Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Pastor Joseph teaches that trials aren't interruptions but normal parts of Christian life. We don't choose if trials come, but we can choose our perspective—counting them as joy because they produce steadfastness and maturity. Scriptures: James 1:2-4, John 16:33, Isaiah 43:19, Romans 8:28-29, Ephesians 6:16, Malachi 3, John 15, Romans 5:3-5, Proverbs 27:6
We are a local Church in Orange County California who are passionate to witness lives being renewed in Christ, strengthened through discipleship, and to thrive in the fullness of living for Christ.
Get connected to us by visiting www.c3oc.com or emailing us at hello@c3oc.com
Hi, thanks for tuning in to this Week's message at C3OC. We hope that it blesses you, equips you, and fills you with faith. Let's dive in. Last week, it was Mother's Day, and we had the wonderful Cecily Feldman bring such an incredible word talking about spiritual legacy and how important that is. The week before that, I had preached out of James 1:1, which is generally a verse that, you know, you might pretty much breeze over as you get into the depths of the book of James. And over the next how many weeks, I just want to walk us through at least chapters one and two of the book of James. The book of James is a strong book. It's a meaty book, and it's sometimes referred to as the Proverbs of the New Testament. There's a lot of wisdom that James has for us in this book, and I believe that as he opens up in these first few verses, he begins to speak to something that I think is essential for us as what I would call the modern Christian church to actually understand and comprehend. And that is that just because we're following Christ does not mean we live a life exempt of trials, exempt of tribulations, exempt of problems, but we actually have a new strength that is living in the middle of us to carry us through. And we are granted a brand new perspective on how to see when we are walking in spaces that could very well blind us pretty quickly. Because I'll tell you, the promises of God are yes and amen, 100%. But I do believe that a lot of the message that we hear today is that you will live a blessed life. And we have defined blessed life by the success of a modern standard Today, blessed life means that you have access to an otherworldly strength in the midst of this worldly trials that will carry you through and refine a faith in you that is otherworldly. So James, as he's writing this, he's writing to a church who is under severe persecution. He's writing to a church that, you know, we, we might, might have thought that Covid was a severe persecution for the American church. But I would, I would say that if you want to take a look at what the persecution was like, you only have to take and cast your eyes over to Nigeria to actually understand that that is the kind of persecution that the church was actually facing. And so these, James is writing to these people. He's writing to these people who have been dispersed and pushed out. And he says this in James 1, 2, 4. He says count it all joy my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds shall. Shut up, James. I don't want to hear that. 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 let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Isn't that a good word? That through the trial we have this production factory of steadfastness that will in the end make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. I want you to know that trials in this life is not proof that God has abandoned you. Trials in this life can be a big proof that God is very much for you and wants to see a refining in your life to have a steadfastness that will never leave. A lot of the time they are the intentional environment where God is forming, revealing and maturing us as believers. You do not get to choose whether the trials come. That's why it says when, when, when we meet, when we face trials of various kinds. Not if, not if, if you meet the trials, if they come wondering if the day is no, no, no, when. So I believe we have to be prepared for this because a lot of the time I don't want to jump too far ahead. But man, if you don't prepare yourself, you're going to start victim counting your trials for your own considerations. You're not going to be counting it for joy. You're going to be counting it as a point of self sabotage of your own faith. Well, you haven't seen how it's all stacked up against me. You haven't seen all the trials that are standing there and all the judges that are shouting at me and all the witnesses that are screaming a false witness at me. And you start counting things within bitterness. But he has said no, no, no, no, no. Count it all, count it all joy. And so I think it's a good thing for us to actually understand how to make it count. How do we make the trials count within our worlds? How do we make these things that sometimes feel overbearing in our life, that feel like the weight is crushing us, that feel like the pressure is producing nothing in our world. How do we make it count? Amen. You don't. Like I said, you don't get to choose whether the trials come, but you do get to choose how you perceive them in your world. That's the choice that you and I get. You don't get to choose. It says various kinds of trials that really irks me. Really irks me, because I want to choose the trial that comes. You know, I can deal with that one. Yeah, I could probably handle that one. Notice there's various trials, but you and I get the choice of perspective. I love Isaiah 43:19. It says this, Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth and it ends with, do you not perceive it? Do you not perceive it? Behold, I am doing a new thing. I think sometimes we get caught up and thinking the new thing is a good thing. The one thing that I have realized about Christians, just humans in general, is that change is a scary thing. How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? Change. That's