What does First B Jackson teach about trials and suffering?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on trials and suffering starts with an honest admission that hard things are genuinely hard. When Pastor Carl opened the book of James, he was direct that calling troubles an opportunity for joy is not prosperity-gospel optimism. Jesus himself said his followers would face trials and sorrows. The point James makes is that trials have a purpose: they test faith, and tested faith produces endurance, and endurance, when fully developed, produces maturity and completeness. Carl put it plainly, the goal God is after is holiness as much as happiness, and trials are the weight room where that happens.
The teaching also addresses where temptation and suffering come from, and where they do not come from. God may allow testing, but he is never the one doing the tempting. Pastor Carl pointed to the moment in Luke where Satan has to ask permission before sifting Peter, and noted that even while allowing it, Jesus was already praying for Peter's faith. Peter failed the test, denied Jesus, and was still forgiven, restored, and used. That is held up not as a footnote but as the point: a failed test does not make someone a failure or unusable by God.
Deborah, teaching the women's Bible study through James 1, pressed on the same ground from a personal angle. She described a conflict that landed in her own home right after returning from Uganda, exhausted and jet-lagged, and how the Lord brought her simply to humble herself, guard her tongue, and let him sort it out. The joy James points to, she said, is not faking happiness. It is a settled sense of well-being, the ability to say God is good and he is not finished, even when circumstances are painful. Both teachers land in the same place: God is not indifferent to what we suffer, and real faith shows itself in how we think, what we trust, and what we do when things are hard.
Taught from James 1:1-12 · James 1:13-18 · James 1:2-4 · James 1:12 · Romans 8:28
The passage taught · 1 Peter 5
1 Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed.
2 Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly;
3 neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock.
4 When the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the crown of glory that doesn’t fade away.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- January 24, 2024 Women's Bible Study - January 24th, 2024 - James 1 James chapter one shows that real faith thinks differently, acts boldly, and trusts a good God even when trials, temptation, and suffering press hard against us.
- March 22, 2022 God Loves You But Refuses to Leave You That Way James 1:13-18 reminds us that God does not tempt us, but can redeem every failure and trial, shaping us more into the image of Christ.
- March 15, 2022 Faith and Endurance James 1:1-12 shows that trials build endurance and maturity in believers. Pastor Carl walks through faith in action, God's wisdom, and the promise of the crown of life.
Mentioned along the way
- November 29, 2015 God Will Finish What He Started The preacher walks through Philippians 1:1-11, showing how Paul responded to imprisonment with grace, peace, thanksgiving, and prayer, and why God cares more about our character than our comfort.