JUNE 21, 2020 SWBIBLE ONLINE SERVICE

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] good morning welcome to our online worship gathering dad's especially want to welcome you this morning and just tell you Happy Father's Day and what we want to do is worship our Lord Jesus together God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father let's sing together now [Music] the mountain Steve son creations [Music] heavens having gray see how much s how majestic is [Music] majestic is [Music] [Applause] [Music] how much [Music] looky [Music] from matches [Music] gee so much [Music] again [Music] hi we [Music] your fee justice [Music] she [Music] i'ma just [Music] [Music] stick it [Music] take it [Music] [Applause] [Music] my chest you know [Music] let me give you a quick update about regather of course next Sunday we had planned to regather in person but that has to be postponed now and we're waiting until we get to phase 2 where 250 people will be able to meet per building and since we have 3 separate buildings we're really looking forward to that time where we can regather in person but just just keep praying in the meantime for the leadership of our government for the leadership of this church is we just plan to do this safely and obviously at our church do this in a Christ's honoring way in the meantime I know some of you are already meeting with 25 or less to take part in this online worship time and we would encourage you to get groups together of 25 or less and and do it safely but but but worship together as much as you can let's pray right now for this father we do thank you that we can worship you without fear of someone coming in and stopping us from doing that in our in our homes and where we are right now we thank you that we live in a country where we do have the freedom to just openly worship You Lord Jesus we we praise you we thank you for what you've done to give us a relationship with our Father in Heaven and I think of how you told us to pray Lord Jesus our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name Oh God you are holy your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven how do we thank you that as we wait for the return of your son that we have opportunity we have privilege to live for you to speak of you right now give us this day our daily bread and we just think about how now especially as things have have changed so much around us that we we think about living day by day even more for that we thank you and father we I just I think of the the fathers that are listening to that are taking care of their families and providing for their families and pointing their families to Christ would we pray for help for them as they lead and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors Oh Lord I pray that none of us would think more highly of ourselves than we ought but that we would be forgive giving forgivers just as you forgiven us Lord and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil thank you Lord that you went to the cross you you understand the the emotions that we have during the these storms that our nation's in right now in what Jesus you went to the cross and you died having those same kind of emotions and you rose from the dead and and so now we as we pray as we come to our Father we thank you that we have a sympathetic high priest who who advocates for us and understands us Oh Lord Jesus we thank you and we worship you and it's in Christ's name we pray [Music] see [Music] [Applause] [Music] praise [Music] to [Music] [Music] Jesus [Music] [Music] I mean we [Music] great [Music] [Applause] [Music] here's my take it [Music] yes ma'am take it seal it for [Music] hey Southwest Bible family this morning we're gonna open up to the book of James so if you want to grab your Bible right now wherever it's at in your house go ahead and grab your Bible open up to James chapter 1 today we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 12 together I'm excited this section of Scripture has really been an encouragement to me over the past several months my home group studied it together as a high school ministry we looked at it together and I've just been dwelling on it a lot and the Lord's used it in my heart and so I'm excited to look at it together this morning but I want to start with a simple question before we look at this text and and the question is this now what does God want to do in your life what does God want to do in your life now I hope you're thinking like what are you talking about Justin that is not a simple question at all I've been trying to figure this out for years and maybe you've been asking similar questions over the past several months with everything going on you're asking God what are you doing right now maybe maybe you've been experiencing hardship in your life trial things aren't going very well and you're waiting upon the Lord and you're praying and you feel like he's not answering and you're you're asking the similar question God what are you doing what do you want to do this isn't a simple question these are very real very hard situations and these are very real questions that we have to ask God what what do you want to do in my life well the passage we're gonna look at today from James chapter 1 it addresses this it addresses what God wants to do in our lives and what he is in the process of doing even today as we call out to him and so before we look at James 1 1 through 12 let's pray together Lord we come to you right now and we ask you Lord to speak to us from your word Lord for some of us right now for years we've been asking this question what do you want to do in my life some of us over the months of quarantine and looking at everything going on the world we're asking that question God what do you want to do and Lord some of us have specific things going on in our life trials hardship things that are just tearing our world apart and and we're asking this question God what do you want to do in us and so we asked Lord right now would you teach us from your word Lord especially for those right now who are in the midst of trial who are calling out to you and waiting upon you I pray Lord with this truth bring a deep sense of hope today so Lord would you speak to us now from your word