The Genuine Article

the following message by aleister begg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthforlife.org and i invite you to turn to james and chapter one as we resume our studies in james this morning before we look at our text we'll just pause and pray gracious god as we come now before your word we recognize that what you have to say to us through the bible is actually more important than what we have to say to you through our songs and our prayers and so we ask for a spirit of diligence for an awareness of your divine work within us as we open our eyes to the pages of the bible and as we seek to open our hearts to receive the word that james says needs to be planted in us accomplish your purpose as we pray for christ's sake amen well our text this morning is verse 12. blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that god has promised to those who love him like many young couples when sue and i were first married back in 1975 and when we lived in edinburgh the capital of scotland part of our challenge was in furnishing our flat or our apartment and mainly with a secondhand furniture and we would go to the new town in edinburgh which is actually an oxymoron in many ways but uh it was a pretty old new town at the time and uh down there on a number of streets there were all of these second-hand shops and on pleasant days much of the furniture was actually out in the street so that you could see it from the road and stop and examine it and handle it and so on and on one particular occasion we were there and looking i think it was at a cabinet uh something that had moving parts at any rate and in the course of uh entering into price discussions with the shop owner who was out in the street with us i said to him why would i buy this secondhand piece when i could actually go and for probably the same money uh get a new piece from one of those hyper markets well he obviously was thrilled at the challenge that was laid down by the question because his eyes lit up and he said well i'll i'll show you why you shouldn't do that and then he proceeded to take this cabinet and to open the doors and to close them with such forcefulness that any lesser piece of material would have really been destroyed and the more he banged and opened and closed it and showed us the way in which everything was put together and the joints were in wonderful place he smiled triumphantly as in every occasion the doors went right back into place and then having done that he said now come with me and he took us through the shop and into a back shop where he obviously had his party piece for occasions such as this because he had another piece of furniture a new piece of furniture that was made by with chipboard and had a white sort of plastic veneer on it and he said now this is probably the kind of thing you're talking about whether it was or not didn't matter for the occasion but he then proceeded to subject this piece of furniture to the same kind of treatment that he'd given to the used piece that was out on the street and with great triumph he showed how it very quickly became uh a real mess and how it it it affected the screws that were in and so on and um it really it really wasn't fearing very well and then he said you see you can have a piece like this that may look a little better on the outside than what i have out there but the real issue he said is it's day by day usage and the test of time and the opening and the closing and the slamming and everything else and he said it is that which will prove whether you have the genuine article or not and he said i suggest to you that you reject this piece and i still have in mind you love to waggle the door reject this piece he said and come with me and purchase the genuine article and of course we were sold and we did and uh uh he he spoke a tremendous amount of truth now the reason i begin there is because i've decided that an apt heading for this study of verse 12 is simply that phrase the genuine article because james in these opening verses and we come to the end of a section here in the 12th verse is actually addressing the question of faith as a genuine article what does faith look like how do we know whether our faith is the real thing and the answer that james gives at least in part is that genuine faith is to be discovered in the warp and wolf of life in the day by day opening and closing if you like in the facing up to the challenges and the trials that come our way in verses two to four he's already established the fact that trials are not unnatural nor are they uncommon nor are the obstacles to spiritual growth that of course is very important because we may be tempted to think that that is the case listening to people on a daily basis who suggests somehow or another that victorious christian living means the absence of trials that if you really were a man or a woman of faith then these events that would threaten to harm you or undo you would somehow or another be uncommon experiences and indeed if you wanted to make any kind of spiritual progress then you would need to ensure that your life was free of these encumbrances and what james says is the exact opposite of that what he says in his opening verses two to four is said by peter in his opening section as we saw in one of our studies earlier where in first peter chapter one and in verses six and seven addressing again as james does the issue of all kinds of trials he says these have come so that your faith may be proved genuine so that your faith may be proved genuine so the experience of trials and of difficulties not uncommon not unusual not unproductive but in fact purposeful in the plan of god now verse 12 i think you will agree it completes the thought of verses 2 to 4. indeed linguistically you can see verses 5 to 11 in brackets and read