Really? James wasn't just being idealistic here. He genuinely had troubles. Many believers were scattered, poor, being persecuted. James still finds joy as a doer of the word. So that's my intro to James. But let's get to the word, verses one through 12. I'll read it aloud, share a few comments of my own, and then open it up for discussion if there's something that grabbed ahold of you and you'd like to share and encourage us. So here's what it says. This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm writing to the 12 tribes, Jewish believer believers scattered abroad. Greetings. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. When your for when your endurance is fully developed, you'll be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver. For a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that's blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. For the loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they're unstable in everything they do. James is a straight shooter here, isn't he? Verse nine. Believers who are poor and have something are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers. The little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. We'll stop there for tonight. I'd like to pray first and then and then share. Lord, I thank you for the testimony of James. God, I pray that this would speak to us maybe in a way that just we have not heard before. Maybe we've read the book several times. I pray that this time would be different and that your Holy Spirit would reveal and illumine things that we just didn't expect. Do your good work in us, God. In Jesus' name, amen. I like this book because it is deeply practical, and I feel like I'm a practical person. I always feel like, would you sum it up for me? Because I'm not good at the long I'm more of a can you put it in a little but we studied the work of Jesus for for a long time, and now we get to study Jesus' work through us. You know? What that looks like when when Jesus is working through us. That's kinda what James is. The gospel and work clothes. And here's where James starts, troubles and trials in verse two. They are a fact of life. Amen? We say this a lot, but the prosperity gospel of believe in Jesus and all your problems will go away. It is just not true. It's just not true. And we know that because we experience that from day to day. You could be doing everything right and things go wrong. You remember in John, Jesus says, here on earth, you're gonna have trials and sorrows. But take heart followers of Jesus. I've overcome the world. And because he has overcome, we will overcome. We've we've sung of it, but scripture is clear to tell us by the blood of him, by his sacrifice and the word of our testimony, our our proclamation of that, we will overcome. This is God's promise to us. It's not an easy life. If you're going, should I have an easy life? No, no, we weren't promised that. But Jesus has overcome and because he has, we will. And we don't ask for problems. Right? I don't I mean, it's not like we're we're praying, you know, Lord, would you just send some issues in my life? I just want a little more drama. I want some more problems. You know, send me some more. No. No. We don't. Our but here here's here's the key. Our trials and our troubles, they have purpose. They have purpose. And that purpose is to build our endurance and make us mature and complete. God is really concerned about our holiness as much as he's concerned about our our happiness. He really does desire to make us more like himself. It's that important to him. Every trial, every trouble is an opportunity for growth. Every single one of them. That obnoxious person in your life right now, they are an opportunity for growth. A financial trouble that keeps lingering on and on. It's an opportunity for growth. A weird family dynamic where you're like, I don't even know how to talk to my family right now. It is an opportunity for growth. All of it is. I could go on and on because troubles and trials and go on, but the point is, God uses those to build our endurance and to make us mature. I've been trying to tell myself that all week. But I want to encourage us, and I'm and I'm speaking to me. If even if I was in this room alone right now, I would be preaching this message to me. To begin looking at my troubles, our troubles, is not with the attitude of why, God? Why is this even in even happening in the first place? But what? What, God, what do you want to do with this? Is it is it to control my tongue? Is it to control my temper? Do I need to learn forgiveness, patience, humility? And most likely the answer is yes, yes, and yes. Like, anything that looks like Jesus is the kind of endurance and maturity that God is after. But like anything that's worthwhile, it takes work. It really does. It just it it doesn't just appear. It takes work. I mean, look at this guy. You weren't expecting that, were you? Dwayne Johnson. He's the rock. He's ripped. Sorry. I'll ask next time to share your picture. He goes to the gym. Like, obviously, I don't know what else he does. I don't wanna ask. But, you know, he's working he's working at it, but in a in a similar way. Like, trials do that for us in a in a spiritual in a in a spiritual sense. They they build up those muscles like endurance and maturity. My