The Truth about Trials from James 1:2-4 (Justin Peters)

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Alright, well this is a bonus episode for you, that's right, we're giving you a bonus.

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This is from our conference that we had dealing with the topic of suffering called the Sanctification Through Suffering Conference.

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And this is Justin Peters, his sermon that he delivered on the truth about trials from James chapter 1 verses 2 -4.

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I hope that you will enjoy this episode. Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Hey, so this is a bonus episode, we didn't want to just have a whole bunch of sermons for like a month, but we do want to give you guys all of the messages.

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So please share these online, this is a very, very helpful message. This will really give you some training on dealing with trials in your life from James chapter 1 with Brother Justin Peters.

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I encourage you to share this often, subscribe to The Wrap Report so you get the rest of the messages along with the rest of the teaching that we offer here.

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And if you could, write a review on iTunes for us so that we can know you're listening, know what you think, and be encouraged by it.

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So here is Justin's sermon, his first one, Friday night from the

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Sanctification Through Suffering Conference. Look at Justin kicked me off to the side, can you believe this guy?

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Alright so, before I introduce the next speaker, you can kind of guess who he is because he's just like taking center stage.

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This guy, I could really embarrass him right now.

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Alright so, let me encourage you, for those of you who have smart phones, how many people have smart phones, raise your hand.

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Okay take them out, here's going to be assignment number 1, open your podcast app, already got what?

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Oh, he is ahead, do you hear that, they keep checking.

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So you can search for Didache, any of you know how to spell that one? Okay if you don't know how to spell it, search for Justin Peters, it's easier to figure out.

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Why does anyone come up with a Greek word for his podcast? Because he wants to teach you and it's a teaching podcast.

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So Justin Peters has a new podcast he's starting up and you can search for it by just searching Justin Peters, it's going to be the one with the little,

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I stole his logo until he gives me the new logo, but I took the one with the tree so we could get it started.

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So you'll see that there and it'll say Didache, subscribe to that now, and then after this session be like, so Justin, when are you starting?

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Lord willing in a couple, all I'm waiting is on the intro and how long. Raise your hands, how many of you want to hear his podcast?

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Okay, keep your hands up, put your hands down if you care about the intro music.

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Okay, so just start, nobody cares about the intro music, just start.

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You care, okay one person, Becca cares about the intro music so. So that's a podcast he's got, it's part of the

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Christian Podcast Community, we're glad to be able to have him on and help him. For those who don't know

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Justin Peters, one of the things, most people know Justin because of his

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Cloud Without Water seminars he does. If you have not seen that, they are available for $20 on a

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DVD out back on the table and it basically goes into the Word of Faith and NAR, and if you don't know what those are you probably should, because you know someone involved in it and you just don't know that.

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It is a cult, yes I said it's a cult, that is within Christianity and not looking to leave

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Christianity. So it is something that's harmful to the Christian community,

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Christian church, Justin is known for that, which is why he never, ever, ever gets to speak on that at any of our conferences.

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For a very simple reason, he is one of the best exegetes of scripture and very few people get to hear that because he's always kind of pigeon -holed into the other.

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He does have a flash drive for $25 on the table that has about, was it over 100 or 150 messages?

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It's right at 150. About 150 messages from him, things on attributes of God, things that have nothing to do with Word of Faith.

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Is the interview with Kosti on there? Yes. Okay, so anyone know the name Benny Hinn?

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Yeah, his nephew got saved and sometimes travels and does stuff with Justin, so that interview is on there.

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So that's Kosti Hinn, pray for him. It's not easy having a last name of Hinn and being a true believer. And so the other thing that Justin has out there is a book on baptizing children you think?

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Well, actually it's more on what regeneration is and dealing with the question of when should we baptize or not baptize our children.

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So Justin's well -known. He hates when I say this, just as he hated when

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Frank said it, but he is probably the humblest man I know. See, that's the proof.

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That face right there, that's the proof that I'm right. If he was proud of it, he wouldn't have that face.