from verse 4 immediately to verse 12 and find that the whole thing holds together in terms of logical thought and that's why when we dealt with verses 5 to 11 we said that we need to understand this in light of the structure that he has laid down concerning the notion of persevering faith but our concern is not so much with that this morning as it is to recognize that in verse 12 he introduces us to the truly happy individual the word that is used here blessed macarios is not an unfamiliar word in the bible it occurs often in the psalms of course we have the beatitudes of jesus the brother of james and here james provides us with his own little beatitude the blessing that accompanies this man the true happiness which this individual experiences is a happiness that is not tied to circumstances it is not tied to circumstances but it is a happiness which is known by the individual who doesn't try and duck the difficulties or run from reality but instead perseveres in the face of the trial now in order to help us come to terms with this verse i want to ask five straightforward questions of it they're very simple but i hope they will be equally helpful let's just read the verse one more time blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that god has promised to those who love him well first of all what are these trials what are these trials up in verse 2 we are introduced to them as trials of many kinds the word in greek is the word that gives us multi-multi-colored the idea of a rainbow and all of the variety of colors and hues that are represented in the panorama of a rainbow's beauty that is the word that is used to describe the trials that are experienced by those who are living the christian life they are trials of many kinds it's interesting that he doesn't begin to list them he doesn't say and what i have in mind is this and this he deals with it in a generic way which if you think about it is actually far more helpful because if he had said i have in mind a b and c then those of us who could look at a b and c and say well i have no awareness of this or experience of this right now then we would either have to go and seek out a b and c because if these trials are the key to maturity then we're going to have to have them in order to become mature or we'd have to just decide we're not going to become mature at all he does mention parenthetically that poverty introduces us to a trial that needs to be dealt with that prosperity in itself may become the occasion of trial but beyond that he simply calls them trials of various kinds which means that all of us have an immediate point of application i don't need to ask you what your trial is or what your trials are to be aware of the fact that you have some just to live life and to be honest is to know that so for example some of us are facing the trials of adolescence either as adolescents or as the parents of adolescence and somebody told us it's a bit of a chore and we're saying i didn't realize that it could be such a trial some of us are facing the trials of diminishing physical capacity for whatever reason simply the passage of time the fact that things are no longer working the way they once did for some of us as ricotta said remarkably when he was preaching here we have a furniture problem insofar as our chest has now dropped down into our drawers that the impact of gravity is taking its toll trials of no job the trials of the same job the trials of a new job someone says i wish i had a job someone else says you can have my job trial trial the trials of not having children the trials of having children the trials of being an only child the trials of having siblings who drive you nuts now these trials are all kinds of trials they are not uncommon they are not unusual and they are not obstacles to spiritual growth and the tremendously encouraging factor is this and you need to go to first peter again to get this it's verse 10 of chapter four you can deal with it later but the peter employs the very same word of god's grace as he employs of human trials it's manifold trials manifold grace or multicultural trials at multicolored trials multicolored grace in other words the grace of god is more than able to meet all the kinds of trials that are faced by god's people as they walk the path of faith question number two what does it mean to persevere under trials what does it mean to persevere under trials and you'll notice that it is not uh suggesting that we fly above the trials but rather that we are flying through the trials every so often when you're flying the pilot will tell you that he has spoken to air traffic control and he has spoken to some of the planes that are flying ahead of us and there is no possibility of us being able to go above below or around the turbulence that we now face therefore he has asked everybody to please be seated and if we just give one more little tug on our belts i love how they say that just one more little tug on your belt and we are going to fly through this we're going to fly through it the christian life is all about flying through it and anybody who comes to you with a story about getting above it and beyond it and so on is teaching you from an empty head and from a closed bible james is absolutely categorically clear when you face trials of all kinds not if you face trials but when you face them the challenge is the challenge of perseverance what does it mean then to persevere under trials that's our question well it means refusing to run away from the challenges refusing to run away from the challenges some of us are experts at running away as soon as everything becomes difficult we just run change jobs change home change locations change school change courses oh i didn't think chemistry would be this hard the only way to deal with this is make a run for it no