we want to hear from you in Jesus name Amen well if you want to look James chapter one verse one I'd encourage you to open up to it and follow along as I read it for us we're gonna read the first half of the chapter it starts like this James the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion greetings counted all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him but let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord he is a double-minded man unstable in all his ways let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation because like a flower of the grass he will pass away for the Sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass it's flower falls and its beauty perishes so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him let no one say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself temps no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creature all right so let's start back at James chapter 1 verse 1 and we want to look at this introduction every time we open up to one of these letters in the New Testament it's good to remember who's writing the letter who they're writing it to and these introductions although we can kind of go fastly through them and skip over them they contain some important information that gives us lenses to look through as we look at the passage for today and so the the whole chapter starts the whole book starts saying James a servant of God in the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion greetings there is actually so much in this one verse so he starts out by identifying who wrote it James and we know from Galatians 1 19 Hall actually mentions this James and mentions that James is the brother of Jesus and so we have the the brother of Jesus writing this letter to these churches but it's interesting James was the brother of Jesus he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem but he doesn't refer to himself as the brother of Jesus you would almost think that he would hey I'm James jesus's brother like that would give some credibility but he doesn't he says james and then he calls himself if you look the next two words a servant of god he he calls himself a servant now this title servant sets a tone for the rest of the latter James is all about the book of James is all about submission to Jesus submitting our whole lives to him every part of us and we see this even in the first three words the writer says I am a servant and right after calling himself a servant he then turns to Jesus who is the main character of the whole Bible the main character of this book and he uses two titles for Jesus if you look at it with me he says Jesus is Lord and Christ these are two powerful titles for Jesus when he calls Jesus the Christ he's speaking of him as the promised Anointed Messiah who is gonna come save his people and when he speaks of him as the Lord he's speaking of the reigning authoritative master of all God's people and so he gives these two powerful titles the promised Messiah and the reigning Lord this is who Jesus is and so even in this first sentence we get this a crazy image drawn of James the servant but Jesus is the high up exalted Lord in Christ he's the one that the whole book is all about and so again this understanding of servant and and Lord Christ Jesus gives us goggles lenses to look through throughout the rest of today's passage we need to come into today's passage with a humble view of self but an extraordinary view of Jesus our Lord in our Christ because if we don't have a proper view of him and if we have too high of a view of ourselves it's gonna be difficult to grasp what he wants to say to us today in verses 2 through 12 and then there's still some left of James 1:1 if you look he says this after describing himself and then Jesus he says he's writing - he's writing to the 12 tribes in the dispersion and so it's important to note here that this whole book is written to Jewish believers specifically and and these believers had been scattered all throughout the the unbelieving world in Peter we hear these people referred to as sojourners and exiles God's people were scattered throughout all the nations they were living in in the midst of people who didn't believe the same thing or live in the same way that they lived and because of this God's people frequently found themselves in places where it was difficult to live because they were being persecuted for their faith it was difficult to live because they had the normal trials of life that people have it was difficult to live for Jesus because they were having a tough time not conforming to the world around them and so he's writing to these Jewish believers scattered around the nations who are experiencing what it's like to live in a world that's not the kingdom of heaven and this was a difficult life to live and so he acknowledges who he's writing to so to cap all this off just so we have the correct lenses going into this passage we need to associate with God's people scattered throughout the unbelieving world that's even like us today we live in the midst of people who don't believe the same thing and and don't live the same way because Jesus changes everything about us that is gonna present some difficulty however we want to have the same posture as James and that we see ourselves as a servant of the Lord and we want to have the same extraordinary view of Jesus and seeing him as the great promised Messiah and as the reigning Lord and so with that in mind let's turn to verse 2 actually I guess I would say like as I was thinking about this I put it into a statement and this is how it summarizes whole intro Christians are scattered servants of the reigning Savior that's our role we're scattered about we're living in a world that won't be our eternal home but we're living scattered about as servants to the reigning Savior and so with this lens in mind we jump into verse 2 he says count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and lets steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing so after addressing this letter to scattered people who are scattered all around the world James begins with an exhortation to the people and and he uses again these two polarizing terms if people hear him in