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By the way, if anyone doesn't get Frank's reference earlier, I don't know pop culture. That's why I don't get pop culture jokes.

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He and a friend sat in his living room once just doing like mentioning movie quotes and I had no idea and they just thought that was the funniest thing.

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So Justin, I give you the floor. Well good evening.

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Good evening. I hope everyone's doing well tonight and I want to thank you very, very much for coming out and joining us and I know a conference on suffering may not sound like the most uplifting thing in the world, but it's a reality that we all face, right?

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And so I'm glad that you're here and by God's grace, I think we will all leave this weekend encouraged and edified and challenged by God's work, me included.

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So we can put a man on the moon 50 years ago and we still can't get rid of feedback.

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So let's go to the Lord in a word of, are y 'all still hearing,

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I'm hearing some kind of weird echo over there. Okay, that's annoying.

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Does that annoy y 'all? Is it, is it okay? Can we, can you, can we, can we suffer through it?

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Is it, is it, is the mic too hot? Is it? Okay.

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Well, let's go to the Lord in a word of prayer. We'll begin. Father, we're very grateful for this opportunity that you have given to us.

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We thank you for the fellowship of the saints. We thank you for the access that we have to your throne of grace that we can boldly come to you, not in any confidence in ourselves, but confidence in the person and work and merit of Christ and what he did for us on the cross.

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We pray now that your Holy Spirit would go with us and that he would do his work of illumining the meaning of your word to our hearts and to our minds, and that we would come to know you better.

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We would come to be more conformed into the image of Christ, our King, and it's in his name we pray and for our sake, we pray these things.

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Amen. Amen. I invite you to take your copy of God's word to the book of James, open to the book of James right after the book of Hebrews, you'll find

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James will be James chapter one, verses two through four.

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This is a sermon I've entitled the truth about trials. The truth about trials,

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James one, two through four. I'll read verses one through four, but our primary focus will be verses two through four, but let's look at God's word.

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James, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad.

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Greetings, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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May God bless the reading of his word. Our primary focus is verses two through four, but I want you to notice something real quickly as just as we begin in verse one, notice how

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James opens his letter. He says, James, a bond servant of God and of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Now this word bond servant in the Greek is the word doulos, and that word really means slave.

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James is saying, I am the slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is a profound statement when you think about who

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James was. There's four different James mentioned in the New Testament. This is

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James, the half brother of Jesus, and of course we refer to him as the half brother of Jesus because Jesus was conceived of the

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Holy Spirit, so he did not have a biological father in Joseph. So after Jesus was born, then

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Mary and Joseph had other children, the old fashioned way, and so we refer much to the chagrin of the

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Roman Catholic Church, I might add. So we refer to James as the half brother of Jesus, and notice how

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James refers to himself. He does not appeal to his familial relationship with Christ.

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He could have said, I am James, the half brother of Jesus. I am

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James, I was reared with Jesus, I grew up with him. No, I am

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James, I am the doulos of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I am his slave. This is profound because initially,

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Jesus' siblings, James included, initially did not believe that Jesus was who he said he was.

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They thought he was crazy, they thought he had lost his mind until he was crucified and bodily raised from the dead, and then they realized who their half brother really was.

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And once James saw that, he came into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, and then he knew that his most important relationship with Jesus was not as his half brother, but as his doulos, not his familial relationship, but his eternal relationship, his spiritual relationship, because once he became a new creature in Christ, he was adopted into the true family of God.

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And dear friends, our true family, not always our biological families, our true families are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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That is our most important relationship, that we are all adopted into the family of God through the merits of Christ.

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We are his children. We are also his doulos, and James understood this.

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This is profound humility on the part of James. I love how he introduces himself.

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So let's go to verses two through four. James says, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.

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Notice that James does not say if you encounter various trials, he says when you encounter various trials.

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Life is marked by trials, times of tears, times of pain.

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This is a natural result of living in a fallen world. I dare say that each and every one of us in here, we are either going through a trial right now, or we have recently come out of one, we're about to go into one, but all of us at some level, to varying degrees in our lives, are always going through some kind of trial.

