Finding Joy in Trials: Embracing God's Purpose

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Sermon Clips

"Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials. Joy and trials in the same verse, right? Two seemingly opposite things. What is going on here? Because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." [00:53:31] (40 seconds)



"And James is beginning, from the very start, he's saying, stop looking at the trial and look through the trial. Don't look at the trial. Look through the trial. And here's what you're going to lock your eyes on. The goodness of God. That's what you got to do. Stop looking at all and trying to understand all the little details of how this is working and how this is going to pan out and lock your eyes on the goodness of God and what this might do in your life." [01:01:00] (42 seconds)



"Joy goes part and parcel with the Christian life because joy is actually a even in the the root word of grace joy and and grace are so interconnected with one another it's hard to totally separate them out when we experience the unmerited favor of God in our life there is a joy that is not based off the surrounding circumstances that we have it's deeper than that." [01:06:48] (32 seconds)



"And the word there you know it's great joy it's this feast of joy that's available for us even in the trial especially because we're going through a trial in our life when we just stop and this is the hard part right because when we when we're in when we're in like trial mode right we're we're kind of going to this defensive posture of like man I I don't like this I gotta get out of here I gotta get out of this as quick as I can I gotta figure out what's going on and I gotta I gotta try to align things in a way where I can get get out of this and James is like no stop for a minute stop there's a feast of joy that's available but we have to stop and we have to surrender ourselves that's the hard part surrendering ourselves is so hard because it's so vulnerable." [01:13:56] (61 seconds)



"That's what true surrender is, not, well, I got some hard things going on in my life, so I think I'm going to kind of keep pursuing this thing, and then, well, I better start going to church a little bit, or I better start reading my Bible a little bit, and, well, what are some things that I, and we start kind of forming on, that's not surrender. Surrender, surrender is saying, I got nothing, zilcho, I've got nothing, but God, I'm trusting you, and I lay myself before you in a posture of humility, trusting your wisdom and your guidance in my life." [01:14:54] (49 seconds)



"So, these trials in our life, right, it's this progression that James lines out for us. There's these trials that happen in our life. Trials are those things that, again, are those unexpected, unplanned for, stinky things that happen in our life. Trials. I was going to explain to you guys today the difference between a trial or a test and a temptation." [01:16:27] (29 seconds)



"And endurance isn't the end goal, right? Like, we're stoics. Like, we're supposed to find joy in this, in the end. endurance itself that's not what james is saying the endurance actually leads to maturity completeness it's a word you have to be careful with right but it actually means perfection not that we reach a level of sinlessness right on this side of eternity but it doesn't take our eyes off of the goal of what direction the lord is leading us in and he's leading us and he's calling us to this place of maturity this place of completion of of of perfection whereas we continue to experience the joy of the lord in our in our life." [01:18:08] (61 seconds)



"But when we respond in faith, when we respond in the confidence and the belief that God will see us through, something amazing happens in our life. And how did James say that? He says, let endurance, let endurance have its way with you. Basically is what he's saying. And you know that word, let, it's a little bitty word, but man, you talk about a powerful word because let is about surrender. Let is about humility." [01:20:18] (39 seconds)



"The key to the Christian life, and Eddie has helped me with this so much, but the key to the Christian life is truly surrender. It's a surrendering to what Christ has done. That's what enters us into a relationship with God. But did you know the Christian life really lived out? It is a daily surrendering to self, daily picking up our cross. And it's an amazing, beautiful trail that God has us on." [01:25:08] (43 seconds)