our world he says considerate joy some of your translations say pure joy consider it pure joy when you want when you encounter trial of various kinds consider it pure joy he's writing this exhortation because he knows that for humans and for you and I our natural response is quite the opposite when we encounter various trials our natural response isn't pure joy our natural response can actually be to get discouraged or bitter or frustrated and eat so he starts with an exhortation consider it joy when you face trials he doesn't say if you face trials he says when this is a reality for the scattered believer we will face trials and he says when that happens consider it pure joy or maybe your translation says all joy have a full full joy when you face trial every person listening right now we're scattered all around mostly around Portland some other places all of us have experienced trial all of us will experience trial and this week I know that some of you in our church are experiencing real trial right now and it's important to know that this isn't just an isolated idea for James James wasn't a superhuman where he shared this and said hey during trials I'm joyful and he said it and we can kind of go okay that's just James no this is actually consistent teaching throughout the Bible a James says it Paul says it and Peter we see in Romans 5 3 through 5 Paul's writing to the Romans and he says not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us it's the same a same command he says rejoice in suffering respond with joy in trial rejoice in suffering and then Peter writes this in first Peter 1 6 through 7 in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials so the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in glory and honor and praise at the revelation of Jesus Christ and so again he says you are gonna have you need to rejoice even throughout the various trials so again James Peter and Paul they all give the same excitation obviously this was something that the early church needed to hear and God wanted to say it to them and I think if we're being honest we recognize that we need to hear it too we face trials all the time and so we have to ask ourselves is our response joy do I do I respond with joy when I face hardship or trial or suffering and so he gives these two words back to our passage look at verse 2 where he says consider it pure joy when you face trials we have these two terms that we have to consider both joy and trial now if I had to give a real simple understanding of what joy is I would just say it's experiencing gladness now it's much more robust than that but in a situation to be in a state of gladness of praise and an understanding this biblically we realize that this is actually this experiencing gladness or having joy it's not based on circumstance but we see biblically it's based upon a foundation of truth in the midst of changing circumstance and so I say I can have joy in my trial not going the trials good but because I know something true about my god in the midst of it we're gonna unpack that as we keep going in this passage you see joy is based upon the faithfulness of our Savior not our circumstance and this is a foundational reality for the believer it's not a random response so for the believer one of the fruits of the spirit is being self controlled and so when we're going through trial it's not that we just have this weird out of nowhere joy when everything's really hard it's actually this remembering of the truth bringing our hearts back in alignment with the Lord and in choosing joy in the midst of trial but I would also say it's important that we see in Scripture that this might not be our only response at one moment sometimes we don't show grace to ourselves and we treat ourselves like we're robots like I'm going through the hardest thing in my life and the only thing I should be feeling right now is joy but that's not how the Bible describes us as humans or how God expects us to act we actually read that he wants us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice and and there's so many examples of mourning in the scripture and so we have this precedent where it's okay to recognize the hardship of a situation it's okay to weep through it and more on what's going on and then still to say God I know who you are and I want to find joy in you so our joy can even exist in the midst of deep sorrow and so we get this idea of joy it's this beautiful reality for the believer that we're called to that isn't dependent upon circumstance but it's dependent upon who our Savior is but then in this verse 2 he says consider it pure joy it's it's supposed to be a great joy when you face trials and so we have to consider what does he mean when he says trials now we said that joy is experiencing gladness and I would say that trials is experiencing difficulty as believers both internally and externally these are words there's three words in this passage that all kind of group together and we have to think about them so that we don't start just reading them as the same there's three T's that you see in this passage we have trial we have temptation and we have testing in the trial is kind of this overarching umbrella term and it's difficulty that's faced in every area of life but specifically how trials use tears seems to be describing a lot of the external trial that the believers were going through throughout James there's actually these stories that are told or I guess commands given that illustrate the difficult trials that God's people were going through he talks about those that are currently in financial need they're they're experiencing poverty he talks about those who had been discriminated against and partiality was shown against them he talks about the job list those who are being slandered those who are being taken to court those who were sick James addresses all sorts of trials that externally have affected the believer and if you extrapolate those out it addresses many of the external trials that we face as people today maybe you've lost a loved one maybe you're out of work maybe there's family tension maybe you feel like someone that has has turned you away because of of who you are whatever it is there are these external trials