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Life is marked by trials. Matthew 6, verse 34, Jesus says, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.

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Each day has enough trouble of its own. Each and every day, there's some trouble somewhere.

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John 16, 33, Jesus says, in this world, you will have trouble. Job 5, verse 7, for man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward, just as naturally and inevitably when you stoke a fire of wood or you throw a log on it, you stoke it just as naturally as the sparks fly upward.

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So are trials in our lives. They come just as naturally as the sparks fly upward.

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They are inevitable. We live in a fallen world, and there is no way to escape trials.

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Job 14, verse 1, Job says, man who is born of woman is short -lived and full of trouble.

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You won't see that verse on the front of a Hallmark card anytime soon. First Corinthians, chapter 7,

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Paul says that the married will have trouble. Marriage is a good thing. I am married, and I wouldn't go back to my single days for anything in the world, but the married will have trouble.

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You put two sinners under the same roof, and inevitably, you're going to have, you know, some little trouble there every once in a while.

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Paul, the Apostle Paul was troubled. If you can, flip over real quickly to 2

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Corinthians, chapter 11. 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 23 through 28.

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The Apostle Paul says this. One of the things I marvel about the word of God is that the word of God, the characters in God's word never shy away from recording their own failures, from recording their own trials, from recording their own temptations.

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But look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11, 23 through 28. Paul says, are they servants of Christ?

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I speak as if insane. I'm more so in far more labors and far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death.

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Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Do the math on that.

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Three times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day

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I've spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the

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Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangerous dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren.

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I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights in hunger and thirst, often without food in cold and exposure.

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And apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me for concern of all the churches.

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Other than that, everything was going great. Apostle Paul was troubled.

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Jesus was troubled. Jesus wept when Lazarus died. And then, of course, shortly before his crucifixion, he sweated, sweat drops of blood, and he was troubled as he knew what was shortly coming upon him, not only his crucifixion, but as he was about to bear the full undiluted fury of God's wrath that the sins of his people have earned.

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And he was troubled. And this is an argument from the greater to the lesser.

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If Jesus was troubled, how much more so, dear ones, that you and I will be troubled.

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A servant is not above his what? Master. It's an argument from the greater to the lesser.

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So trials are inevitable. James says, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.

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The emphasis here is not so much on the number, but on the varied nature of trials.

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Trials come in many, many different forms, do they not? Almost an endless number of forms.

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We have trials in our finances. We have trials in our health. We have trials in persecution.

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We have trials in abandonment from friends and family members.

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Paul says that all those who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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Notice he does not say some who live godly in Christ Jesus may be persecuted. All who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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And there are no exception clauses to that unless you live in the United States of America. Now, we don't live in Iran.

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We don't live in North Korea. We don't live in a country that actively physically persecutes Christians.

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Not like that, at least not yet. Now, we may one day, but we don't face those kinds of things in this country.

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Not yet. But if you're living godly in Christ Jesus, you should be experiencing some soft persecution somewhere, alienation of affection from friends and family members.

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And I would imagine many of us, if not most of us, could attest that when we became a

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Christian and our first fidelity became to God and his word rather than to family and the things of this world, probably caused some alienation of affection, right?

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Even from members of our own family, even members from our immediate family. And family members can be the hardest ones to speak the truth to, can't they?

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And it hurts, right? Because we love these members of our family. We love them.

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And we want them to know the same truth that we know. But oftentimes that causes tension, causes trials.

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So there are many, many different kinds of trials. Now, I want us to look at the meaning of trials, the meaning of trials for us as Christians.

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A lot of people think that misfortune should only happen to the ungodly.

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And as Frank has already talked about, you know, the age -old question, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

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That's the wrong question. Because there are no good people. The real question is, why does

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God cause good things to happen to bad people? Because we are all bad people.

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We have all broken God's laws thousands upon thousands of times throughout the courses of our lives in actions, in words, and in thought.

