Finding Joy in Life’s Journey | James 1:1-4 (Sermon Only) // January 10, 2021

thank you for joining us at hope church we are excited that you came across this message and are tuning in the sermon you are about to hear is from our series the book of james if you're joining us for the first time i want to be the first to say welcome to hope church do us a favor and text new to hope to 94090 after you hit send you'll get an immediate response from our team with a link to a short form for you to fill out so we can get to know you better once again thank you for joining us today enjoy the sermon i grew up with one younger brother he was five and a half years younger than i am so by the time he came along my life was already pretty good right for five and a half years i was the king of the castle for five and a half years everything went my way for five and a half years i kind of got what i wanted and then my baby brother brett came along and my life was never the same again now today my brother and i have a great relationship he pastors a church in north alabama and we get along tremendously have a great relationship but growing up like a lot of siblings especially being five and a half years apart we did everything you can imagine we fought we competed we argued more times than not we didn't get along and when that happened i always felt like i drew the short end of the stick because being the baby he could do no wrong right anybody else go over brothers and sisters and can identify with that struggle let me see your hand a lot of people that are if you're in the room are watching online you can identify with that situation you had a brother a sister or siblings or maybe if not siblings cousins or family members that live with you i know pastor teddy who i lead worship with everywhere i go with him in america and around the world i meet more of his cousins he's got cousins everywhere in every country on planet earth so maybe that's you teddy's the only child but he has thousands and thousands of cousins so maybe that's your story maybe that's your situation and you can identify but can you imagine what it would have been like if your brother was jesus this weekend at hope church we're beginning a study through a letter that was written by the brother of jesus it was his half brother can you imagine how many times james is the study that we're beginning this weekend how many times james heard this question from his mother why can't you be more like your brother how many times his parents why can't you be more like jesus you thought you and i had it bad right well maybe you didn't realize jesus had a family like that but the reality is jesus did have an earthly family we just came through the holiday season we celebrated christmas the fact that jesus was born to the virgin mary but mary was already engaged to a man to be married when she was with child through the power of the holy spirit jesus was born then mary and joseph wed and mary and joseph went on to have other children they had other children in their family brothers and sisters who would have literally been the half brothers and sisters of jesus now some of you look at me like i've never heard that before well i'm going to prove it to you look in the bible matthew chapter 13 when jesus had finished these parables he departed from there he came to his hometown he began teaching them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers is not this the carpenter's son is not his mother called mary and his brothers read the first name out loud james and joseph and simon and judas four brothers of jesus and his sisters sisters of jesus are they not all with us where then did this man get these things and can you imagine how challenging it must have been growing up in the home where you were always compared to jesus like every day of their lives had to be i just can't you're talking about identity issues right and then to get past that they had to grow to understand this jesus who's been the perfect sibling that they could never measure up to was not just their half-brother jesus was literally god who became a man and was the only hope of their salvation i mean for family members that was probably kind of tough to wrap their hearts and minds around as a matter of fact the new testament bears that out in mark chapter 3 jesus begins his public ministry and listen to what it says his family to jesus is doing miracles when his family heard what was happening they tried to take him away and here's what they said about him he's out of his mind his family saw jesus begin to reveal who he is begin to work miracles and his family said i'm gonna tell you about jesus he's nuts he's crazy he's lost his mind he grew up in nazareth i've been to his birthday parties like he's he's nobody what are y'all talking about it made it very challenging for them to ever believe that's why in john's gospel as you get towards the end of jesus's public ministry now we've only got a couple of months left in jesus public ministry listen to what john's gospel tells us for not even his brothers were believing in him this isn't jesus a little kid this is jesus now having launched his public ministry well into his public ministry and his own brothers have still not accepted him as who he claimed to be but that all changed after the death burial and resurrection of jesus the gospels tell us the story of jesus taking all of our sin on himself and dying on a cross rising again from the dead and after jesus rose again from the dead he began to make appearances to his followers let me read it to you in first corinthians paul writes about it he says for i delivered to you as a first importance what i also received that christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to cepha cephas is another name for peter the leader of the disciples jesus appeared to peter because he knew how instrumental he was going to be in the foundation of the church then to the 12 to the other disciples jesus appeared to them after that he appeared to more than 500 brethren people that had believed in jesus at one time most of