Joy in Trials — Erlo Stegen

Lord, take this service and let it be in your hands. You Lord, wouldn't you speak? Lord, prepare our hearts and minds, lest they be in a condition where they cannot hear what you have to say. That your word would reach people in its life-changing power.

Amen. Yesterday I met with some young people.

I didn't recognize who they were, although I had known them for a long time.

I had known them in years gone by, but they were so different and so changed. The look on their faces, the expression on their faces was different than I had to say afterwards, oh, so it's you. As I was praying just now, I was thinking of those young people, as I was praying that the word would change us and let it be like that indeed, that the word would change us for it cannot reach us and not have an effect on us.

James's Call to Joy in Trials

In fact, it will be even visible. People will notice that there's a newness about this person. This person has been influenced and changed by God's word. Let's read the book of James, the letter by James.

Chapter one, verses one to three. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greetings. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, we'll read thus far. This epistle begins with the name of Jacob or James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. This James is not one of the twelve.

Remember that Jesus, as he went on his travels, that he would sometimes take aside that special trio of Peter, James and John. He had these three disciples who were special to him. And then there were the rest of the twelve.

And then there were also the seventy. This is not the same one because we are told in Acts chapter twelve that Herod had James, the apostle, beheaded. But rather, this James was the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember that Jesus did have brothers after him, ancestors. And this James was one of the brothers of Jesus. A lot of his time was spent being the shepherd, the bishop of the church in Jerusalem. Sometimes he would travel through Palestine and Syria.

Now he wrote this letter to the twelve scattered tribes. So this James, the brother of Jesus and Peter and John worked, in particular they worked among the Jews. The brethren, those who were Jews by circumcision.

So when James writes to the scattered tribes, he says, I am the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not start by saying, I am James, the brother of Jesus. No. He doesn't refer to the human relationship, to the blood connection.

He doesn't take note of the fact that he is the brother of Jesus Christ. In another place of the scriptures, it there speaks about James, the brother of Jesus. But when he himself writes, he says, I am the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus.

What was glorious to him was that he was the servant of Jesus Christ and of God.

He gloried in that, that he could be a servant of Jesus Christ in the spirit.

So for him the most distinguished title was to be a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. James is showing us that in this world there is no title or honor that can surpass this honor of being a servant of the Lord Jesus.

I don't know what is important to you when you write or if you introduce yourself, but to James what was important was that he was a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what mattered to James.

Being a relative was of no consequence to him. Being a brother of that family meant nothing to him. What was of supreme importance was being a servant of God. And you cannot be a servant of God if you are not a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

With some people blood is thicker than water, but in things spiritual that's of no consequence. Being a servant, being in the service of Jesus is what matters. I remember some years ago a co-worker leaving and going his way and I asked his wife well what do you say?

She said well I'm just going to do whatever my husband does. That does not work in the things of the spirit. Jesus must be the first. Ended up that he divorced her, he got remarried, she got remarried.

James's Rebuke of Spiritual Decline

But with God we must in the first place be the servant of God, of Jesus. My theme for the service is rather going to be about falling into various trials and temptations. But I'm just looking at and exploring the context of it first.

James has introduced himself as to who he is. You've read that he is writing to the twelve tribes, the Jewish tribes that are scattered. Why was he writing this epistle? What was his reason for writing it?

He was writing it to the brethren regarding their backsliding, their degeneracy. But they had declined spiritually, they weren't on fire, alive and full of vitality like they had been in the beginning.

What a tragic thing to see people who used to be on fire for God, who have now started to wither, to fade. And other things have come in, that burning zeal for the Lord has fizzled out. Their faith, their manners, their behaviour shows and has evidence of being faded.

That James writes to the Jewish Christians, he writes to them specifically with this intent, to point out that they aren't as they were. Their standard has dropped, they're not on fire as they were in the past.

I want you to take this directly at yourself. I'm not speaking to your neighbour, to the one in front of you or behind you, but that you ask yourself, am I still on that spiritual standard where the Lord put me?

