Blessings, Trials, and Crowns

James 1 and the Context of Trials

James chapter 1. A couple of months or so, so maybe a little rusty. So I want us to read for context the first 12 verses, but our text this morning will be just verse 12. That will be our emphasis, but I want you to get the context here.

So let's read James chapter 1 together, beginning in verse 1, all the way through verse 12, and I invite you to stand in honor of reading God's word. James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the twelve tribes who are in the dispersion, greetings. Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance. And let perseverance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, doubting nothing. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. But the brother of humble circumstances is to boast in his high position, and the rich man is to boast in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.

For the sun rises with a scorching heat and withers the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So too the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, will fade away.

In our verse for this morning, Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. May God bless the reading of his word.

You may be seated. So again, just as a way of review very briefly, I've preached through the first 11 verses, and just as an overview, bird's eye view here, in verses 2 through 4, when we were in that, we spoke of trials.

In fact, this whole section, the first 12 verses, is dealing with trials. We looked at the inevitability of trials. Trials and suffering are a result of us living in a fallen, sin-stained world. There are many different kinds of trials and suffering.

James says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials. They take many different forms, trials of health, trials of finances, trials of persecution, whether hard or soft persecution.

And then James says, count them as joy. He doesn't say feel them as joy. He doesn't say enjoy your trials, because trials, by definition, are not enjoyable. That's why they're called trials. And we should not fall into this hyper-spiritual trap that if we are going through a time of suffering, that we're supposed to be enjoying it.

No, we're not supposed to enjoy it. That's why they're called trials. But we can have joy in the midst of trials, even though we do not enjoy them. And we talked about how often God does not remove our trials, but he gives us his sufficient grace to endure them.

Trials serve to conform us into the image of Christ. They help us to learn of God in an experiential way, in ways that otherwise we would not learn of him. They conform us into the image of Christ, our master.

They conform us, the servant, the slave, indeed, into the image of our master, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verses 5 through 6, God will give us wisdom in trials when we ask for his wisdom. Wisdom is the knowledge of God's word applied.

The indwelling of the spirit helps us to understand and obey scripture. Wisdom, God's knowledge applied, helps us to endure these trials and glorify God in them. And then verses 7 through 11, we saw how both poverty and wealth are trials.

It's easy to see how poverty is a trial, but we often don't think of wealth as being a trial. But it is indeed a trial because wealth tends to separate us and divorce us from our total and complete reliance upon God.

It tends to create in us a sense of self-sufficiency and independence of God. So even wealth, even though we normally think of that as a good thing, can be a trial. So that's the bird's eye view. That's the context.

All of this, all of what James is writing here is talking about trials. So I want to read verse 12 again. This is our focus. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial. For once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

The Dispersion, Persecution, and the First New Testament Letter

So the setting of this book, I want you to have this picture in your mind. James says in verse 1, he says he's a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes who are in the dispersion. The setting here is very important.

These were Jewish believers who had been dispersed because of persecution at the hand of King Agrippa about the year AD 44. So these were Jewish believers and they were being severely persecuted and so they fled to escape the persecution.

But in God's sovereignty, even that persecution is one of the means in which he is ordained to spread the gospel because when these Jewish Christians began to be dispersed abroad and they fled the persecution, went to new lands, guess what they took with them?

They took with them the gospel. So they were dispersed abroad. Now put yourself in the shoes of the recipients of this letter from James. James is the first book in the New Testament to have been written.

It was the first one to be written. Now understand the books in your New Testament, they're not really placed in chronological order in the time frame in which they were written. They're not really in chronological order.

So James was the first letter to have been written. So put yourself in the shoes of these Jewish Christians who had been dispersed abroad. You're experiencing persecution. You flee for your safety, for the safety of your family.

You now have no home. Your home has been left behind. Not only do you not have a home, guess what else you don't have? You don't have a New Testament. You don't have the book of Romans to read of the great doctrines of God as justification, as holiness and righteousness.

You don't have pastoral epistles to the Corinthians or the letters that Paul wrote to Timothy, 1 and 2 Timothy. You don't have Galatians and Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians. You don't have any of this.