whom remain until now but some have fallen asleep then he appeared to say it out loud how about that this brother who'd grown up with jesus who'd been compared to jesus who thought jesus was crazy who watched his whole public ministry and never believed in jesus after the resurrection jesus goes to his brother and james seeing the resurrected jesus finally broke and surrendered his life to following jesus as god and here's how we know that a few pages later in scripture in acts chapter 1 you find this group that that watched jesus ascension on the hillside in an upper room in jerusalem and they're praying and they're begging god to send the holy spirit in power and to move and when the you can read it for yourself in acts chapter 1 and verse 14 it lists the names of the people gathered in the upper room guess who was there now by this time all four jesus's brothers all four of them are there with mom mary she's in the room too and they're begging god to move and you know what happened in the story of the opening pages of the book of acts the holy spirit falls in power peter gets up and proclaims the gospel the first church in jerusalem is born as 3 000 people come to faith in jesus christ and guess who became the pastor of the very first church in jerusalem you got to guess james mr late to the party james becomes the pastor of the first church in jerusalem as you read the opening pages of the book of acts you see the church in jerusalem face internal struggle there was favoritism being shown in the church there was racial tension cultural tension in the church by the time you get to act six they got a problem over that issue james is leading them through that problem by the time you get to acts eight they're facing such hostility and persecution from the politicians and the government that the church literally begins to scatter it was so serious that stephen for preaching the gospel was stoned to death and the church in jerusalem that james was pastoring on behalf of his brother jesus is now being scattered all over the roman empire and here's james this pastor with a heart for his church that's now been scattered and under the inspiration of the holy spirit of god out of a pastoral burden james sits down and writes what is chronologically the first letter written that we now have in our new testament called the book of james so if you have your bible i want you to open it to james chapter one and we're launching today into a series that's going to carry us through much of this year in this letter written by the half-brother of jesus look at it james chapter 1 beginning in verse 1 james a bond servant of god and of the lord jesus christ man you can tell something's happened in james heart right because let's be honest if you and i were writing this letter we'da added a little bit to the introduction james the one who came from the same womb that jesus came from uh james the one who pastored the first church of all the churches in the new testament and the history of christianity uh that's me james the one who's writing the very first letter but no what did he say james a bond servant of god and then this is important and not my brother but of the lord jesus christ and before i go any further in reading this we're going to unpack the rest of it in just a minute let me just make this point nobody knew more about jesus than james did i mean james knows stuff about jesus you and i don't even know there's a whole lot of jesus's life from the time he was born to the time he was 12 from the time he was 12 the time he was 30 we literally hardly know anything about that period in jesus's life james knows it all everything jesus encountered james saw it every meal jesus ate james was there every prayer jesus prayed james was listening james knew everything there was to know about jesus but listen here's what we learned from james knowing about jesus and knowing jesus aren't the same thing and here's what i've learned over the last 15 to 18 months about the church in america there's a whole bunch of people that know about jesus that don't know jesus and you can tell that by the way they're living their lives right now listen knowing about jesus being able to articulate the stories being able to recount the gospel being able to know some bible verses is not the same thing as surrendering the control of your life to the lordship of jesus christ and as we begin the book of james let me compel you if you just know about jesus let this be the day for the first time you surrender to the lordship of jesus christ and invite him to be the king of your own heart that's the starting message of the book of james but then he goes on look what he says to the 12 tribes who are dispersed the 12 tribes is a reference to his brothers and sisters in christ who are jews who'd come to christ in the first church and are now scattered because of persecution he says greetings to you then pick it up in verse number two he says consider it all joy now don't miss this he's writing to the first church facing political opposition he's writing to the first church facing spiritual persecution he's writing to the first church that is suffering and scattered and experiencing hardship and he's writing as a pastor and he says to them consider it all joy i want you to read those four words out loud with me all right i'm going to read them together because i want you to know they're in the bible let's read them together one two three consider it all joy let's do it one more time and this time i want you to do it with passion let's read it one two three consider it all joy 2020 2021 2022 2023 consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing could these verses be any more applicable to god's people than we are than they are right now what a word for us as a church family we decided back last summer as a pastoral team hey let's we prayed we sought the lord landed on we're going to study the book of james together really having no idea how the back half of 2020 beginning of 2021 was going to go but i'm telling you as i read these words they are so relevant for the