you could actually try and see it through not running away but running on running with perseverance as the writer to the hebrew says in 12 running with perseverance the race that is marked out for us it means not only that but holding on no matter how hard it might be because in this way we actually prove to ourselves as well as to any who may be watching that perseverance in the face of trials is not only possible but it is profitable you see how do we prove to ourselves that our faith is genuine it's when trials come when the trials come and everything goes skew with now we find out whether these professions and these testimonies and these verses and all this stuff we've said about the grace of god and the peace of god and the securing providence of god now we have an opportunity to find out whether the profession of our lips is matched by the experience of our lives and that's what it means to persevere in them not just possible by god's grace but also profitable on account of god's grace this morning's reading in spurgeon's morning and evening which you can read later on if you choose is exactly along these lines i'll give you just a little a little piece from it he says he who would glorify his god must set his account upon meeting with many trials no man can be illustrious before the lord unless his conflicts be many if then yours be a much tried path rejoice in it because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of god as for his failing you never dream of it hate the thought the god who has been sufficient until now should be trusted to the end at spurgeon uh this morning on 2 corinthians 12 9. thirdly what does it mean then to stand the test you'll notice that the verse goes on because when he has stood the test the word is dokimos in greek it's a well-used word it's the word that you find for example when paul writes to timothy as our young man a verse that was given to me on a bible when i left scotland at the age of 15 and left my bible class behind and the the leaders gave me a bible as a gift to take away down to england and in the front of the bible they wrote 2 timothy 2 15 study to show yourself approved unto god that word there approved is the word dokimos it means approved after testing and that is the word that he uses here when he has stood the test when he is the one who has the seal of god's approval on his life because he is a persevering believer but without the test without the trials there's no test and without the test there's no graduation you don't get a seal of approval without going through the test some of us want to graduate without taking the courses in fact you can do that i believe in america i see it all over the place i think for for a certain sum of money i could give you a list of credentials that would make your head spin i see it all the time you get a phd from here and a masters of something from there and everything else you just send the money and and it all comes to you i can't imagine what you would do with it how embarrassing would it be when the person said and what was your thesis in and you have to say well the uh the the person said that's good good yes it'd be worthless wouldn't it just be silly qualification without any study without any test so it would be silly to think that maturity and completeness in the christian life would be a maturity and completeness that was conferred upon us without taking the courses and without going through the examinations god is purposeful in what he does in the lives of his children that's what james is saying how long does this test take when i looked at this at first i thought you know when he has stood the test uh this is a moment in time and then i looked and i said no when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life when do you receive the crown of life in eternity when does eternity come just after you finish with time when will you be finished with time at the end of your life how long is this test going to last the whole of life see basically if we're honest the whole of our lives is just one gigantic series of tests there's something reassuring about that though isn't there because it gives us it gives us an opportunity to think seriously and realistically about the things that we and other people are going through when we're tempted to regard them as intruders rather than as james says welcoming and welcoming them as friends every so often when you're flying and i'm sorry this is my last flying analogy for the morning but uh 18 and a half hours from johannesburg to new york has put flying firmly in my mind for a while but you've had the experience you find yourself sitting next to a pilot and you say where are you going and he says i'm going to the simulator and why are you going to the simulator well i'm going to simulate and i'm going to have experiences of turbulence and stress and the loss of an engine or the loss of two engines or an aborted takeoff or whatever else it is so that if and when that ever happens i might be prepared and ready to go and of course you're very interested in that and you wish him the best and you hope that he finishes his course successfully just in case the two of us are ever back together again in a real life situation but when you think about it the christian life has no simulation the christian life is a real time experience all the time every day you don't go in a simulator to find out how to deal with your children you don't go in a simulator to deal with the sudden loss of a loved one you don't go in a simulator to be prepared for whatever it might be that comes your way and hits you like a ton of lead and what james makes so obviously clear is that the experience of joy and trial is an experience that is a simultaneous experience it is not as we've said before that in the absence of trial is the