that we face and so by trial this is someone of what he's speaking about these are the results of living in a skat as scattered exile is in a broken world we will face external trial these people that James is writing to they were experiencing it every day just like we do brokenness in the world definitely affects us as believers we live in a broken world we face very real trials and so when he says trials it's experiencing that difficulty or that brokenness externally but then also we see internally and further down in the passage this word has introduced temptation and in James 1 if you want to look further down our passage James 1:13 through 15 it says let no one say when he is tempted I'm being tempted God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself temps no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death so here James is unpacking what temptation is and temptation is this internal enticement we're we're we're reading here that were enticed and and lured in it says in verse 14 by our own desire so there's the external trials that we go through and then there's the internal effect of sin in us which makes us desire things that are rebellion against God and so both ways we experience this difficulty but here he's speaking of temptation being lured and enticed you've experienced this it's that internal tug-of-war going on inside you where Paul says I'm not doing what I want to do and maybe you experience that you see the brokenness in the world but you're also aware of the brokenness going on inside of you and the trial feels like you're experiencing it on the outside but it sure also feels present on the inside and we've read here that God isn't the one tempting but we're being lured and enticed by these desires in our flesh and then there's a third word talked about here so we looked at trial we looked at temptation but the word here and this occurs in verse 3 it says this for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness so have joy in the midst of various trials because the testing of your faith is producing steadfastness so testing here is the purifying and productive work of God in our lives you see if we're not thinking correctly we can start to think of testing as if it's like an exam maybe you haven't been in a school for a while but think of sitting down for a written exam and the papers in front of you and you're gonna get a grade and sometimes when we read this word testing verse three we think that God is like giving us an exam he wants to see what percentage our faith is gonna get or to even understand if our faith is real at all and this idea can make us think that this trial that God is putting us through is just to see if if our faith is genuine or not however the testing spoken about here is different than that it's actually a little more specific what God is doing we see that the trial that God is putting us through and verse 2 and the testing that he is doing is not to see whether or not we have faith but it's actually for the sake of purifying our faith or growing our faith this isn't an exam it's actually preparation for the exam that we're gonna have on the final day when we stand before Jesus in judgment see the Bible uses this word testing speaking of purifying and then producing we're gonna see both of those play out in this passage if you want to look at first Peter 1:6 through 7 again this is one that we already read when we were looking how Peter Paul and James all talked about joy and trial together but in 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 6 and 7 he kind of gives us a little bit of an insight into what this testing actually is it says again in verse 6 in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ you see the testing here is speaking of the same way that like a precious metal is tested or purified it's heated up it actually gets the impurities out it's for the sake of purifying out unbelief but then growing and enhancing the brilliance of the belief and so the testing we go through isn't God looking at us and saying hey do they actually believe it's God saying I want to grow their belief I want to grow their dependence and trust in me I think that's important for some of us to really think about if you view God as one who's constantly testing your faith in a way where he wants to see you fail then we need to remember who our God is God isn't trying to see if your faith is real he wants to grow your faith He desires relationship with you and one thing that also helps us grasp what this testing is is by remembering what our faith is our faith isn't something that we achieve our faith isn't something that we earn or deserve our faith isn't something that we even think is founded in us our faith is a gift our faith is by grace and he's the one who is growing it and so when I say he's testing my faith he's purifying it he's producing something beautiful in it we're gonna see that in this next section Jesus wants to deepen your faith so that you are rooted deeply in him one theologian said this he said the testing of faith is not intended to determine whether a person has faith or not it is intended to purify the faith which already exists God wants to purify our lack of faith and then produce in us a deeper one the world views Trials as evidence that God is not good but according to this passage so far we can view trials as evidence that God is going to continue to show us his goodness and he will continue to be faithful and because of that we have joy and so we want to look at a couple more passages so what does this testing actually produce I look at verse three with me it says the testing of your faith produces steadfastness now steadfast means to be fixed in a place not subject to change not easily pushed here or there but to stay steady another way this is translated sometimes is endurance is if someone steadfast in something it means they keep going in the same direction they're not easily knocked off-course and some people also translate this endurance in the same direction patiently continuing on now this helps us grasp a little bit of what it's talking about if we think about in Timothy and then even just other analogies people give we often think of endurance athletes now people