church of jesus christ living right now in these times and i want to share with you out of these verses three truths to help us find joy in life's journey can anybody in the room today use some joy let me see your hand if you can use some joy just say amen all right let's look at it here's truth number one there are things in life totally beyond our control as we leave 2020 in our rear-view mirrors and face already uncertain circumstances and realities in 2021 we may understand the reality of that statement like never before from pandemics to politics to the ability to buy toilet paper there are things in life that are totally beyond our control james i love the way he says it he said consider it all joy when not if you encounter various trials when the word encounter means to fall into the middle of it it means it's out of nowhere you didn't see it coming james said listen they're going to be things that are going to happen in your life that are totally outside of your control they're going to catch you off guard and they're going to be tough the word he uses to describe them is the word trials let me give you a definition of the word trial as we're going to talk about it today here's the trial the inevitable circumstances that make life hard anybody got some of that right now anybody think back over the last 15 18 months and say yep i get that the inevitable circumstances that make life hard let me tell you three things about trials number one trials are unavoidable when i've heard it said you're either in a trial you are coming out of a trial or you are headed into a trial now here's what that means i want you to do something for just a minute i want you to just look around you in this room just look around you catch the eye of a few i know it's awkward and uncomfortable but do it anyway just look around you for a minute nod your head at somebody have a moment of real contact with them just let them know you're there here's what i want you to realize if what i just said is true you just looked at some people that right now or maybe some of them in the midst of the deepest darkest trial they've ever experienced personally in life now i know we all put our church face on when we came in this morning but but i'm telling you there's some people you just looked at they're hurting today they're going through a trial today there's some people that you looked at they just came out of one they got the scars and the wounds and the the battle they they just finished the trial they're still emotional about it there's some people that you looked at right now they're good but what they don't know is what's going to happen tomorrow now here's why that's important if we realize that all of us are facing unavoidable trials and some of us are either in one coming out of one or headed into one here's what we ought to all do we ought to all give a little more grace to each other rather than going ballistic and flipping tables every time somebody walks by you the wrong way let's just understand trials are unavoidable let's up the grace measure with how we relate to each other trials are unavoidable we're all going to have them i want you to look at me look at me look me in the eye right now for just a minute listen i want you to hear me very carefully if you think somehow because you love jesus and you're a follower of jesus you are immune to difficulties trials hardships and obstacles in life you are deceiving yourself we're not immune now i know it's a popular philosophy in america for some preachers to write books and sell books and get on tv and say that if you'll just come to know jesus you can be healthy you can be wealthy all your problems will go away there'll be more cars in the driveway more dollar signs in the bank account but i'm just telling you that's not the story of this book and any preacher with an ounce of biblical integrity cannot tell you that regardless how many books it sells james said when not if when you encounter various have you read this book lately you know what this book is a collection of stories of people that went through some tough stuff i mean just think about some of the people in this book let's start at the beginning let's start with a guy named noah what do you know about noah that he was a father of three sons no what do you know about noah the flood right i mean you can't even say noah without saying the word flood in the same sentence here's noah minding his own business raising his family the only guy on earth that loved god the most righteous man on earth god comes taps him on the shoulder and says hey you might want to get your tools together because it's about to get wet moses moses is a shepherd out minding his own business the nation of israel the people of god had been listen to this in slavery for 400 years in egypt 400 years is longer than our nation's even been in existence they've been enslaved for the entire civilization of egypt was built on the backs of the slaves of the children of israel and after 400 years of captivity and slavery god says to moses hey go tell them i'm making a promise i got a land flowing with milk and honey you're going to lead them out of captivity moses goes gets them all excited they bolt out of egypt go get three days red sea in front of them egyptian army behind them with blood in their eyes when you think about a guy like daniel what comes to mind daniel and the what yeah for doing what praying shadrach meshach and abednego what do you think about fiery furnace you read the book of job lately listen if you need to feel better about your life spend the afternoon reading the book of job you'll realize you ain't got it all that bad the psalms i read psalm 3 and 4 this morning in psalm 3 this morning the psalmist said there's 10 000 people out to get me you know what a lot of the psalms are the psalms are the psalmist crying out to god in the midst of suffering that they're facing hostility persecution obstacles challenges then you get to the new testament jesus the bible says of jesus he had nowhere to lay his head how does that measure up with health and wealth