You're fleeing for your life. You have the fellowship of the saints. You have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. And you have apostolic teaching that you are carrying with you that has been communicated to you orally, but you don't have anything written.

There's no written word of God that you can go and consult to learn how to handle these kinds of trials and to know how to live out the Christian life. So you really don't have much. But then, all of a sudden, here comes this letter from none other than the half-brother of Jesus himself, James, the slave of God and of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Receiving this letter from James would have been like a drink of cold water to a man dying in the Sahara Desert. I imagine that when they received this letter from James, they would have wept tears of joy because now we have something.

I have something that I can read. This is from the half-brother of Jesus. This is from the slave of God and of the Lord, Jesus Christ. James, now I have something. How refreshing. How refreshing. Undoubtedly, they wept tears of joy.

This would have been a God-send for them, pun intended. It was from God. Verse 12 is the capstone of this section dealing with trials. And he ends this section on trials with a beautiful word of encouragement to his readers.

He is encouraging his readers, don't fall away. Don't despair. Don't lose heart. Yes, the trials and suffering are real. Yes, the trials and suffering will be severe. But don't be discouraged. Don't be tempted to fall back to your old ways of Judaism.

Undoubtedly, that temptation was there because many of them were undoubtedly thinking, well, at least when I was a Jew and didn't follow Christ, the Romans pretty much left me alone. But now I'm being persecuted.

And so James is writing this lifesaver, if you will, of a letter to them. Don't fall away. Don't despair. Don't be discouraged. Remain faithful. Much like what the writer of Hebrews said in his epistle to his readers who were also being persecuted.

In Hebrews 10, verse 35, the writer of Hebrews says, Do not throw away your confidence, for it has a great reward. Yes, it's hard. Yes, you're being persecuted. But don't throw away your confidence in Christ, because it has a great reward.

Blessedness, Joy, and Perseverance Under Trial

The writer of Hebrews was encouraging his readers in the face of persecution. And James here is doing the exact same thing. Notice in verse 12, James says, Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial.

Now, this word blessed, some commentators render this word merely as happy. Happy is the man. But happy is just too weak. Happy is a legitimate rendering of this word. So you have to look at the context in which it's used to know what the right rendering is.

And happy is just a little too weak. It doesn't really capture, it doesn't pass the muster for this context. Lots of things can make us happy. Fried chicken makes me happy. Fried catfish makes me happy.

Fried okra makes me happy. Just about anything fried makes me happy. A piece of cow, medium rare, makes me happy. Lots of things can make us happy. But they don't really bring us joy. In this word here, makarios in the Greek, it's more than just happy.

Happiness is a fleeting emotion. Happiness is kind of dependent upon our circumstances, our emotions, it ebbs and wanes. Joy, however, is different. Being blessed, having true joy is different than being happy.

Joy endures. Joy transcends our emotions and it transcends our circumstances. It's the same word that Jesus uses in his beatitudes recorded in Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn.

And please understand, when Jesus says mourn, he's not talking about being sad because something sad happened to you. Blessed are those who mourn over their sin. That's what he's talking about. You're blessed when you mourn over your sin.

Blessed are those who are lowly. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are those who are pure in heart. It's the same word, makarios. You are blessed when you are these things.

And then Jesus concludes his beatitudes in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 5 when he says, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. You don't have to be happy to be joyful. You can be unhappy and still have joy. Undoubtedly, it's not a happy experience to be persecuted. It's not a happy experience to suffer, whatever form that suffering may take.

So suffering, these things don't make us happy, but we can be joyful in the suffering, knowing that nothing will ever come our way that does not first pass through the sovereign hand of God. And when we know who God is, then we can be joyful in the midst of our trials, even though our trials in and of themselves are not enjoyable.

Dear ones, joy, true joy is not something that we can gin up on our own. Joy, you see, is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Joy comes from and only from the Holy Spirit of God who indwells the believer. Galatians chapter 5 lists for us the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law.

And notice that Paul describes these different fruits as one fruit. It's the fruit of the Spirit, even though he lists a number of different things. And he does that because if you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, you will have all of these things.