wife used to work at this place called Snap Fitness in the Midwest in Minnesota. People would sign up for a membership because they could get discounts on their health insurance. But instead of working out and going to the gym, you'd have a card to get in. And sometimes they would just scan the card at the door to make it look like they went into the gym, but they didn't actually go. You know what I mean? The point I'm trying to make is unfortunately endurance and maturity don't work like that. We don't scan a card. Well, does that. That takes care of that. Unfortunately, endurance and maturity, they don't work like that. We've actually got to do the heavy lifting. Just got to go through, ain't nothing to it but to do it. But when we do, it produces something in us. What does it produce? Steadfastness and completeness, endurance and maturity. That's what trials and troubles do. Do we ask for them? Do we want them? Nope. I don't want to be walking through that. That's deep mud. But they produce something good in us. They produce Christ like care. They produce something that God is after, that God wants in us. And I love verse five because James knows we need wisdom to endure those trials. So he says, if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. And he will not rebuke you for asking. He's saying, God will enable you to endure those trials. Look to his wisdom. Look to his insight. He is ready, willing, and able to give it without faulting you. Proverbs three, five, and six. We've heard this a 100 times this year. One more. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he'll show you which way to go. The point is, God will do it. He's ready. He's standing by. He has that win wisdom. He's ready to give it. If we would ask. How many of us though just charge on ahead, I got this. I got this. No. I think I've been I'll just I'll figure it out. I think I've been in that mode of, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And not truly asking for that wisdom from above where God is he's going, I've got wisdom for you, Carl. I can help you through this. You don't have to struggle and you don't have to fight so hard. I can lead you through. James adds in verse six though, catch this, let's be sure that our faith is in God alone and does not waver. Like, let's be trusting him and what he says and not waver back and forth between God's wisdom and our just everyday on our own kind of wisdom. The wisdom of the world. So this is the example that I I thought of in Matthew five where Jesus says, well, you've you've heard the law says, love your neighbor, hate your enemy. That's kind of the everyday wisdom of the world. Sure. But Jesus says, well, I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Which one's harder? That's not normal. That's not natural. And I think James is going, you go with that. That's the wisdom from above. That's the wisdom from God. Go with that. It's natural just to hate your neighbor, hold a grudge, get bitter, angry. You could do that. Sure. That's the wisdom of the world. But but God's wisdom says pray for that person. Love that person. Serve that person. Go with that. Stay right there. Verses nine through 11, James goes on. He talks about the poor and the rich. Believers who are poor, they have something to boast about for God's honored them, and those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. Isn't that so backwards and upside down the way the world works? Conventional wisdom says the opposite. But God's kingdom is different. It turns conventional wisdom on its head. It's just right upside down. I think about Jesus' teaching in Luke six, God blesses you who are poor. The kingdom of God is yours. That's true wealth. That is true wealth to be known and accepted by God. That's something money cannot buy, and it never will. James says, those who are trusting in wealth and achievements, they'll fade away. Like a flower in the field, hot sun rises, grass withers, the flower droops, it falls, its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade with their achievements. And then verse 12, this will be the last verse for tonight. I think as if endurance and maturity weren't reward enough, 12 offers another promise, and that is, God blesses those who patiently endure test testing in temptation. Afterward, they will receive the what? The of life, Eternal life that God has promised to those who love and trust him. I think that's something to hold on to right there. Think about those first century Christians. Right? Putting this in context into James, they're persecuted and displaced and they're scattered everywhere. Many of them having no idea what their patient endurance would produce, causing the gospel to expand to us today. We may never know what our patient endurance may do in somebody else's life just to keep walking through it. I don't know. I don't know what it could do in somebody else's life. Gotta use it, though. I know that. And he blesses those who patiently endure. They'll receive the crown of life that God promised those who love them. So hold on to that one. You're blessed when you patiently endure testing and temptation. There's a reward for trusting the Lord with all of our heart and not leaning on just our our own everyday wisdom, but to to lean on his wisdom, crown of life, and take comfort