There is an English song, chorus, which says,.

Lord, if I ever loved you, just now, there hasn't been a time in my life where I loved you more than what I do now. And I want you all to face this baby. Is that true in your life? If there had never been a time where you were more aflame for Christ than right now, Have there ever been a time where you were more fiery and did more for Christ than now?

If so, If so, let me tell you directly that you are fading out, you're washing out, you're on the way down, not the way up.

That will be the greatest miracle that can ever happen if you go down and you end in heaven. Now it's up to you to test yourself, to pray earnestly, spiritually to be on your knees, say, God,.

That you ask the question, Lord, have I begun to fade and am I on the decline? Are you degenerating spiritually?

If that's a terrible thing, whether it's you, your wife or your children, it's an evil thing, the greatest tragedy that can happen to you. It's worse news than to hear that the doctor tells you your whole body is full of cancer.

That's a shock to a person's system, but you should get a greater shock if you realize I'm going in the wrong direction. I'm not going up. I'm going down. I'm degenerating. I'm getting worse.

But I don't have time to expand upon that theme for I haven't yet got to the crux of the matter. But I'm just touching two or three points regarding the brethren to whom this was written. James says, for instance, to these brethren, why is it that you are so particular about a person who's classy, one of the elite and rich, and you take him with kid gloves to the highest place, but the poor person, you discriminate against him and you neglect him.

James says that is degeneracy. For rich man comes, he's ushered to the best seat, a poor person to the remotest seat. James says that's degeneracy. The Lord says he wants to rule long in this world as king, must take particular note of the oppressed, of the poor.

Showing Mercy to the Least

James says, for instance, to these brethren, why is it that you are so particular about a person who's classy, one of the elite and rich,.

Jesus never said that you would be judged according to the way that you treated the dignified, wealthy, civilized person. He said, no, he'll take the one who is least in your eyes and say, what you did to that person is what you did to me.

Who is the smallest in your eyes? And Jesus will judge you on judgment day according to your relationship to that least one in your eyes.

Who is that person to you? Maybe it's somebody who is very uncivilized according to your culture and you don't acknowledge them as existing.

And there are many who've got the name and say we are alive, but before God you are dead. That's why it's of greatest importance that you take God's word, you live in God's word and God's word lives in you and changes you.

That you've got the mind of Christ. Maybe a person who can't eat with a fork or knife, he can just eat with a spoon. You, according to your tradition, you judge a person according to that. Manners at the table.

That's the least. And you'll be surprised. For all eternity, you'll be lower than him. And he'll be in a better situation for all eternity than what you are. Or you'll be. He or she doesn't know anything about the garden.

Will plant some maize right in front of the house. And have some chickens running around the house. And you judge the person according to that. Because you've got a different culture to what they have.

But Jesus died for them. And when God judges, he'll judge you accordingly. I said in these days I wish I could take all of you right into the deepest depths of the valleys and mountains. And that you could go to those people and preach to them.

That would be a good school for you.

I said in these days I wish I could take all of you right into the deepest depths of the valleys and mountains. And that you could go to those people and preach to them. That would be a good school for you.

Christianity Beyond Cultural Prejudice

What theologians once said, if every minister of a white church could go and spend some years on the mission field, right in the bundles, he'd learn more about Christianity than in his theological training.

What theologians once said, if every minister of a white church could go and spend some years on the mission field, right in the bundles, he'd learn more about Christianity than in his theological training.

If every minister of a white church could go and spend some years on the mission field, he'd learn more about Christianity than in his theological training.

Your relationship to Christ. You can test best when you take the least one and ask yourselves what's my relationship to that person. Your relationship to Christ is nothing better. It's just hypocrisy and man-made.

Nothing spiritual. Your relationship to Christ is nothing spiritual. It's just hypocrisy and man-made. Something else is worse than this. It's just hypocrisy and man-made. It's a curse.