You'll have them all. Not in perfection, not in totality, but they will be there. Joy is unique to the believer. A lost person can be happy, but a lost person cannot have joy. Cannot have joy. Any person out there who does not know Christ as Savior and Lord, they may be happy at some level, but they are not joyful because joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit of God.

It comes only from Him. Joy is unique to the believer. The women at the empty tomb, they were what? They were joyful. Paul was filled with joy when he heard that the Corinthians had repented of their egregious sin.

You might remember the Corinthians got themselves into some very egregious, very serious sin. And when Paul heard of that, he began writing a series of letters to them, confronting them in their sin, telling them to repent, and largely they did.

And when Paul got news of that, he was filled with what?

Joy.

Joy, that's fruit of the Spirit. Luke 15 .7 says that heaven rejoices when a sinner comes to repentance. Heaven is not merely happy. There is joy in heaven when a sinner comes to repentance. In Psalm 1611, God fills us with the joy of His presence.

Joy is unique to you and to me as believers. If you have lost friends, lost family members, they may at some level be able to pass off some air of being happy, but make no mistake about it. They are not joyful.

Only Christians are joyful. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. Who is the man who is blessed? Not just anyone who suffers because Christians and non-Christians alike suffer. No, not just anyone who goes through a time of suffering.

The man who is blessed is the one who perseveres under trial. This is the believer. This word persevere in the Greek, it's hupomone. And hupomone means to remain underneath. Hupomone, the Greek word to remain, to remain underneath.

You see, dear ones, more often than not, God does not promise to remove our trials. Sometimes He does. But more often than not, He allows us to remain in the trial, to remain in the suffering, and He gives us His sufficient grace to hupomone, to remain up underneath the suffering.

He promises us His sufficient grace. The one who perseveres under the trial, that man will be blessed. There are some who profess to be Christians who believe that you can lose your salvation. That salvation is something that can be lost if you stray away from the Lord enough, and then you can somehow lose your salvation.

They never specify how many sins you have to commit, at what line. They say, no, just at some point you can lose your salvation. But dear friends, that guts the gospel. That undermines the entire premise of the gospel.

A Christian is someone who has been granted faith and granted repentance. These are gifts of God. God grants these things to a person. That person is regenerated. And what God gives, He does not take back.

And so the man who is blessed is the one who perseveres. This is the mark of a Christian. Perseverance to the end. Salvation cannot be lost. Turn with me, if you will, to John 10. John 10. This is a familiar verse, but so many people misunderstand it.

Beginning in verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And the context here is not God whispering to you on a daily basis. The context is very clear in verse 28. And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish.

Look at this. They will never perish, ever. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. God calls His lost sheep to Himself. A person becoming a Christian. That is a lost sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd.

Jesus says, I give eternal life to them. What God gives, He does not take back. They will never perish, ever, He says. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

If you ever wonder about eternal security, spend some time in John 10. The good shepherd calls his lost sheep to himself. He summons us. We go to him. He holds us in his hand. And as if his hand were not strong enough, and it is, but in verse 29 he says, My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

He takes the Father's hand and wraps it, as it were, around that of His own. And, dear friends, ain't nobody getting out of that. Ain't that no one that will never, ever snatch them out of my Father's hand?

That includes you. That includes me. God is greater than all. He's greater than us. What God gives, eternal life, He does not take back. The mark of the believer is perseverance,.

Endurance,.

Endurance, all the way to the end. In these trials, these periods of suffering in our lives, they are not without purpose. They are part of God's kind providences in our lives to conform us into His image, to help us to learn of Him, and ultimately to glorify Himself.

Our trials, our suffering, are ultimately about the glory of God. That's why we suffer. Ultimately, to give God glory. A number of years ago, I was preaching in Long Island, New York, and I met a man named Rich.

And Rich was born able-bodied. There was nothing wrong with him. He got saved when he was 19 years old. And then, just a few years later, in his early 20s, Rich was in a motorcycle accident. And it left him completely paralyzed.

No use of his legs at all. And just very, very limited motion in his hands. He had enough motion to be able to control the joystick of his electric wheelchair. And Rich lived with his brother and his sister-in-law, neither of whom were believers.