a. Sorry, it's a dad joke. Terrible. Yeah. Thank you. See, it's catching on. It's catching on. But like, change is this kind of like little bit of a scare? Change, Change again. See, I am doing a new thing. It can be presented in what we would call an opportunity for growth. It could be a presentation of a trial for you to walk through. Goliath didn't look like a masseuse to David. It looked like a mountain that he had to burst through, right? And here he is. I count it all joy. He's like he ran to the king and said, I'll fight the guy that everyone else is scared to fight. I counter all joy, for this giant is standing against the God that we serve. And so for you and I, I think it's important that we understand we need to have a stance that gives us a new perception. And if you stand upon the word of God, you will have a perspective that that trumps everything else that you can stand on. And that money won't give it to you. New relationship won't give it to you. That relationship you're wishing was back won't give it to you. The word of God will give it to you. That's the new thing that he is doing. And we need to stand on it to get that perception. Amen, number one. Understand that trials are normal. Understand this. The trials are normal. They are not strange. Count it all joy. My brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, you don't get to choose the trial, but you do get to choose your posture. James begins with this. Assuming this assumption that kind of confronts us all. The trials are not interruptions to our lives, but they are part of the Christian life that we live. It's almost like we look at these circumstances that come into our world that are problematic, right? We label as a problem. We label as a debit within our world. And we think this is such an interruption. If I could just get through this, if I could just get to the other side of this, then man, my life would be so much better off. And here's the thought in my mind is that what James is saying is he's saying when we meet. So I like to think of this as there is a meeting set up with a trial for the future. Now I can delay that meeting and it can get bigger and bigger, or I can confront it early on and begin to deal with whatever the trial is straight away. And I believe that this is that posture that we have to have in terms of faith. If we're back footed, we're going to want to kind of skate around the side of it. And I've only known if you struggle with anxiety, I've only known that your anxiety will grow and grow and grow the more you try and delay the meeting of you and your trial. These trials are not interruptions to your life. They're not something you're just trying to speed up and get through. These are a refining and ordained moment that God has placed in your life to produce something unshakable. And so if we get to the revelation that it's not if it's when the trial comes, because I think that one of the disillusionments that we might have is that when these trials come, we think God's left, God's abandoned me. My faith has failed. Something's wrong with me now. God's no longer with me. God, like he's just far away. He's turned himself, he's never going to return. But James demands agreement with a different perspective. Trials are normal for those who are following Jesus deeply. In John 16:33 it says this. I have said these things to you. In me you may have peace. This is Jesus speaking in the world, you will have tribulation. So this is a message. It doesn't go well in our Western world because it's more like, I want to follow Jesus, my lotto ticket out of all issues in life. But Jesus is the one who says, in this world, you and I will face tribulation. And I believe if we don't hear the message clearly, as soon as we are faced with the heat, the seed that has been planted in shallow soil is going to shrivel up really quickly. And this is what produces roots in your life, is actually understanding that because I am following God, because I have Christ in the center of my life, it doesn't make me exempt of trials. But it Fills me with the strength to overcome these trials, that there's actually a purpose to these trials that we walk through. Jesus already promised that we would go through these tribulations in life. The New Testament never presents discipleship as a life exempt from pressure, offense, suffering, disappointment, or resistance. It never preaches to us that we are exempt of these things. James says these trials will come in various kinds. Physical, financial, relational, mental, spiritual. Maybe it's offense, it's delay, it's shame, it's loss, it's disappointment. Some trials will attack your body, your confidence, your faith, your identity. You and I, we don't get to choose the way that these trials come. But like I said before, we do get to make a decision. How are we going to meet with them? How are we going to face them? Are we going to face them or are we just going to deny them? Are we going to meet with them or are we going to keep canceling? Are we going to meet them with a bitterness and an offense or a lack of faith or a cynicism? Or are we going to start counting them with all joy? It says all joy, pure joy. Like, this is a joy that's not like. It's not just, you know, a happy. What does the face of joy look like? You know, the smiling, painful. We're going to get through this. No, joy is this. Is this deep foundational understanding that there is purpose and it is a good purpose to what you're facing. And that's why he says that word count, which means consider, evaluate. It also means lead. Lead your thinking intentionally. James is not saying pain feels joyful. He's not saying that. He's saying that. Perspective. Sorry. Perspective in this life needs to have a holy perspective. Stop counting trials as losses in your life. Stop counting them as problems in your life. Stop counting them as delays and annoyances in your life, and start counting them as all. All is all joy. It's so easy for us to