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We are all rebels against God. We are his enemies. We have broken his laws. And so there is no such thing as a good person.

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But yet many people, at least who profess to be believers, still have this question. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

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Well, there are no good people. But this is a question that even Asaph struggled with in Psalm chapter 73.

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If you've never read Psalm 73, or maybe it's been a while, go back and read through Psalm chapter 73.

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Asaph, he says, and as he opens Psalm 73, he says,

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I saw the prosperity of the wicked. In other words, he saw the wicked prospering, and he saw the righteous suffering.

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And it vexed him. It troubled him. He didn't understand it. He says, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked,

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Asaph said, but my feet came close to stumbling. My steps had almost slipped.

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It shook his faith when he saw this. It shook his faith.

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Job had many of the same questions as he suffered. But dear friends, we have to remember that as Christians, we suffer as Christians oftentimes not in spite of our faithfulness to God, but because of our faithfulness to God, because of our fidelity to God.

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That is often what brings suffering in our lives. Stephen in Acts chapter 7, remember he was stoned.

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And right before he was stoned, he said that he saw the heavens open, and he saw the

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Son of Man, Jesus, standing at the right hand of God. A very tender scene.

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It's almost as Jesus stood up ready to receive Stephen right before he was stoned.

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A very tender scene. Stephen was suffering because of his faith. All of the apostles were martyred for their faith in Christ, except for John, and he was exiled on the island of Patmos, where he died as an old man.

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And oftentimes, Joel Osteen's name has been brought up tonight, it'll probably be brought up again a couple of times throughout the course of this weekend.

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But as I look at the prosperity preachers out there, I often find myself asking the question rhetorically in my mind, what is it?

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What is it that you see in the lives of the apostles that makes you think we are entitled to have our best life now?

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Well, what is it? Was it that Stephen was stoned? Was it that Peter was crucified upside down?

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Was it what we just read in 2 Corinthians 11 from the apostle Paul? Was it that Paul was beheaded?

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What is it in their lives that make you think we're entitled to have a life of ease and comfort?

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And it is not that these people don't know what's in the Bible, they do. Joel Osteen and all these others, they've got the same

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Bible that you and I've got. So it's not that they don't know what's in there, they do know it, but they suppress it.

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They suppress the truth and unrighteousness per Romans 1 .18. And I would say to you that Joel Osteen and all these other preachers that preach this false gospel hate

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God. Joel Osteen hates God. Oh, he may smile all the time and he may cry and he may profess how much...

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No, he doesn't love God. He loves a God, but he doesn't love the God of the Bible. He loves a

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God. He loves a God that he has created after his own image. But he hates the

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God of the Bible. He hates him. Suppresses the truth and unrighteousness.

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Dear friend, salvation is free. Discipleship is not. Discipleship is not.

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If you have responded to a painless gospel, you have responded to a false gospel.

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And a false gospel does not save. Trials often are because of our faith.

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Jesus says in John 15 verse 20, if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

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Again, an argument from the greater to the lesser. I want to read a poem to you.

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I don't often read poems, but this is a good poem. It was written by a lady named

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Amy Carmichael. She was a missionary in India for right about 50 years.

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The last quarter of the 1800s, first quarter of the 1900s, she served in India.

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And Amy Carmichael wrote this poem and the title of it is Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no scar?

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No hidden scar on foot or side or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land.

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In other words, I hear people singing your praises. I hear thee sung as mighty in the land. I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star.

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Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers spent.

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They leaned me against a tree to die and rent. By ravening beasts that compassed me,

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I swooned. Hast thou no wound? No wound, no scar.

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Yet as the master shall the servant be. And pierced are the feet that leadeth me.

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But thine are whole. Can he have traveled far? Who hast no wound?

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Who hast no scar? Christ calls us to a life of suffering.

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Now I want us to look at the purpose of trials. The purpose of trials.

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One of the primary purposes of trials in our lives is to engender in us humility.

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To engender in us humility. The apostle Paul writes of one such trial in his life.