But Rich was.

And every Sunday morning, Rich would ask his brother and sister-in-law to get him up out of church, excuse me, out of bed, to get him ready for church. They would bathe him. They would dress him. They would put him in his electric wheelchair.

And Rich would drive his electric wheelchair five miles, one way, to the church every single Sunday. Even when it was raining, they would put a poncho over him. And he would drive his electric wheelchair five miles, one way to church in the rain.

The pastor told me when I was there, he said, Justin, Rich is the most faithful church member I've got. Rich is in heaven now. But shortly before his death, and as I understand it, the pastor, a man named Scott, Rich did not know he was about to die.

But he just had this desire, burden, whatever word you want to use, and he asked the pastor to come over to his brother's house and visit with him and bring a video camera. And Rich recorded a gospel message on this video camera to be played in the event of his death at his funeral.

And it wasn't long after that that he actually did die. And at his funeral, they put in the tape and they played it. And there in front of everyone, Rich was preaching, as it were, from heaven. His brother, brother's wife, family members, everybody in his family was lost.

He was the only one who was a Christian. And he preached the gospel to them while he was in heaven. He suffered horribly on this earth, but his suffering had a purpose, ultimately, to glorify Christ. He persevered to the end.

How we carry ourselves in trials says much about the Savior who we profess to know. What a powerful testimony from Rich. In John 21, after Jesus' resurrection, Jesus said some really startling words to Peter.

He said, Peter, when you were young, you used to gird yourself and go wherever you wished to go. But when you are old, Peter, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you and take you where you do not wish to go.

And this, Jesus said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. That's John 21. Jesus said this, foreshadowing Peter's martyrdom, his execution. And Jesus was stealing Peter even at that moment.

Peter, one of these days, because of your faith in me, one of these days, you'll stretch out your hands. Someone else is going to gird you and they're going to take you where you do not wish to go. But this will happen, Peter, so that you can glorify me.

Our suffering has a purpose. Yes, for our sanctification. Yes, for our growth. But ultimately, to glorify Christ. That is not a message that the world wants to hear. What we're hearing so often from most of our pulpits, oh, if you become a Christian, Jesus will make your life better.

You'll have your best life now.

No, you won't.

That's a lie. Peter wasn't having his best life now. Dear friends, our suffering is for the glory of God. It is for the glory of Christ. When we suffer well, it speaks well of Christ. Stephen, in Acts chapter 7, was stoned for his faith in Christ.

Justin Martyr was an early Christian martyr, executed for his faith in Christ. And then in the 1600s, 1700s, you have men like William Tyndale and John Huss and other reformers who gave their life for Christ.

Millions upon millions upon millions of people, Christians throughout the centuries, have given their life for their faith in Christ. And sometimes as I read of these people, I find myself inevitably, as you must too, asking yourself the question, what if it were me?

What if I was the one with a knife to my neck? What if I was the one with a gun to my head saying, deny Christ or die? What if I was the one being tied to a stake with a torch about to light the wood?

Would I have the courage that John Huss did, Hugh Latimer did, William Tyndale did? Would I have that kind of courage? And often, dear friends, I think of that, I don't know. But I have to believe that when it comes to occasions like that of real acute suffering, I just have to believe that God gives to his own a special measure of grace to endure that kind of pain.

To be able to say, no, I will not deny my Lord. Do what you will. The mark of the believer is the one who perseveres all the way to the end. James says, once he has been approved. Once he has been approved, what is this approval?

How do we get approval? Well, we get approval by testing. Trials are tests of our faith. Abraham was tested in the Old Testament, and he passed. God tested Israel throughout the Old Testament, and usually they failed the test.

Trials and suffering serve as tests of our faith. Oh, it's easy to be a Christian when life is good, when life is easy, when people like us and our bodies are healthy and there's plenty of money in the bank.

It's easy to be a Christian then. But what about when our bodies aren't healthy? What about when there's not plenty of money in the bank? What about when people turn against us? What about when we go through severe persecution?