It's a curse if a person can sit under preaching, under a sermon, and is not touched by it. But that's a thing. Das ist gang und gäbe. That's a usual thing. Every day's occurrence. But may God grant that you're not stone dead, that there's still a bit of life in you, that you can register what it's about.

So James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, then writes this epistle to the twelve tribes, these Jewish Christians, and says to them that you have degenerated. You are sliding back in your faith.

And as long as that spirit is in you, you're a curse and not a blessing to the Lord's work. You'll be a greater blessing six feet in the ground than being alive amongst God's people. Another point.

He says to these Christians, you fail to discipline your tongue and to hold the reins.

They spoke too much and sinned too much with their tongue.

He says an undisciplined tongue makes your worship of God to be null and void. Do you hear that? You may be quite assured about your worship of God, but because of your uncontrolled tongue, it says your religion is in vain.

Faith That Produces Works

I'm just touching different points as I head to my main aim. He also says to them, your faith with artworks is dead. If you say to the hungry person, the Lord bless you, but you don't give something that will provide food, your religion is in vain.

John Wesley was in the practice of riding on horseback. It was before the time of vehicles. He would arrive at a service, take the meeting, then get back on his horse and go to another meeting. He would preach there.

He said, The congregation said to him as he was on his horse to go to the next place, they said, the Lord bless you. John Wesley turned back to them and said, well, you say God bless you, but you haven't given food for my horse.

Let me point out two other things that indicated that the faith of these people was dead. He said, there is conflict and war among you. They were not one. They were divided. And he said, this enmity, these wars do not come from God, but from your craving for pleasures within.

He said, among the Christians, among the Christians, there is this enmity, these warring factions, and yet they were still preaching, they were still calling themselves Christians. Another sign and proof of those who are being degenerate and who are backsliding is that they love the world.

Friendship with the World as Enmity with God

He says, adulterers. Chapter 4 verse 4. Adulterers and adulteresses do not know that friendship with God is enmity with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God.

Adulterers and adulteresses do not know that friendship with God is enmity with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God.

Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God. If you flirt with the world and the people of the world and the Christians of the world, then you make yourself an enemy of God and you are an adulterer and an adulteress.

If you flirt with the world, you are an enemy of God.

Adulterers and adulteresses do not know that friendship with God is enmity with God.

You are an adulterer for the reason that you have promised yourself to the Lord Jesus. You have exchanged rings, you have promised to him as his betrothed, but you are now flirting with the world, with someone else.

You have eyes for someone else and not just for your Lord. Then understand fully that you are an adulterer.

Adulterers and adulteresses do not know that friendship with God is enmity with God. If you flirt with the world and the people of the world and the Christians of the world, then you make yourself an enemy of God and you are an adulterer and an adulteress.

If you flirt with the world, you are an adulterer for the reason that you have promised yourself to the Lord Jesus. Adulterers and adulteresses do not know that friendship with God is enmity with God.

You are an enemy of God. You make yourself the enemy of God.

All right, let's get down now to the main point. What I spoke was in passing just to inform you why James wrote this letter to the Christians. He saw them degenerating. He reproved them because of it.

And you are adulterers and adulteresses.

Seeing Christ and Examining Our Condition

When John saw Jesus, he fell down as dead. I wish that we could see Jesus in such a way as you hear his word, that you fell, fall down. Say, Lord, is that my condition before you? Is that what I am in the sight of God?

Now we have finished with the first verse. Just in short, actually one should expound more about these things. We should have a service like yesterday for six hours. Now to the second verse.

Trials as Unexpected Tests of Faith

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. When you fall, in other words, when you have an unexpected circumstance come upon you, it just happens. It takes you by surprise. As Christians, we can have situations and circumstances that we never expected.

Many years ago, we had a sect where it still exists, I don't know, School of Truth. There were many people in South Africa joining that cult. The three words were health, wealth, prosperity. There was no salvation, nothing at all to be saved from sin, just health, wealth, and prosperity.