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In 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 7 through 9, Paul says, and because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations.

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What revelations were these? Remember Paul said, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body or apart from the body,

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I do not know, God knows, was called up to the third heaven. He was talking about himself. And he had been granted this magnanimous privilege of being called up into the third heaven, the abode of God.

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And he says, because of the surpassing greatness of these revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.

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In other words, lest I become exhausted, lest I become prideful about this privilege that God himself had granted to me, being called up into the third heaven.

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There was given me a thorn in the flesh. Now this word thorn, it's a little bit of a weak rendering there.

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In the Greek, it's the word scallops. And scallops is, it's more than a thorn.

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It's a stake. This was not a hangnail. You know, this was not a head cold.

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This was something that vexed Paul greatly. There was given me a scallops in the flesh to keep me from exalting myself.

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And Paul says concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

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And Jesus answered, my grace is sufficient for you. For my strength is perfected in your weakness.

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To keep him from exalting himself, God sent him a scallops, a stake in the flesh to engender in the

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Apostle Paul humility. And dear friends, let us remember that this was the

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Apostle Paul. This was a man who wrote roughly, you know, 25 % to a third of the

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New Testament, depending on who you think wrote the book of Hebrews. And if the Apostle Paul struggled with pride, the man who wrote a lot of our

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New Testament, if he struggled with pride, you and I are going to struggle with pride. None of us is without pride.

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None of us. And I appreciate what

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Andrew has said, what he perceives of my humility. But dear friends,

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I want to tell you, I know this because I know this theologically. None of us does anything with 100 % pure motives.

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None of us with 100 % pure motives because we live in a fallen world.

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And because we live in a fallen world, we deal with fallen flesh and fallen desires and even fallen motives.

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And there's nothing that we do with 100 % pure motives. I know because I know theologically as I'm sitting up here preaching

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God's word to you, I'm not doing this right now with 100 % pure motives. Now I do my best to put to death the deeds of the world and the deeds of the body,

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Romans 8, 13, and mortify the flesh and mortify those sins, but none of us can do it with 100 % success this side of heaven.

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And so if Paul struggled with pride, you and I will struggle with pride. And there's nothing like a real trial to bring us to our knees and to engender in us real humility.

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God did it for Paul. He will certainly do it for us. So they serve to engender humility, number one.

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Number two, trials serve for our conformation, not confirmation, conformation.

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They conform us into the image of Christ, Romans 8, 28.

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And we know that God calls us all things to work together for good, to those who love

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God, not to the unbelievers, but to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn, the preeminent among many brethren.

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Notice what Romans 8, 28 does not say. Romans 8, 28 does not say that all things are good because let's face it, all things are not good.

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It's not good when someone is left a quadriplegic after a car accident. That's not a good thing.

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It's not a good thing when a child gets cancer. It's not a good thing when two boys drown on the same day.

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That's not a good thing. So all things are not good, but God does cause all things to work together for the good.

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Somehow in God's providence, in ways that none of us can understand, he does work out all of these things that in and of themselves are not good.

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He works them out all together for the good to those who love him. Trials conform us into the image of Christ.

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They conform the student into the image of his master, Jesus. Psalm 119, verse 71, a good verse to know.

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Psalm 119, verse 71, David says, it is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.

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Put that verse in your prosperity pipe and smoke it. It's good for me that I was afflicted.

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Now notice David does not say that the affliction in and of itself was good because the affliction, whatever it was, was still resulted from fallen world.

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So it's not that the affliction in and of itself was good, but it was good for him that he was afflicted.

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Why? So that I might learn your statutes. And I am the first one to champion reading and studying

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God's word. Absolutely. Do that on a daily basis. Read God's word, study

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God's word, study doctrine, study theology. These are all wonderful things. But there is something about going through a trial that makes these things that we know intellectually become very real in our lives in an experiential way.

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There's something about a good trial that makes that doctrine and theology become very real, very practical, very tangible in our lives.

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Charles Spurgeon said, I am certain that I never did grow in grace one half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.