prosperity gospel preaching you can have it all but jesus couldn't even have a pillow jesus was persecuted suffered died a cruel death on a cross the disciples all the original disciples were murdered for their faith in jesus murdered for their faith paul the great missionary of the new testament the the hero of the the early church paul he was shipwrecked on an island he was beaten multiple times he was imprisoned half the letters he wrote he rode out of jail and i'm not talking about jail with three square meals and a tv on the wall i'm talking about tough james the author of this book did you know that james faced such hostility by the political and religious leaders of his day that he was persecuted his entire ministry and historians tell us that when james died he died because in anger they drugged james up to the top of the temple threw him to the ground from the top of the temple got wooden clubs and beat him to death no wonder james said when not if you encounter when you fall into it that word encounter let me try to help you understand it my wife and i this week relocated our daughter our son-in-law and our two grandchildren to kansas city missouri for them to go to my son-in-law to finish his bachelor's degrees to start seminary there in kansas city so i can't talk about it very much because it's too early i'm still raw i'm emotional about it uh not that my daughter and son-in-law over there but that they took the grandkids with them that's the deal right like y'all go y'all need it they need to stay here but my wife one of the things she loves to do with our grandkids in our neighborhood we got a little park and in our park there's just it's just really an open area of grass and she my wife likes to take the grandkids down to the park and just let them run karis she gets down our oldest granddaughter she's three years old she gets down there man it's like forrest gump run like she just takes off and doesn't stop running she just runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and one of the things about the little park in our neighborhood is for whatever reason the way it's designed there are some little uneven places like it's not totally flat but you don't really see it the grass covers it makes it look like it's flat so she'll get out there man she just run run run run run run run run run running before you know it there's a hole steps in that hole bam right on her face and then you know what that means right i mean the world just came to an end grand baby fell on her face that's the word encounter you didn't see it coming you're just minding your own business you just running along in life it looked like solid ground and the next thing you know right on your face trials are unavoidable secondly trials are unpredictable he said when you encounter various trials the word various it's a greek word that means multi-colored or multifaceted it's the word that would be used to describe a prism when you held it up to the sun and saw the array of light the colors the rainbow come out of that prism david platt says of that word it it includes small trials and big trials minor trials and major trials trials come in all shapes and sizes and forms some of you have walked today into this building and and just in recent days you didn't see it coming you're just running along in life and out of nowhere something that you never thought would affect you maybe 18 months ago you thought man i'm about as secure in my job as i can possibly be and in the last 18 months everything has changed and you find yourself with something that was unavoidable and complete you to never guess in a million years you'd be where you are right now in your job maybe it's not your job maybe it's your health maybe six months ago you thought man i'm about as healthy as i can possibly be i'm a picture of health and you go to one doctor's visit in an afternoon just for an annual checkup and before you know it you didn't see it coming no way to predict it maybe it's your marriage maybe it's your relationship with your children maybe you thought everything was great and one day they did something storm out of the house and you hadn't seen them maybe it has something to do with a decision that you need to make regarding school or your future or career maybe it's your finances maybe six months ago eight months ago you thought man i'm as financially sound as i've ever been in my life and here you sit today not knowing what you're gonna do to pay the bills this month it's unpredictable trials come in all shapes sizes and forms here's the third thing trials are uncomfortable the word trial is a word that means external affliction the word affliction i looked it up in the dictionary means something that causes pain or suffering trials are uncomfortable they don't feel good that's why if we had a table set up out in the lobby today to sign people up for trials nobody would stop by right we said hey just so you know we got a new ministry started it's called our trial ministry it's gonna be painful and cause much suffering you can sign up today in the lobby people ain't even gonna make eye contact with that table it's gonna be like getting on a plane at southwest airlines just don't make eye contact don't make eye contact nobody got up this morning and said lord here's my request today give me a good old painful suffering trial why because they're uncomfortable trials are unavoidable trials are unpredictable trials are uncomfortable let me give you the definition again trials are the inevitable circumstances that make life hard now i know what you're thinking pastor i thought you said you're gonna give us a little joy i'm not feeling much joy yet matter of fact to be real honest with you pastor this is pretty discouraging so far listen what james said consider it all joy the word considers a word that means to lead or to go out in front of and when it's used metaphorically like this it means to lead out in the mind what james is teaching us here is to make a choice in our mind that i'm not going to let this overwhelm me i'm not going to let this weigh me down