who continue on and keep pushing through and you don't get good at endurance by one day just deciding you're gonna run a marathon you get endurance by continuing to push continuing to go into the next longer run and do longer and longer and longer until finally you're able to achieve it this endurance has grown over time and so the steadfastness that's produced through the testing of our faith comes through trial he says through trusting Jesus in the midst of trial he's growing our steadfastness or our endurance this again is brought up in Romans 5:3 where it says suffering produces endurance it's this continued trust in Jesus for the long run continuing to set our eyes on him you see God is in the process of growing our faithfulness he wants to grow our faith in our trust in our dependence on him he's growing our faith so that our lives are more submitted to him each and every day yeah you know I think we've we've heard this statement before I hear people say it all the time the goal isn't perfection the goal is progress or people will even say this maybe you've seen it unlike someone's sign in their house but it'll say something like it's not about the destination it's about the journey now these are nice statements and sentiments and I get it there's a piece to it where we should rejoice when we see our growth along the journey as we're being conformed more into the image of Jesus but really what we read in this verse is that actually it is about perfection not that we're gonna have it fully here but that's the end goal that actually makes the progress now worth it he says this in verse 4 let's steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing steadfastness endurance perseverance those are those are good things and we read here that God wants to grow those in us he wants us to increase in our consistent trusting and walking with him but we read here that he wants to grow our steadfastness so that when it has its full effect were made complete I look at that he says steadfastness having its full effect so this isn't endurance for a short season this is the long-term impact of trusting the Lord having steadfast faith is overtime what it does is it makes us more like Jesus so that one day one more before him we're gonna be perfect and complete lacking in nothing testing produces steadfastness which eventually is gonna result in you and I standing before Jesus complete reflecting him and his perfection you know Jesus said this to his disciples in Scripture right after he had been telling them that he needed to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them he was calling them not to reflect the world where you just love people who love you no he said actually you're gonna love your enemies and then he gave himself as the example and he says you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect God is calling us to be a perfect people and although we're never fully gonna achieve that here on earth one day that's gonna be our status as we stand before him we will be perfect and complete he will have completely purified us and we're gonna stand before him having everything that we need in godliness because he's gonna give it to us that's how good he is we read how this is going to take place in first Thessalonians 5:23 it says may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the of our Lord Jesus Christ he who calls you is faithful he will surely do it now this is the point where we don't want to forget that he is the one that gives us joy in the midst of our trials that he is the one who's going to strengthen us we read in 2nd Timothy so that our faith is strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we grow in our steadfastness and ultimately we'll be perfect we don't want to view this perfection now is this thing that we're doing again it's his faithfulness that's growing our faith in Him and we read in 1st Thessalonians 5 here that he is sanctifying us completely we will eventually be sanctified completely I think right now that's good news for some of us who are listening maybe you've been struggling with the same thing for a long time maybe you finally feeling like you have some freedom from something but you don't want to fall back into it Jesus will sanctify completely he's gonna finish what he starts one day we're gonna stand before him completely made new we should look forward to this with a lot of anticipation that the trial were going through where he's making us more like him and growing our steadfast trust in him that one day that growth in our trust with the Lord will culminate in perfection before him we should look forward to that day and then I want to jump down though to verse 12 so James 1 verse 12 because there's these words that should help kind of hyperlink the two together we read in verse 4 verse 3 sorry that he is gonna uh sorry verse 4 that steadfast is gonna have steadfastness is gonna have its full effect um and then we read about steadfastness again down in verse 12 he said blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him you see the Lord produces steadfastness in us through trials but then we read here that he blesses those who are steadfast how how amazing is that of our God that he would be the one who's producing in our faith a steadfastness and then in verse 12 he would say that you are blessed if you remain steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life now I want to encourage you to take this phrase crown of life and and go look it up and trace it through Scripture it's absolutely beautiful but the one day when we stand before him complete having been completely sanctified being up now perfect just like our Savior we read that we'll be just like him when we see him we read here about this crown of life he's gonna give us and I traced it through because it says he's gonna give us this crown of life and first Peter 5 4 it says that when the chief Shepherd appears you will receive the unfading crown of glory in first Corinthians 9:25 it says that athletes they're not just seeking a perishable wreath but an imperishable and then in 2nd Timothy 4:8 it says henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but to all those who have loved his appearing the Lord is producing an unfading