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Going through a trial makes that doctrine and theology real. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.

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James says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Trials produce humility.

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They conform us into the image of Christ and they also produce in us endurance.

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They test our faith and it produces endurance. The very word here, the testing of your faith, it means to investigate.

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It means to find out. There's nothing like a good trial that will investigate us, right?

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It will find out who we really are, find out what we're really made of when we go through a trial.

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It's easy to be faithful to God. It's easy to be a Christian when everything is just going swimmingly, right?

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When everything is just sunshine, lollipops, and unicorns. It's easy to claim to be a

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Christian. But when a trial comes, then that's when it gets real.

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That's where the rubber hits the road, to find out what we are really made of. And oftentimes,

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God will bring trials in our lives to find out what we're really made of. Not in the sense that he doesn't know already, but it will investigate, it will expose us for who we really are.

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And we will see what we are really made of. Testing was a familiar theme to these

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Jewish readers. They were very familiar with the Old Testament and a lot of trials, a lot of testing in the

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Old Testament. Of course, Abraham was probably one of the penultimate examples of one who was tested.

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I can't imagine a more acute test of my faith than what

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God told Abraham to do. Take your son Isaac up there and sacrifice him.

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I can't even comprehend that. Abraham passed his test. Israel was tested.

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Not so much. They failed. They wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years.

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They failed their test. So testing was a very familiar theme to these readers and they would have understood exactly what

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James was saying. Dear friends, a true Christian will be driven to his knees through a real trial.

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Trials bring us as Christians face -to -face with our own frailties, right?

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It's been said that spiritual growth, I think it was A .W. Pink who said this, spiritual growth is a growth downward.

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When we have a lower view of ourselves, then and only then will we have a higher view of God.

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There is an inverse relationship between how we view God and how we view ourselves.

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The more we think of ourselves, the less we're going to think of God. The less we think of ourselves, the more we should think about God.

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Now, I'm not saying we deny who we are in Christ. Not at all. What I am saying is that we have got to remember how completely, utterly, completely dependent we are upon God, the indwelling of his

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Holy Spirit. We need to remember how frail we really are. The lower view we have of ourselves as Christians, the higher view we will have of God.

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And the fires of trials burn up false professions. They burn up false professions.

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Not to pick on Joel Osteen, but to pick on Joel Osteen. You know, his church, quote, unquote, and I say quote, unquote, because it's not a real church and he's not a real pastor, but Lakewood Church, you know, he pastors

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Lakewood Church, so we'll use those terms for lack of better ones. Largest church in the United States of America.

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Largest church in the United States of America. But I guarantee you, if and when real persecution does come to this country, if we ever get a taste of what our brothers and sisters in Christ in places like Syria and Iran and North Korea are facing, you mark my word, when that day comes,

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Lakewood Church will go from the largest church in the United States of America to where you will be able to hear a pin drop on Sunday morning in Lakewood Church because they have no theology for suffering.

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And that place will be a ghost town if real persecution does come to this country.

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The fires of trials burn up false professions. The gospel does not promise that things will get better in this life for us as Christians.

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It promises the opposite, that they will get worse from a physical standpoint. John 8, verse 31,

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Jesus says, if you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples.

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1 John 2, 19, they went out from us, why? Because they were not really of us.

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They looked like the real thing for a while. They played a good game. They had the right lingo, but they went out from us.

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Why? Because they were never really of us to begin with. This is what we see so much in so many evangelical churches that are more decisional oriented.

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You can play 20 stanzas of Just As I Am and you can manipulate people's emotions and you can have the fancy music and the fancy lights and you can send kids off to a week of youth summer camp or whatever it is they call it.

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I remember I used to do this as a teenager. We'd go off to some destination for a week or so as in the youth group and we'd play

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Michael W. Smith songs and we'd sing Friends Are Friends Forever and we'd get all emotional and crime slobber all over one another and come back on this spiritual high.

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But then the next week, where is it? It's gone. Because it wasn't real. It wasn't real.