i'm going to choose joy instead of sorrow or pity or questioning or complaining my first response is to choose joy i'm going to let my mind listen i'm not saying it feels good i'm not saying i feel joy i'm not saying don't worry be happy put a smile on your face what i'm saying is we can as believers who are walking with jesus in the midst of very difficult circumstances make a decision to choose joy you say pastor how is that possible i'm so glad you asked let's look back at james chapter 1 what he said considered all joy my brother when you encounter various trials now if he'd stop right there we'd have the command here's what you're supposed to do but we wouldn't know how to do it the next word is the key consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials what's the next word say it out loud no oh here's what he's saying you can consider it all joy because you know some you see as followers of jesus we got some insider information things may look out of control things may look unpredictable things may look difficult and challenging but james says we know something and listen it's not just that we know something this word no is a greek word that implies personal fellowship it's knowledge gained through relationship knowledge gain through experience paul or james is writing to us here and james is saying listen you in the midst of difficulty can choose joy not just because you know something he says you can choose joy because you know somebody who is it that we know well that leads me to the second truth we worship a god who's always in control you see there are things in life that are unavoidable unpredictable and uncomfortable that come into our lives that are totally outside of our control but listen they're not outside of his control our god is always in control you and i may be surprised you and i may be caught off guard you and i may say uh-oh i didn't see this coming but let me tell you something has it ever occurred to you that nothing's ever occurred to god god never turned on the tv and went well i didn't see that coming happened to me wednesday wednesday morning i'm in the study all morning writing this message preparing praying reading the scriptures wednesday morning i don't come out till noon i come out noon turn the tv on and you know what happened wednesday i'm like what in the world is going on i thought i was watching something happening in another country it's happening right here in america i went man i'm shocked god's never shocked god's never surprised god never says uh-oh i didn't see that coming that caught me off guard god is always in control he's never surprised we can count it joy because we know somebody who even though right now what you're facing may look like it's totally out of your control it's not out of his control it's still in his hands he's still sovereign he's sitting on the throne he's in control the old testament prophet habakkuk wrote it this way listen to this though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines though the yield of the olive tree should fail and the fields produce no food though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there'd be no cattle in the stalls now the prophet habakkuk was writing from an agricultural background that's his culture he's describing an apocalyptic event there's no fruit on the trees there's no fruit on the vines there's no yield in the crops there's no cattle in the stalls the sheep have left the fall he's describing a situation where everything is literally falling apart and look what he says yet here's what i'm going to do i will exalt in the lord you know he said i'm going to choose joy i rejoice in the god of my salvation the lord god is my strength and he's made my feet like hein's feet and makes me walk on high places let me give you a life application out of this we cannot let our circumstances shape the way we view our god we must let our god shape the way we view our circumstances it's one of the reasons why the church in america has so lost its way this last year we're running around and acting like nobody's in control listen god is in control he's in control and we need to let our view of an understanding of god shape the way we view what's going on in the world not let what's going on in the world shape the way we view our god let me try to help you grab it here's what i'm saying sometimes you will face circumstances in your life that don't feel good anybody say amen to that sometimes you're gonna have stuff doesn't feel good circumstances are tough they're challenging they don't feel good here's what happens we can begin in our flesh to say because this doesn't feel good it must mean that god is not good and we begin to question the goodness of god in our very lives because we're deducing our view of god based on our perspective towards our circumstances or we look at a specific situation and say this is hard man how can god love me we begin to question is god mad at me is god disappointed in me is god frustrated with me is god tired of me when here's what james is saying in those same circumstances it's okay to say god this doesn't feel good but here's what i know you're good and because you're good there's going to come a moment in my life when i look back on this and see that even this was bathed in the goodness of god for me it don't feel good right now but there's going to come a day when i can look back and say man that was the goodness of god being displayed in my life and so because of that god here's what i'm going to do today i choose joy i choose joy here's the last thing and this is why we can choose joy this is what we know about god look at this our god is at work in every trial to grow us in christ and guide us into abundant living he's at work in every trial let me show it to you back in james chapter one look at verse three receive me to verse two consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials then verse three knowing here's what you know that god's in control and that the testing of your faith produces endurance you know what the word endurance means in the greek