Then you'll find out what you're truly made of. Trials serve to investigate us, to test us, to find us out. When our faith is tested and we pass the test, God will reward us. We will be rewarded for our suffering, sometimes with tangible rewards.

Sometimes.

We see some examples of this in the Old Testament. For example, in Daniel chapter 1, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they were faithful in the face of severe persecution and temptation. They remained faithful, and God granted them favor.

God delivered them out of the fiery furnace. Very tangible reward. Abraham was a wealthy man. God blessed him with tangible rewards. But sometimes God does not bless us, reward us with things that are tangible.

Peter's faith was tested when he gave his life to glorify God. Stephen, the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist, all these men gave their lives for Christ. They met violent deaths. So what was their reward?

They weren't delivered like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They didn't have wealth like Abraham. What was their reward? They went to their deaths. We'll get to their reward in just a moment. But James says, Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial for once he has been approved.

When does our approval come? When can we be assured of this approval? Our approval comes when our testing is complete. When is our testing complete? Upon our glorification. In other words, death. Jesus said in John 8, 31, If you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples.

First John 2, 19, They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be manifested that they were not all of us.

Oh, they looked like the real deal. They talked the talk. They played a good game for a while. But finally they went out from us to show that they were not really of us. John MacArthur has said that time and truth go hand in hand.

And eventually who you are on the inside comes out. They went out from us because they were not really of us. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 13, The one who endures to the end, he will be saved. The one who endures, who hominids all the way to the end, that is the one who will be saved.

Now, does this mean that we cannot know that we're saved until we die? No, that's not what it means at all, dear ones. It does mean that running your race with faithfulness, not perfection, but with faithfulness all the way to the end is the defining mark of the true believer.

Life will be hard. We will suffer. We will be persecuted. But we will also endure. The mark of the true Christian is that he endures all the way to the very end. So what is our reward? Not temporal blessings.

James tells us what the reward is. For he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. The crown of life, that is our reward. Now, when we think of crowns, we often think of like this gold crown encrusted with diamonds and jewels and that kind of stuff.

That's not what the recipients of this letter would have thought of, and they've probably never even seen such a crown. What they thought of was a wreath, like a vine with leaves on it that you fashion into a circle, and you put that circle of wreaths on the vine on someone's head who wins a race.

That's what they would have envisioned. And Paul speaks of this very type of crown. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 25, Paul says,. Now everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.

They then do it to receive a corruptible crown. So that corruptible crown, it's the crown of vine with some leaves on it. They participate in the games to receive a corruptible crown. But, Paul says, we believers, an incorruptible crown.

As believers, our crown is not corruptible. It's incorruptible, the crown of life, this incorruptible crown. This is the crown of which James is speaking. The apostle Peter also speaks of this crown. In his first epistle, in chapter 5, verse 4, Peter says,.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. The incorruptible crown of which Paul speaks, and the glorious crown of which Peter speaks, is the same crown of which James speaks here.

He will receive the crown of life. Literally, in the Greek, it says this, dear ones. He will receive the crown which is life. The crown which is life. So what is life? Jesus tells us what life is. John chapter 17.

Turn with me there. John 17. This is the high priestly prayer. This is the longest prayer we have recorded of Christ, that he prayed just before his arrest and crucifixion. John chapter 17, beginning in verse 1.

Jesus spoke these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life.

The crown of life is not a thing. It is a person. Remember what Jesus said in John 14 .6. I am the way, the truth, and the what?

Life.

The crown of life is not a thing. It's not something we put on our heads. The crown of life is a person. The crown of life is not a what. It's a who.

Jesus.

Jesus is the crown of life. Jesus himself is our reward. He is our reward. Are you a Christian this morning because you wanted to escape hell? That is good.

You should.

But there's more. Are you a Christian because you simply wanted to go to heaven and live forever? That is good.

You should.

But there's more. You see, dear ones, the joy and the glory of heaven is Christ himself. He is our reward. The crown of life is not a what. It's a who.

Jesus.

He is the crown of life. He is our reward. When I was a boy and a teenager and a young man, back when I thought I was a Christian, and I wasn't, but I thought I was, whenever I thought of heaven, I thought in very earthly terms.