and imperishable crown for those who love him not just for those who are perfect and not just for those who have it all together or who handle trial perfectly but for those who love Him who trust him who lean on him and depend on him above all else he's producing an unfading an imperishable crown and so if we want to put this all together think back to where we started we asked the question what does God want to do in your life and oftentimes we say that we want a road map we want to know exactly what's gonna happen in all these little decisions but here when we ask what does God want to do in your life we see that he wants to give us joy in the midst of trial not because the trial is easy but because he is providing a salvation that a certain not because we have it all together now but one day we're gonna be presented in front of him complete not because the world around us believes the same thing or lives the same way but because our God is faithful and he's working in our lives even though we're believers scattered it's all about right now if you're in the midst of trial you can find joy in the Lord not because your trial is easy he understands the weight of our trial but we can find joy in the Lord because he will remain faithful he's gonna produce out of this trial steadfast trust in him we can cling to him and know him more and that steadfastness when it's having its full effect it's gonna result in us eventually being perfect and complete lacking in nothing he is growing us sanctifying us and molding us we talked about how the testing is both purifying and it's producing in this testing the Lord is purifying our unbelief purifying us where we need P refine but he's also producing in us a faith that is growing and so this week when we go through trial or this year when we face more trial but we don't minimize it like the trial isn't significant but we look to the Lord and say Lord I know you're not absent in the midst of this I know through this you're producing something beautiful in one day I'm gonna stand before you complete and we praise Jesus for being the one who's gonna complete us let's pray Lord we cry out to you and Lord we thank you for being present with us we need you Lord Lord we don't pretend to understand why we're going through certain things or or like we have it all figured out internally Lord we experienced trial both externally and internally and Lord we need you in the midst of both Lord Lord we ask you would you purify our hearts how would you protect us from temptation but Lord would you guide us to be able to have joy in you even in the midst of uncertainty knowing that you don't disappear in the midst of hardship but you're working and redeeming in producing steadfast faith in you so Lord we want to know you more we want to be near to you lord I thank you that you're near to the lowly and when we're in the midst of trial you're near to us we can depend on you and know that you are growing our faith independence and you Lord we want you above all else and Lord we have joy not because things are easy now but we have joy because one day we're actually gonna be with you and when we see you you're gonna make us new and we long for that day Lord when you're gonna make all things new we long for that day when we're gonna stand before you no longer with the external trial or the internal trial but we're gonna stand before you as those who have been tested through being purified and having faith produced in us where we're gonna stand in you perfect and complete lacking and nothing Jesus for this reason we praise you in Jesus name Amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] seeing no one else to be free first [Music] speed [Music] I see [Music] you [Music] you [Music] to do [Music] [Applause] [Music] you soon [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the joy [Music] jeez [Music] [Music] to [Music] [Music] [Applause] significant coming your kingdom [Music] close [Music] see [Music] your kingdom come close [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do tell [Music] [Music] [Music] these change Justin started his message with a great question what does God want to do in your life and the book of James gave a great answer God wants to give us joy in the midst of trial because he is providing a salvation that is certain we can trust him and we can cling to him and in a world filled with uncertainty this is such good news now in a moment we're going to give you some discussion prompts we would encourage you to spend time with those you're worshiping with and discuss these questions and if you are washing watching this alone we would encourage you just to call someone or spend some time journaling and reflecting on these questions before we conclude I would like to invite you to a special zoom prayer meeting tonight at 7 o'clock you can find our zoom prayer meetings by going to SW Bible org and clicking on prayer there's links to the various prayer meetings throughout the week including our seven o'clock prayer time tonight before we go to this time of reflection and discussion let's close in a word of Prayer father we thank you for the reminder from this text that you're at work in our lives in the midst of trial and in the midst of difficulty and we live in a world right now full of uncertainty and fear but we thank you the that we do not have to fear because you're with us and we can cling to you and we can turn to you and we also thank you that uncertainty and fear is fertile soil for the gospel and so we pray that as a result of these times of uncertainty that many people would come to know you and that you would use us to share the good news of Jesus with those around us and so father we thank you that we will one day stand before you perfected through trial and complete by the blood of Christ we rejoice in that fact this morning and we thank you for the salvation we have in Jesus Christ and it's in his name that we pray amen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] 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Channel: Southwest Bible Church Online

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Id: KczL2EB6JB4

Length: 111min 43sec (6703 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020