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It's just emotion. So it's a sugar rush. But a real trial will burn up these false professions.

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Now I want us to look at our response to trials. How does James say we should respond to trials?

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James says, verse 2 again, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.

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Consider it joy. This word in the Greek for consider, it's an accounting term. It's literally count it as joy when you encounter various trials.

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Now again, as with Romans 8 28, we need to know what this verse does not say.

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This verse does not say enjoy your trials. It says count them as joy.

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Not enjoy your trials. Because, dear friends, trials are not enjoyable.

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That's why they're called trials. By definition, they're not enjoyable. And please, please don't fall into this hyper spiritual trap.

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That if you're going through a trial right now and you're not enjoying it, that there's something wrong with you.

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Don't fall into that trap. You're not supposed to enjoy trials. That's why they're called trials. And I've heard a lot of people say, well, you need to enjoy your trial.

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No, you don't need to enjoy your trial. You're not supposed to enjoy your trial. You know, and all of us have many different kinds of trials.

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And just one trial in my life is probably that which is most visible with me.

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Yeah, I'm crippled. I was born with cerebral palsy. It's a trial in my life.

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I used to say it was a blessing. And I guess in a sense, it is. But, you know,

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I'm not going to sit up here and be all hyper spiritual and say that my cerebral palsy doesn't sometimes get to me.

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You know what? It does. And there's not, you know, there's some days

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I just don't feel like being crippled that day. You know, and I'm not bitter about my handicap.

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But yeah, there's times when I wish I could do things more easily than what I can do. And it's not always easy, you know, and I don't always enjoy it.

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But I'm not supposed to. You're not supposed to enjoy your trial. Can you learn from your trial?

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Yes, absolutely. Can you be more conformed in the image of Christ through your trial? Yes, absolutely.

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It doesn't mean we enjoy them. James says, count it as joy. Knowing that through the trial, there can be joy in the midst of that trial.

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And knowing that no matter how severe the trial may be, it is still temporary.

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And there can be joy in the midst of the trial. And there will certainly be joy on the other side of the trial, whether we realize the other side, the other end of the trial and on this side of heaven or on the other.

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So please don't think that there's something wrong with you. Don't think that you just don't have enough faith.

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Or you're just not as spiritual as you ought to be if you're not enjoying your trial. You're not supposed to enjoy your trial. But you can count it as joy.

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Knowing that God is in control and he is working all of these things together for our good.

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And as severe as a trial may be, it is but temporary. It will not last.

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It will not last. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 8 through 10.

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And this is a good passage to be familiar with. Either flip there now or you can just write it down.

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But 2 Corinthians 4, 8 through 10. I love the transparency of the apostle

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Paul here. Paul says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but we're not forsaken, struck down, but we're not destroyed.

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Always caring about in the body, the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

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This is real transparency. Paul was going through severe trials and you know what?

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They got to him. They got to him. It was hard. He says, we're afflicted in every way, but we're not crushed.

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We're perplexed. So I don't understand what's going on here. He was confused. He was perplexed, but not despairing.

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Persecuted, but in the middle of that persecution, Paul knew he was not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed.

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You ever heard someone say, in fact, I saw a book by this title just last week or so, a couple of weeks ago in the airport.

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Title of the book is, too blessed to be stressed. What a stupid thing to say.

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Paul was stressed. He went through severe trials and you know what? They got to him. John the

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Baptist went through a severe trial and you know what? It got to him too. This was

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John the Baptist. He's the one who baptized Christ. He was the voice crying in the wilderness and he found himself in a prison cell and Jesus earthly ministry wasn't turning out the way he had envisioned that it would.

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And he found himself in a dank, dark prison cell, just about ready to have his head lopped off.

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Things weren't turning out the way he thought that they would. And you know what? It got to him. He sent a question from his disciples through his disciples to Jesus.

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And the question was this, are you the Messiah? Or should we be looking for somebody else?