in the fact that God loves us way too much to leave us immature and incomplete. Trials are an opportunity for growth. And so rather than asking why, why even doing this in the first place, I think a greater question, a better question to be asking ourself is, God, what? What will you do through this? God, I'd like to to just pray right now for, you know, we trials and troubles, they abound, and and every one of us in here are are going through trials and troubles in one form or another. God, we look to you, our wisdom from above, in faith and confidence that you are doing a good work through those trials to produce steadfastness and completeness so that we can stand up under these trials and keep going and endure, that you're building endurance in us so that we can keep on going and be complete, to be mature. God, help us to accept every one of them, to look to you for wisdom, and, God, to find an unexpected joy in them. In Jesus' name, amen. I wanna stop talking, and I wanna give you a chance to share for for a moment. That if there was something in James that just reached out, grabbed ahold of you, you wanna share and encourage us sitting here and those who are watching at home, if there was a word you don't have to. Don't feel pressured to. But if there was something you were like, I need to share this. There's a microphone right over here, and I'll give you a minute to do that. Hey guys. Hey Elsa. James is an exciting book to me. They're all exciting to me, honestly. Let's see. Let let let me go through it real quick. My brothers and sisters, when you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect so that you may mature and complete lacking in nothing. What a blessing, right, that we all have trials because we all do. What comes after that is the exciting part, right? And sometimes we look at trials and how are we going to face this? But I think that as long as you hang on to our handbook, because the Bible, this is what's going to get us through this world. So for me personally, the trials that I faced have been strong, but through it, I have such a such a compassion for for people. I I how do I word this? God puts us all through tests, and sometimes we feel that we can't handle those. Sometimes there's just so much that we're like, how are we going to get through this? This a lot. But the reward that comes after that, the wisdom, what he gives you in in return for those trials is is so much more than we could ever imagine or ask for. And all we have to do is believe through these trials. All we have to do is just stay in faith. And after that, we will get our gift. Our blessings will come in a red ribbon in a huge box, and it's right there for us. And all we have to do is get through that. How amazing is that? For me personally, I I'm grateful for my trials. I can't complain. I you know, people ask why and how, and I'm just saying, is good. He is great. Because the fact that I'm facing all of this and I can still be at peace lets you know that he's just he's an amazing God. He and and and there's nothing ever too much that we can't handle. He is our refuge. We go to him, and he will take care of it. And the fact that we all know we can go to him, and he'll take care of it, we're so blessed. We're so blessed to know him. There's people that won't, and I just can't say that enough. We know him. Yep. Yep. How that in itself is a gift. That's such a blessing. Right. And the fact that we can go with him and he can walk with us through these tough times Yeah. And we get a gift after that. We he doesn't just give us peace through that. He doesn't just walk with us, and and that's a blessing. That's a gift. But he's like, just wait. I have more. This is nothing. This is this is just to get you to where I need you to be, and we lack nothing. At the end, we're perfect. We go through all of this. He humbles us, awakens us, gives us love, makes sure we know what it is. And then through all of it, he still gives us a huge blessing at the end. Wow. I I can only speak for me. I'm so grateful, and I'm so thankful for the trials because I would have never known what I know now, which is God's love. His love is amazing. It's beautiful out of this world. How I tell my son I always tell my son, God's love and his wisdom is eternal. How I tell him physically, I tell him, think of outer space. It's infinite. We'll never reach to the end. It's so much. And and it's and that's God's love. It's it's it's infinite. It's so much. We'll never be able to describe it, but it's there, and it's for us. And if we take it, he'll give it to us. So yeah. No. So for me, I think that trials are beautiful. They're amazing, and I I'm I'm excited for it because I'm like, okay. This is the trial. Where is it gonna lead to? I'm excited for that. Where's the blessing? What what what is he trying to to do here? And, trying to discover that is is awesome too. So, yeah. Thank you for that testimony. Really. Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else? Anybody wanna have a have a word to share from James? You made me think of a Elsa made me think of a scripture. Mhmm. And it's first Corinthians ten thirteen, and he says that no temptation has overtaken you but such as come into man. And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation, he will provide the way of escape so that you will be able to endure it. Yeah. And Elsa is such a beautiful testimony. And I think sometimes in a trial, I just wanna figure the fastest way out. Yeah. And Me too. And I love this because he says he won't allow us to be tempted, and he'll provide the way out if we remain. So sorry, sorry, screaming in the mic. The word right there for temptation in the version that Nancy read is the lipsis and it's translated either temptation or trial depending on context. And in that place, it means both of those things because there is a temptation to wanna run, you know, and to bear under it is good. I had a a story from a professor of mine in seminary who served in Bangladesh, and he had been there for some he came in with his ministry and with, you know, missions organization or whatever. And when he got there, he did not see a whole lot of fruit at the beginning. Another guy who came on the field virtually the same time he did had a camera stolen. And it really upset the guy. It made him very, very, very angry. I'm here to serve these people and they're stealing from me. Well, these people don't know Jesus, that's why you're here. And he got so angry and he got so aggravated with that he went back home. And my professor, Dave Cashin is his name, was beaten within an inch of his life, lost the sight in one of his eyes, and was nearly killed, trampled, and basically left for dead. And he stayed. He was bearing up under the suffering. The trial was horrible, absolutely horrible. And because he stayed after the fact, his ministry took on an incredible new life because he literally was willing to fall on the path, the Via Dolorosa of his savior. And his ministry was incredibly fruitful for a very long time, and he might not ever have been so had he not gone through that trial towards the beginning. So one of the advantages of working the camera is I don't have to be on camera, so you guys all get to me. And we're looking for volunteers if anybody doesn't want to be on camera. I struggled for a long time with the idea of the wealthy people not getting the blessing that the poor people can get. But as I've gotten older and have a little bit more money and those sorts of things, I see that it really starts to own me after a while. We start relying on that safety of that crutch of having a little bit of money, and then when it dips, we're freaking out and the world doesn't make any sense anymore. But you see that throughout history. Been in the period Economics is the dismal science because nobody wants to hear about it, but I'm going tell you anyway. So so but, you know, we're in America, we're in this period of relative safety that's unknown to human history in general. This has not existed in human history. There's always been these ups and downs and, like, much more tragic than what we've seen in our lifetime. Even think about the people in, like, Ukraine and stuff like that who thought they were stable and their houses would would last forever and, like, to be able to pass them on to their grandkids and maybe it got blasted in this last week or something like that. And you're like, that's kind of been the regular course of history. But if your if your faith is in in that, you're gonna be let down every single time. And that's that's one of the things that keeps coming back to me. It's like you shift your focus from that to what the Lord has because that's the rock. That's the permanent thing that can't be blown up. It can't be torpedoed. It can't be taken away from you or, you know, beaten out of you. Like, that that's the thing that can can keep you going, that that permanence. But if you if you rely on those earthly permanent things where you're always striving and looking towards those things and ignoring God, you're going to be let down. And I think that's kind of what James has been saying to me as we've been reading through this too. Any other thoughts before we sing one last song? James seems to be speaking to believers, which means that nonbelievers are just facing the trial. There is no joy at the end of trial for them. They're just facing trial. Yeah. There's nothing coming up for them. How about you, Dwayne? The Rock, do you wanna share anything? Okay. Should we should we stand and sing together? The goodness of God, I wanna sing. All my days, I've been held in your hands. And the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will say the good news of God. And all my life, you've been faithful. All my life, you have been faithful. All my life, And all my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so so good. With every breath that I am able, I will see the goodness of God, your goodness running after. Your goodness is running out to me, your goodness is running out to me, running out to me. With my life laid down, surrender now, give you everything. Your goodness is rather not, rather not to me. Your goodness is riding up, up to me. And all my life, all my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. I will sing of the goodness of God. I wanna leave you with this verse here, again, from Proverbs three, five, and six. Let's let's hang on to this truth. To trust in the God, trust in the Lord with all your heart, to not not depend on our own understanding, but to seek his will in all we do, and he'll show us which path to take. Amen.