Title: Joy in trials
Date: February 10, 2008
Text: James 1:2-4
Introduction
- As we go through life there will be good days and bad days, good experiences and bad experiences
- Maybe you are going through some hard times right now
- Here at the mission there are many opportunities to go through difficulties, just because we are in such close proximity to each other
- Maybe your hard patch is because of family situations
- Maybe your wife has told you she is giving up on you, or you may never see your children again - Maybe your area of need is in finances, you just don’t know how you are going to be able to survive, after graduating from this program
- We all have our own particular point at which we wonder how we will ever get through the trial - James tells us in his letter in the NT, about the purpose for trials in our life
- And he starts off by telling us to be joyful during our hard times!
1. Consider it pure joy – verse 2
- James 1:2 – consider it pure joy
- Hard to understand
- Perspective of being in God’s hands
- Eph 2:10 - We are his workmanship
- Isa 64:8 - You are the potter, we are the clay
- Learning to trust God
- Psa 37:7 - Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him
- Amplified Bible “Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass”
2. Testing develops perseverance – verse 3
- As we go through trials, and persevere, God is doing something inside us
- We are learning to trust him and depend on him
- He is shaping us and preparing us for his purpose
- 1 Kings 6:7 - Stones of the temple were shaped off-site, yet fitted perfectly – Solomon’s quarries under Jerusalem
- Eph 4:16 - What every joint supplies
- We stand together, supporting each other
- Particularly while we are going through trials
3. Perseverance makes us complete and mature – verse 4
- We are used to living for the moment
- We don’t like the idea of preparing for retirement
- God looks at things from an eternal perspective
- Though we cannot see beyond this life, he is preparing us for a glorious future
- 1 Cor 2:9 – eye has not seen nor ear heard
Conclusion
- 2 Cor 4:17 - Exceeding weight of glory
- 2 Tim 4:8 - Laid up for me a crown of righteousness
- As we go through trials, learn to look at it from God’s perspective
- We are in his hands, he will not let us fall
- 1 Cor 10:13 – he will provide a way for us to stand up under the trial
- So don’t be praying for the trial to be taken away – oh woe is me
- Instead, pray that we might learn the lesson and thank God that he is working in our life
- Look forward to the future when all this will be done, complete, and we can move on to the purpose for which we have been made
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