After not many years, many churches accepted that as their slogan. In Christianity it's not just health, wealth, and prosperity. When you're a Christian, suddenly out of the blue, you may meet up with things you never expected, all unexpectedly.

Here they are, as if you've fallen into that pit. And in the Greek language, it says to be encompassed by these trials and temptations. That they seem to come from every side. You get this message, then you get that message, then you get that message, like Job.

If that happens, when you think now this may be your end, then you should count it as all joy.

Just joy. All joy means, one person said, the cause for the highest joy.

He said that these various trials from every side, encircling, happened to Job. His friends said, Job, it is because you've sinned. You must have done wrong for this to happen to you. So, if trial after trial, difficulty after difficulty, one upon the other, come at you, then count it pure joy.

Abraham's Test and the Cost of Obedience

Temptation and trial, one after the other. Not that it's just the devil. Listen to Genesis, 22 verse 1. Genesis 22, 1 and 2.

That was one of these things where God tested him.

In verse 3 it says,. In verse 3 it says,. Knowing the testing of your faith. God tested him.

And said, Abraham, I know.

He said, Abraham, I know that he loves his son so much. He said, therefore, Abraham, take your son and go and sacrifice him.

Will that be the greatest joy for you? To obey God? I think if Abraham would live today, most of the Christian world would condemn him. They'd write in the internet about him.

I think if Abraham would live today, most of the Christian world would condemn him. They'd write in the internet about him. The pious people.

That can't be God.

I don't know whether Abraham shared this with Sarah, I don't know. Some say, Some say, Some say. Abraham probably hid it from his wife, knowing that she would complain bitterly and accuse him. And would be in tears and would attack him for it.

Of course there are some nations where the husband has to tell the wife everything.

And he wants to know everything about his wife. He doesn't even want his wife to go for counseling. What are you going to say? There must be rotten things in your life and evil things. That you cover up in such a way.

But I know some men that every now and then ask their wives, When did you go for counseling last? And even women that ask their husbands, and I respect such a person.

I really do so.

Because in the past I've found that many people who don't do it are apt to degenerate. As the Bible says, the greatest. Now, it needn't necessarily be your child. But surely you've got something that you really love in your life.

Are you prepared to sacrifice it? To burn it? Deal with it ruthlessly? Now, that, the trying of your faith and the proving of your faith, Is going to do something to you. It will make you a person of good character.

As it says here,.

Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Now, in Greek, it's more than patience. The original implies more. It's persevering endurance and continuance. It's patience.

It's patience. It's patience. I prefer the Zulu in this particular verse because the Zulu says, produces diligence. And instead of, in the English as it says, produces patience, it says it more strongly in the Zulu.

If you are tested by various trials and temptations, You are, what is produced in you is an endurance, a patience, a diligence to go forward.

You are diligent. Not lazy.

Not that you become weak-kneed and disheartened and you lose courage. No, you're inspired to continue diligently going forward. Luke 8 verse 15, we have that same word. But the seed that fell on the good ground are those who having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with endurance.

You bear fruit in the midst of your trials and tribulations with patience and endurance. Your endurance is not curtailed, instead it is inspired and strengthened.

Maybe one of you says, well, Elo, I've experienced so many things. I've been disappointed so many times. Well, I'm just frustrated I can't anymore. What a fool you are. You've got the wrong end of the stick.

If things go wrong, if you tested and tried, you should become more zealous. In Zulu it says, kutala.

What's kutala in English? Be more diligent and enduring. More diligent. You will not be lazy.

You will not sit where you are. You will be more diligent. Count it as the greatest joy. Because of that, you will be perfect.

That's why. That is why it says that this patience does its perfect work and makes you to be complete.

Faithfulness Under Pressure

Abraham, what would he have been worth in our eyes if he wouldn't have been tempted in such a way? This is what made him. He's the father of all believers. Because of this. That's why it should be his greatest joy.

This didn't break him. It made him. The perfect example to us. That's why we should count this as the highest, the greatest, the best joy of our lives.