spend our time counting up the reasons why life sucks, right? How easy it is. I feel like we're built, a lot of us, we're built to have this negative lean where we can pick out all the problems in an instant. But it's like, oh, why don't you tell me some of the. Why don't you tell me some of your shortcomings? Oh, yeah, sweet. I'll list those. Okay. Tell me your strengths. And we kind of stammer and we. And we struggle to speak about those things. I don't know why, but it's like we can pick out the negative things in this world. And we start stacking up all the reasons why we can be bitter or why it's not gonna work out or why things are so heavy and the pressure is crushing right now. And we begin to, like I said before, begin to count like a victim in this world. But I'm here to remind you that you are not a victim. You have been set free by the blood of Jesus. It's like, oh, I don't feel set free. Well, the truth says that you are set free for who the son sets free is free indeed. So many people are waiting to be. Oh, I want to feel free. Oh, I just want to feel joy. I just want to. I just want to feel. Stop looking for the feelings and start living on the truth. This is like deep seated stuff for us. Feels like in the western or the. I hate saying the western church, in the American church, let's say the Orange county church. We're looking for feelings and we're chasing feelings. Man, I want truth. In my world, I spent decades seeking out feelings. Oh, I just want to feel peace. I just want to feel love. I just want to feel accepted. I just want to feel no fear. And I put stuff up my nose and drink enough and sleep around enough to feel accepted and it did not work. I want truth that lands that can be built on that is foundational. And I'm telling you that your joy is understanding up here and then living it out here. Man, I'm going to take everything in my life. I don't know what it is in your world that you're counting as a deficit, as a debit, as a cost in your life's budget, but I think it's time to start considering it as an asset. Oh, this problem over here, this, this lack of finances, this lack of a career or this, this loss of this relationship that I've been. That I've been dwelling and I've been going around and around. You know what? I'm going to move it from the debit column and this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start counting it as all joy. I'm going to put it in the asset column. I'm going to ask God instead of praying. You know, God, get me through this trial as quickly as I can, man. What if we started praying? God, what are you showing me in the midst of this trial? What are you trying to weed out of my heart? What pride are you trying to pull out of the center of my life? What are you trying to reveal in My world. What new anointing are you trying to bring in on my world? Some of us want a new anointing without the crushing. But oil comes from the crushing. Oil comes from the new wine, comes from this crushing of the grapes. And then guess what happens to the grapes? They get stuck on a shelf. They get sat there to ferment. It's the same in our lives. If we want to see our lives growing in an anointing, growing in a relationship with God, then we have to anticipate there will be a crushing. Okay, But I'm here to tell you that God has given you his spirit to fill you with a power that is beyond your strength. Sometimes some sayings that float around, God won't give you more than you can handle. That's a lie. I just want to tell you that's a lie. My friend Melanie over here had called that out to someone recently. It's a lie. God will give you more than you can handle. Just look at Paul. He said, I've got this thorn in my flesh and I don't know how I'm going to continue. And this is what God said to him. He said, my grace is sufficient for you, not your strength is sufficient for you. Okay? So when you feel overwhelmed and you're feeling overdone, it's not by like, how much can I white knuckle this thing? Oh, I could do this thing on my own. I'm going to get through with this sheer will. I'm just going to be like David Goggins and Jocko willink my way through life. No, no, no. You have the spirit of the everlasting God who is living and active in your world. So I'm telling you, embrace the spirit and start counting it all joy in your world. Amen. Count it differently. Point number two, it says this. Let the pressure reveal, refine and produce. Pressure reveals what comfort conceals. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Faith that is never tested in our world, it's just going to remain as a theory, just going to be theoretical. Faith. Yeah, faith is this. You know, faith is the belief. And faith is the. Is the. Is the stepping out. That's why I know it in my mind. But until it is tested, it's going to remain theoretical in your world. It's not going to have any formation or substance for you to actually stand on. And this is where, where God is saying in the testing, your faith is refined. So it says this for you know that the testing of whose faith? Whose Faith of your faith here. I want to give you a little secret here, because a lot of the time we're waiting for the trial to actually pursue a great relationship with God, right? A lot of us, we. We come out of a trial and we kind of move on to our sound of the music version of Christianity and Where the Hills are Alive, and we're holidaying in the Austrian Alps, okay? But we lose this reverence in the good times. We sometimes lose this pursuit of God that we had that was so desperate in the hard times, right? And so for us to have this desperation that is continuing through, we want to ensure that it remains in every season. Because I'll tell you this, that in the trial, what is revealed is the faith you currently have. A lot of the time we're thinking the trial builds our faith, and it does. But what it first does is it reveals the faith in you have built in the off season. Here's how faith is built. We hear it in