language it's a word that means staying power here's what that means every time you walk through a trial and you choose joy guess what the next one gets easier doesn't mean it feels better doesn't mean it's not tough but you see god be god and you see god in the midst of trials and you see god's goodness and god's love and the perspective the next time the trial comes it doesn't mean the trial feels any better but i mean it's easier for me there's more grace for me to choose joy because the trial has given me staying power then look what it says and let that staying power let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing the words perfect and complete quickly the word perfect speaks to our position and our our growth in christ's likeness it's a word that speaks to being full-grown being mature it's the trials in our life that god is using to conform us to the image of jesus so that out of the trial we look more like him the word complete is a word that speaks to wholeness meaning that as christ is formed in us and christ begins to live through us guess what we experience the fullness the wholeness of life that god has invited us into the abundance of life that he promised here's what this means trials have not been allowed by god in your life to take something from you trials have been allowed to give something to you that's why james closes by saying lacking in nothing i know you don't feel it right now but listen what you're in god's in control of it and he's going to use it to grow you up in jesus and lead you to the fullness of the life he has for you these verses that we've looked at today god really taught me what i've shared with you today a little over eight years ago it was in 2012. our church was 12 years old in march of 2012 we've been we'd been here 12 years church about 11 years old in march of 2012 we moved into this campus we built the first two buildings over here on cactus we've been for 11 years a church wandering around here in the wilderness wandering in the desert we're like the children of israel we used to tell people come if you can find us we met in nine different locations in our first 11 years finally much prayer and work and effort and giving and leadership and finally march of 2012 we got a place to call our own three months three months we occupied these buildings and las vegas experienced what was called the 100 year flood and our property was right in the middle of the river running through las vegas you'll see some pictures up here on the screen our entire campus that we'd been in for three months flooded and was underwater if you were here at that time and you saw it when i first arrived on the scene the water was up to about my waist it was it was such a river running through our campus the fire department had to come and rescue personnel they had to get our administrative assistants in the office and carry them out of the buildings on their shoulders and get them to safety [Music] you know what these floods are like in las vegas it came and went in about two hours and what was left was about eight to nine inches of mud million dollars worth of damage on our brand new three-month-old campus and there was a lot of me that wanted to cash in my chips and just be done to use a vegas analogy man i watched our church in the midst of what looked like a very unavoidable unpredictable you talk about unpredictable i mean i'm from alabama when i moved to las vegas i knew we'd have problems i knew we'd have challenges but it's a desert i didn't think one of them would be a flood somebody uncomfortable i watched our church rally together and began to clean this place up we never missed a weekend service our church just labored for three days the community came helped out everybody showed up with buckets and squeegees and shovels and wheelbarrows and that sunday was coming and i had to say something to our church like y'all show up every week expecting us to have a sermon regardless of what happens does this week right so i had to have something to say what do you say pastor travis and i we just sat down we prayed we talked and god led us to james chapter one and that saturday morning before that sunday i wrote this journal entry i went and picked i found this old journal it's dated august 25th 2012. here's what i wrote three days ago our new permanent campus at hope flooded exclamation point when i drove up and saw it underwater i couldn't believe the tragedy before my eyes in that moment i had no idea the expression of love and faithfulness that that was for my heavenly father you have been so faithful to us in the storm forgive me for so often thinking that you have forgotten about us forgive me for letting my circumstances shape my attitude towards you instead of you shaping my attitude towards my circumstances then here's the line i want you to hear i don't know the rest of the story yet but i know the one who's writing it and he loves me today i choose joy and now here i see it eight nine years later what seemed like a life-altering unavoidable unpredictable uncomfortable circumstance now i look in this room and i see what god's done in our fellowship i see how god grew us through that for those of you who are here in that moment you realize you know this over the next five weekends so many people visited our church because they saw our story on the news we saw 200 people come to know christ for the very first time what looked like a very unloving not good thing happened to be the exact thing god wanted to do to show us his goodness and his love for us and to grow us in christ's likeness and here's what i'm telling you as true as it was for james as true as it was for us whatever you're facing right now here's what i want you to know [Music] i don't know how the story's going in but i know who's writing the story and he loves you so today choose joy

Channel: Hope Church LV

Views: 896

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: hopechurchlv, hope church, hope church lv, church

Id: PaOb_GgOErM

Length: 43min 12sec (2592 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021