And I thought, you know, I look forward to heaven because I wouldn't have my crutches anymore. That should have been a dead giveaway or something wrong with my walk with Christ. So many people today, when they think of heaven, they think of this big family reunion.

You know, we're going to see grandma and grandpa and mom and dad. There's this book that was popular 15 or so years ago called 90 Minutes in Heaven. The author of that book claims that he died and went to heaven.

His name is Don Piper. And he said in his book, what heaven is above everything else is it's the greatest family reunion you'll ever see. That tells me right there that man hadn't been to heaven, amongst other reasons.

Heaven is not a family reunion. Will we be reunited with our loved ones who preceded us in death? Yes, provided that they knew Christ, yes. But that's not the joy of heaven. The joy of heaven is Christ knowing Christ.

He is the joy and the glory of heaven. Heaven is not about seeing grandma and grandpa and mom and dad. Heaven is not even about being reunited with your children who may have died before you. And yes, if your child was a baby, a young child, your child's in heaven anyway.

But if your adult child knew Christ, yes, he or she will be in heaven. But that's not the joy of heaven. The joy of heaven is Jesus Christ. He is our crown of life. He is the reward. He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the wonderful counselor, almighty God, the prince of peace.

He is our reward. And if your view of heaven is a family reunion and walking on streets of gold and seeing your personal mansion, which mansion is not even the right rendering of that word, but let's go with it anyway.

If that's your view of heaven, your view of heaven is far too small. Your view of Christ is far too small. You can get a pretty good idea of your affections for Christ by answering this question. Imagine with me, if you will.

If we were to take everything away from heaven that we typically think of, take it all away. Take away the streets of gold. Take away the personal mansions. Take away grandma and grandpa, mom and dad.

Even take away our children who may have died before us. Take all of that away. And if heaven were just Christ, would you be disappointed? And if you would be, may I gently yet joyfully and firmly encourage you to take a deeper, longer look at Christ and who he is.

He is our reward. The lamb of God. The one who laid down his life for us and that while we were yet sinners, while we were yet rebels against him, sinning against him, blaspheming his name and word and deed, vile sinners, enemies of God, who deserve nothing but hell, and yet Jesus still gave his life for us.

He is enough. He is our reward. He is the crown of life. Notice that James says that this man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will earn the crown of life. He deserves the crown of life.

No, it's not what James says. James says he will receive the crown of life. Dear ones, the approval of Christ is not something we earn and it is not something for which we work. The approval of Christ is not a reward to be earned, rather it is a gift to be received.

It is a reward, but it's not a reward that we earn. It is a reward that we receive. It is a gift. Eternal life is a gift given to us. John 1 .12, but as many as received him. Received, you could almost even, but as many as received the crown of life because that's who it is.

To them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, we are saved by grace through faith and this not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.

The crown of life is not earned. Jesus is not earned. He is received. Eternal life is a gift. The German reformer and theologian Philip Melanchthon said this, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary.

So how do we receive this gift? By acknowledging our helpless estate as filthy sinners before our thrice holy God. Confessing our sins to Christ, trusting in him and repenting of sin. That is how it is received.

Trust Christ, him alone. Turn from your sin. In this crown of life, notice James says, the Lord has promised to those who love him, this crown of life is promised to those who love Jesus. It is not promised to those who merely pray a sinner's prayer.

It's not promised to those who walk the aisle. It's not promised to those who get baptized. It's not promised to those who join a church. It's not promised to those who even teach Sunday school or even pastor.

It's not promised. It's not works. It is promised to those who love Christ, who love him. Now often when we, in our society, when we think of emotions, excuse me, when we think of love, we think of primarily feelings and emotions.

You know, I love someone because I have warm feelings of affection towards that person. And I don't discount that, okay? I'm not preaching this cold orthodoxy that feelings and emotions are not valid, but they're only valid in so much as they fall within biblical parameters.

The way the Bible describes love is not through feelings and emotions. The way the Bible describes love is an act of obedience. It is obedience. If you love someone, if you love God, you will obey him.