discovery of joy but rather that joy a joy that is an unfathomable joy may be discovered on account of the trial i've quoted this verse to you before from the hymn but it is a useful verse isn't it it's the hymn that begins my god i thank you who has made the earth so bright and all of the wonderful things in the earth and then the hymn writer says i thank you too or i thank you let's say two it might be more i thank you too that all my joy is touched with pain that shadows fall on brightest hours and thorns remain so that earth's bliss may be my guide and not my chain you see the blisses and the encouragements of our earthly journey may chain us to a constant fixation with wanting more and more and more of that affirmation that approbation that good time that safe time and god in his heavenly wisdom brings into our experience pain in the reality of joy in order that we might become more like his son a few sunday nights ago we tried to reckon with this in relationship to the statements made by andrew murray who interestingly spent a long part of his life in south africa but andrew murray wrote in his journals of his experience of dealing with trials and many of you were not present on that evening and i want just to mention these four things to you i'm going to say them in their long form to begin with don't try and write them down and if you do want them i'll give them to you in their abbreviated form as soon as i give you the long version all right this is andrew murray and our question is how do you persevere under trial what does it mean to persevere under trial andrew murray said in my experience of trial i will say this one god brought me here it is by his will that i am in this tough spot and in that fact i will trust number two god will keep me here in his love and give me the grace to behave as his child number three god will make the trial a blessing teaching me lessons he intends for me to learn and number four god in his good time can if he chooses bring me out again how and when he knows so says murray let me say and here's a summary one i am here by god's appointment two i am in his keeping three i am under his training for i am here for his here by his appointment here in his keeping under his training and here for his time no wonder the puritans said that providence is a soft pillar we are not tossed about on the sea of chance we are not being manipulated by blind deterministic forces under god we are being trained in the school of his providence and what murray put so articulately there andre crouch in a different genre put so poetically and so lyrically and so melodically when in that wonderful song of his through it all remember he says and so i thank him for the mountains and i thank him for the valleys and i thank him for the things he's brought me through because if i never had a problem i'd never know that god could solve them i'd never know what faith in him could do through it all through it all i've learned to trust in jesus persevering under trial fourthly what then is this crown of life what is this crown of life because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life now crowns appear in the bible as symbols of a number of things of joy crowned with joy of royalty of victory uh the victor's crown in the whole athletic metaphor and also as a symbol of honor and of dignity but in actual fact the notion that is conveyed here in this phrase and by the grammar is that the crown is the crown that consists of life that he will receive the crown that consists of life derek prime puts it this way the crown is a picture of eternal life that god promises to his people a picture of the eternal life that god promises to his people the idea of god being president at present at the finishing line welcoming us over the finishing line and crowning us with honor and with blessing and with the life that is truly life when paul writes to timothy in 1st timothy 6 he urges him to take hold of eternal life to which he's been called i think phillips paraphrases it take hold of the life that is truly life and the fifth question and the final question is who are those who love god because this crown of life has been promised by god to those who love him to those who love him if you if you're tempted to think here somehow or another that our love wins or our love earns this crown then you're thinking immediately wrongly neither our faith nor our love wins or earns anything it is all on account of god's grace and his goodness in paul in first corinthians 2 and verse 9 remember he says eye has not seen nor ear heard neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that god has prepared for those who love him who love him so the question is who are those who love god and the answer is those who love god are those who have responded to god's amazing love towards them in the person and work of the lord jesus christ first john the apostle of love first john 4 19 he says succinctly we love because he first loved us and the person who loves god is the person who has been made aware of god's amazing love in jesus a love that is an initiative taking love a love which is the love that calls us out a love which comes and seeks us when we're not seeking him those who love god are those who have responded to god's love in this way and they are those who at the same time express their love for god in a life of purposeful obedience still in 1st john now in chapter 5 john says quite straightforwardly this is love for god to obey his commands this is love for god to obey his commands jesus said it didn't he if you love me you will keep my commands you see the idea that love for god is an introduction to do whatever we want again we can get to from the bible no husband or wife worth their salt is prepared to make a lifelong commitment to an individual who