Because this makes us.

One man told me, Fundis, if you'd have such a wife as I have, I can't be a real Christian because of my wife. Well, you just proved to me that you are a bird of the same feather. Otherwise, it should make you.

You should be able to stand. You should be able to say, this is the way. No other way.

The King's Test of Truthfulness

Then Kai also told me a story, and I'll close with this. That there was a certain king. Who called his whole nation together. And he said to them, I want to give you seed.

Some came with empty bags. Some came with wooden boxes.

Some with cardboard boxes. Some with dishes. And the king said he would give them seed. Old and young came. The king then gave each and every subject just one single seed. Those who had huge containers and sacks, they might have not bothered because they only got one small seed.

The great and important and the underdogs, anybody, they all got just one seed.

He said to them, now go and give them seed.

He said to them, now go and plant the seed. It was a flower plant. And he said, when the time comes of flowering, I want to find the best flower. He who brings the best flower will get the prize. The girl complained and said, I don't know what it is.

She cried bitterly, I water it, but it just won't grow. Two or three months went by, or a month or two. The king then gathered the nation together and said, alright, now I want to see your flowers. The little girl complained to her mother and said, now I have to go with my flower pot with the seed in it and it hasn't even flourished, it hasn't become a flower, what am I going to do?

Some came with their beautiful different flowers, there was one type of flower which had black petals but which was bright like the sun inside. And they pushed those with more distinguished flowers to go to the front of the crowd.

The king then said, now I want to test who has the best flower, I want you to show me and the one who has the best will get the prize. As this little girl passed through the crowds, they would comment and say, but where are you going with that thing, there's no flower even, stop.

The king had his daughter, the princess, and he said, you help me to judge the flowers. So he said, now come closer with your flowers. The lady with that beautiful flower with the dark petals and the flower that seemed like sunlight, she thought that she would get the prize and that she would get the applause of the crowd.

The king didn't even notice it, the princess said, your majesty, such a beautiful flower, he said, I don't notice it, let the next one come. And they all came with their flowers. He then asked to the crowd, now tell me, is there no one who's come just with their flower pot, with their vase, which has no flower?

The girl was standing fearfully at the back of the crowd, afraid that she was going to be sharply rebuked for not having produced a blossom. When she then came to the front with her pot, with the soil, and there was no evidence of flower, of the flower, he said, now come, my child.

He said, now, O nation, this is the one who wins the prize, she's done better than you all. They murmured, but there's nothing in it. He said, do you know what I did?

He said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize, the one who won the prize, he said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize. He said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize, he said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize.

He said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize, he said, I did not produce the flower pot, but the one who won the prize.

He answered to her, what I'd given you and said to the crowd was that grain of truth. It was not something that would be able to grow. You, saying to the crowd, were all dishonest. When you saw nothing was growing, you planted your own thing.

You made your own flower to grow. She was the only honest one, the only truthful one. And so I give her the honor of staying in my palace forever. She can come and live and have the same status as my daughter, the princess. The little girl said, but I have a mother back at home who is weak and who cannot walk.

She has problems. She's poor. He said, bring her too. That girl's honesty had been tested by the king. She had been truthful. And even though she had been disappointed day after day with seeing no results, but he tested her truthfulness.

We can say testing your faith that it is the real thing. Let's bow our heads and pray. We thank you, Lord, that we could hear your word. We've heard about James. Who was upright and honest. And even though he was the brother of our Lord, he didn't use that.

But his greatest honor was to be your servant. And Lord, we've heard how James could not restrain himself from addressing directly those Jews of the circumcision who were being crucified. We're believers, but whose life, whose spiritual lives had declined and become degenerate.

He couldn't keep quiet as people withered and had become washouts. And he wrote this letter rebuking them and instructing them to show forth the wisdom and life of heaven, saying that it's stupid to hold the truth and you have that faith, but there's no fruit to it.

Lord, may your word work in everyone that it might bring forth diligence, patience. Amen.