Romans. Faith comes by and hearing by, okay? So we need to hear the word of God to build a faith within our life that actually has substance. We need to speak the word of God over our life so that we hear it and it reverberates within our bones so that our bones understand there is a truth that is bigger than the anxiety it is squeezing right now. So a trial reveals first the faith that we currently have. So, you know, when a trial hits and you go, oh, I'm shaking, shaking in my bones. This is the level of my faith right now. So what do I need to do? I need to surround myself with other people who are strong in faith. It's the importance of being in the house of God, not just as some anonymous statue that drifts in and out, but knows one another. We walk with one another. We equip one another. We pray with one another. We lift one another up. Count it all, joy, my brothers, my sisters. He's talking to a community of people. We've got to lift one another up. The testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Faith that is never tested only remains theoretical. It is a picture on the wall and not a shield on our hips, man, we need shields on our hips. It's how Ephesians calls faith. Pick up your shield of faith so that you can extinguish all the fiery darts of the enemy. We need a shield that is lifted high. We don't need fragile belief. We want a durable faith. Amen. And so if this pressure exposes things that. And, you know, I believe comfort conceals that's what the pressure does. Hidden fears, self reliance, shallow foundations, instability. Maybe there's divided loyalties. James uses the language of testing intentionally because throughout Scripture, testing is never presented as God carelessly harming his people, but as God refining them. And I think it's in Malachi 3, if you venture there, it talks about God refining people as the goldsmith, as the silversmith, that there is a fire that is underneath and it's refining. And as. As that precious metal is over the fire and it's bubbling up, all the impurities bubble to the surface, and there is a skimmer that skims off the scum. And I want all the scum out of my life. Amen. Does anyone want to be a scummy human being? You're a scum. No, Boil it out of my life. And it's. And it's the fires of life that bring it all to the surface. Come on. How many people have. Have their reserved demeanor, you know? Yes, I have it all together. Everything is good. All the time. All the time. It's all good. And then all of a sudden, you get that email from your boss. You get that email from your boss, or you realize, oh, my gosh, this assignment, it's due tomorrow. And then all of a sudden you turn in. What is it, from Jekyll to Hyde, is it. You turn From Hyde to Dr. Jekyll or whatever it is, and all of a sudden you turn from the oh, yes, it's all good to whoa. You turn into like a death metal person. And all of a sudden the pressure has revealed this angst that is on the inside of. Of you. Oh, man. I tell you, I tell you, this is not something that you just say, please don't say to yourself, this is just the way it's always been for me. Please don't say that. Oh, man, this is just, you know, this is just me. This is something that's boiling up to the surface so God can remove it from your life. This is the power of deliverance. Deliverance is not, you know, the twisting around of a head 17 times and green vomit flying around everywhere. Okay, there is demonic possession, and that can be quite a display, but for the most part, deliverance is from oppression that we are currently facing, which is the pressing in of the enemy around your life. And you cannot lift on your own what is spiritual. The Holy Spirit comes in and delivers us from the weight that we cannot lift on our own. Stop lifting on your own. I feel God on that. There are people who have been lifting on your Own. I believe God's going to set you free here today. We're going to pray for that in just a moment. God is not trying to destroy your faith, he's strengthening it. And believers who are in crisis, you could say this. It's like you're in an extreme makeover right now. It's like you've got one of those, you know, TV shows where they go in and they buy the terrible broke down house or, you know, person or whatever and they bring them in and it's an extreme makeover. But it's not in the barber's chair or it's not in the designer's chair, it's in the trial chair that God is working and he is making up a beautiful faith within you. Romans 8, 28, 29. Amen. For we know that, that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who were called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. You and I are formed to be in the image of Christ. This is what's happening. Is this conforming? And you'll notice that Jesus suffered in his purpose too. God was not exempt from his own suffering on our behalf down here on earth. Some things cannot be formed in comfort in our lives. Endurance, resilience, dependence on God, faithfulness, steadfastness, spiritual depth cannot be produced in comfort. The great producer of shallow and lightweight Christianity is comfortable Christianity. One of the great producers of mature disciples is often trials. Is the fire, is the tribulations, is the valleys. Can I tell you this, that I've never seen much fruit on top of the mountains, but I've always seen a lot of fruit in the valleys. Your valleys is where you're gonna find a lot of sustenance throughout life. It's where you're gonna find the orchards where the fruit of the Spirit grows. Man. We pray for the fruit of the Spirit. You know, we pray for patience. And we, we want this gift of patience to come in. He doesn't give you patience. He gives you a long line to stand in. You know, he. Oh, God, give me, give me kindness. Oh, and gentleness. And he will put in front of you someone who you want to be really unkind, to put you in a situation where you don't want to be gentle. But all of a sudden this is the working of the fruit of the Spirit. It's not a gift. It's growing in your life by the atmosphere of the Spirit. Number three Here today is, don't quit the process. Don't interrupt what God is producing in your life. He ends with this. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And this may be the hardest command for you and I in this whole passage, which is, stick around. Stick it out in the middle of those trials. Let the trial do its work. I can't tell you how many times I've seen Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego this story playing out, where people are in the fire and they run out of the fire early on. Here's what happened when they walked out of that fire. It says their clothes were not burnt, the hair was not singed, and they did not smell like smoke. Man, I've met so many people who have quit early because their attitude stinks. And you can come out of a fire but still have the smell of the fire on your life. I didn't count it, Joy. I didn't use it for what it was worth. And now I'm carrying this stink of the trial on my life. So the fire never actually leaves me. I'm just dragging it around. Wherever I go, I'm just dragging. I just got the smell. Oh, that smell of. You ever met, like, a stinky person after a trial? The smell of bitterness and the smell of gossip or whatever it is in their life. And it's like they are not particularly free of that right now. I'm telling you, stick around and let the trial work. Let it refine everything within your life. Learn everything you can squeeze every drop out of the lemon that you can possibly get. Because I tell you, I made a commitment pretty early on, which is, I don't want to spend my life living in the same classroom with the same teacher. I want to graduate. I want to graduate to the next teacher who has probably a little bit of a harder lesson and a harder lap. And I want to learn the lesson there. I don't want to speed through it as fast as I can, but I don't want to keep remaining on the same mountain. It says, let steadfast. Let it have its full effect within our lives. Don't interrupt what God is developing in your world. Too many believers spend their lives resisting the very conditions, conditions that God uses to grow them. We resist these uncomfortable moments. And in these moments, it's the environment of growth. We read John 15. It says, you know, the great pruning comes in and we all clap our hands until the pruning shears come in and Start pruning off areas of our life at the. And then we're like, oh my gosh, what is happening? What's happening? I feel so out of control. And it's kind of like it's a good thing. This is the time where you go, I take my hands off the wheel and God, just put your hands on the wheel. I count it all, Joy. I don't know where we're going right now, God, but I give it all to you in this moment. One of the great tragedies in the modern church is this, that people want the aura of maturity without enduring the process that produces the mature spirit. And it's in this steadfastness, it's in this perseverance, it's in this endurance that our spirit is refined and it's formed. Man. Stick with the process of discipleship. For some reason in today's day and age, there's these little cultural bouts where it feels like if there is a correction brought into someone's life, a scriptural correction, that it's called gaslighting, that it's, that it's offensive. And it's not meant to be offensive. The Word of God says this, that the word of God is good for teaching and encouragement and for rebuking and correcting. So we can't just live in 50% of the use of the Word and we can't just live in rebuking and correcting. We need to be taught and we need to be encouraged by the word of God. But if that's all we're looking for out of the word of God, then we're not looking for the double edged sword, we're just looking for one side of it. And so if we quit this, this, this journey of discipleship because we feel like, oh, that was offensive, man. I'm begging you, do not quit early. Let it have its full effect. Proverbs says this. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Not all wounds are bad. I'll say it again, not all wounds are bad. There are wounds that are going to be faithful to your growth. Some of you know, a couple of weeks ago, my, the guy who saved my life, he went in for a quintuple bypass surgery. Emergency quintuple bypass surgery. They had to wound his body to save his life. I mean, it's brutal. They pull out like a drop, saw and saw through his chest and opened up his chest cavity. It's crazy. Do you want me to show you pictures? Okay, okay. But they, they pull it up. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Some of us have a heart that needs to be opened up. And it can feel like, oh, my gosh, this is so wounding. This is. But I'm telling you, faithful are the wounds of those who are still sitting in this house to your left and right. I don't care if I'm right or wrong in the sense of speaking. I just want God to speak into your life. I'm not trying to prove nothing. I'm just trying to make clear pathways for God that we would all connect with Him. And so we've got to count it all joy as we walk into trials. I'm telling you, this is going to separate you from being just a Christian who, yeah, believe in God, to being a disciple who would lay down his life for Christ. It's in this process that in Romans 5, 3, 5, it says this suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. One of my favorite scriptures. We've got to get over the sudden lease and start applying our lives to the formative process that God has. And it's a process of time, slow formation. Don't let it frustrate you. Let it be a moment where you tie yourself down to his altar. Amen. Let's stand here today. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Hey, thanks for tuning in. There's a bunch of different ways that we connect throughout the week, including Sunday mornings, and we would love to see you there. You can check out all the details@c3oc.com.