says i love you but i want to do what i want anytime i want with anyone i want saying that there's not a chance of that happening because that would not be love the crown of life is given to those who love god the love of god in the children's hymn is very wonderful jesus love is very wonderful so high you can't get over it so low you can't get under it's so wide you can't get round it the hymn writer at a more adult level says o love o love that will not let me go i rest my weary soul in thee i give you back the life i owe that in your ocean depths its flow may richer fuller be let's end here because this is of absolute crucial importance it causes each of us individually to ask ourselves the question do i love god do i love god see well that's a very simple question it's a very simple question but it is a complex question too isn't it because we've already said that the answer to the question lies in the fact that the person who loves god is the person who has discovered that they're not roaming the universe looking for god as if somehow or another mice went looking for cats or as if adam and eve went looking for god in the garden but they are individuals who realized that when they were perfectly content in their garden or in their lifestyle or in their vacation home or in their successful career that god came looking for them and loving them in jesus and that it was the discovery of god's amazing love that broke their heart showed them their sin turned them over to god and their life is now lived in response to god's amazing goodness in the obedience that marks their relationship do you love god i mean that's the question isn't it that was the question that tevye asked golda in fiddler on the roof wasn't it you say what well i know it's a long time ago but if you remember that you can go and listen to it later on tomorrow or whatever it's a wonderful section isn't it where he says that he's given perchick uh permission to marry huddle the daughter and golder says but perchicks are nothing he's got no money he's useless and you remember tavia says oh yes but he's a good boy and i like him and what's more huddle loves him and it's a new world golda love and then he says to her do you love me and she says what are you talking about you have indigestion why don't you go and lie down for a while tevye what is up with you she says i'm your wife he says i know but do you love me and then she says do i love him for 25 years i've lived with him fought him starved with him 25 years my bed is his if that's not love what is and tevye then says then you love me and she says i suppose i do and he says and i suppose i love you too and then they sing together it doesn't change a thing but even so after 25 years it's nice to know isn't that what jesus asked peter when he made him breakfast was his question peter do you love me three times one to match each denial made a hash of it made a hash of it made a hash of it do you love me yes do you love me lord you know do you love me yes okay now you go out and feed my sheep that's the question you see do i love god not a notion of an existence of a higher being not a concept of doing my best to placate a deity but have i come to an awareness of the fact that god has gone to the extent of the gift of his only son as an expression of his redeeming love so source to take me in my unloveliness and make me lovely on account of jesus that's the question do you remember when you got married i hope so you came down the front of the church the minister was there your wife was there to be your husband and the minister addressed you and asked you those questions which were addressed to your will not your emotions he didn't say and how are you today how are you feeling about how you're feeling about susie today never ask that question he said do you take this woman to be your wedded wife i do and do you take this man to be your wedded husband i do and back up the aisle went a couple that arrived as individuals to become a christian is much like that you stand as it where before god the father who looks down upon his son jesus and upon the sinner who stands with jesus and the father asks christ do you take this sinner and jesus says i do and then he says to the sinner and do you take the savior now if you ask me if i'm married and i say i i don't know i well i think yeah [Music] there's a severe problem somewhere you would agree with that wouldn't you you want a resounding yes from me that goes back 32 years to 75 to philadelphia and so does sue and that's what i want from her no if butts and babies so my dear loved ones do not sit out here sunday by sunday being confronted by the straightforward questions of god's word such as do you love me have you bowed your will to jesus christ and satisfy yourself with a kind of i don't know it will not do it will not do it's a yes or a no it's an inner or out it's a single or a married it's a love or a hate and i'm not soft-selling you on anything it would be one thing i said and if you love god and and let me tell you how it will be no more turbulence no more trials let me explain to you how you your profits will go up and your mortgage will come down and your health will be perfect and what a bunch of absolute triple trivial nonsense no it may all hit the fan but right where you are because god knows your heart you can cry out to him today and say lord i thank you for loving me in jesus forbearing my sins and i want to love you too this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with aleister begg visit us online at truthforlife.org you

Channel: Alistair Begg

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Rating: 4.3333335 out of 5

Keywords: Christian Living, Perseverance, Trials

Id: sgji_G2Wahg

Length: 39min 31sec (2371 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021