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It got to him. His faith wavered. The apostle

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Paul's faith wavered. Asaph in Psalm chapter 73, he says, my feet came close to stumbling.

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My steps almost slipped. His faith wavered. Wavered. And it's like sometimes

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God will use trials in our lives and they will be so severe that he will allow us to get right up to the edge of the abyss.

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And we peer off into it. We peer off into the abyss.

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We peer off into the abyss of unbelief, of losing our faith.

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The trial sometimes can be that severe. Paul wavered.

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John the Baptist wavered. Asaph wavered.

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God allowed these men to get right up to the edge of the abyss and they peered off into it.

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Asaph said, my feet came close to stumbling. But then

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God reaches out his strong and mighty arm. And he may let us get to the edge of the abyss at times, but he reaches out his arm and he secures us.

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And he pulls us back. He pulls us back.

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He will not allow our feet to stumble. He will not allow our steps to slip.

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He is strong and he is mighty to save. And those whom he saves, he sanctifies.

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Those whom he saves, he keeps. I love what

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Jesus said in John chapter 10. The father has given them to me, referring to us as a sheep.

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And he says, no one will snatch them out of my hand. And then as if his hand was not strong enough, and it is, he says, my father is greater than I and no one will snatch them out of the father's hand.

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So we are held in Jesus' hand. And as if that were not enough, and it is,

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Jesus metaphorically wraps the father's hand around that of his own.

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He keeps us. He may let us get right up to the edge, but he will not let us fall over.

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Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Knowing this, how do we know this?

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We know this by studying. We know this by studying God's word. This is not a passive endeavor, dear ones.

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Read and study God's word. 2 Timothy 2 verse 15, Paul says we are to study to show ourselves unto

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God, approved unto God. Read and study God's word. This is, you don't just wake up with this assurance.

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You read, you study God's word. And as the word of Christ dwells richly within you, you will come to know

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God better. And the more we know God, the more confidence we have in him. If you've never done a study of the attributes of God, may

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I joyfully encourage you to do that. Study God's attributes. Study his sovereignty.

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Study his faithfulness. Study his wrath. Study his mercy. Study his love.

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Study his aseity. Study these attributes of God. You cannot trust someone whom you do not know.

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The more you know someone, the more you trust that person. The more we know God, the more we can trust

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God. Do yourself a favor and study the attributes of God. Peter, the apostle

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Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter 5, 6 through 7, in keeping with this theme of God keeping us,

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Peter says, therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you.

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He cares for you. Now, bear with me here just for a moment, because I'm going to give an illustration, but it'll tie back to this passage here.

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Ever since I was a little boy, I've been fascinated with astronomy. And I've just, the stars and the planets and all,

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I've just had a fascination about these things. And I'm sure you've probably heard some of these statistics before, but just for our purposes here,

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I did some study and ran a few numbers. Apparently, not that I know this because I can measure, but apparently those who are smarter than I am, say that the mass of this earth, the mass of the planet on which we sit today, is 6 .6

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sextillion tons. 6 .6 sextillion tons. Do you know how much that is?

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I don't either. I have absolutely no idea what that number means. I don't know how many zeros that is.

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I just know it's a lot. 6 .6 sextillion tons. As massive as this planet is, we could fit 1 .3

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million earths inside our sun. 1 .3

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million earths inside our sun. And our sun is just an average -sized star. There are stars out there that are far, far bigger.

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In fact, there's a star named Canis Majoris. You could fit 9 .3 billion, with a

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B, suns inside Canis Majoris. 1 .3

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million earths in the sun. 9 .3 billion suns inside this one single star named

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Canis Majoris. And that's just one star of billions of stars in our, billions of stars in our own

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Milky Way galaxy. And that's just one galaxy. How many galaxies are there? We don't even know.

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Hundreds of billions at least. We don't know how many galaxies there are. And I say all that because of what

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Peter says here, because he cares for you. We can cast our cares upon him, cast our anxiety upon him for he cares for you.

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Do you know how this literally reads in the Greek? Literally, because he cares for you, it says this in the

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Greek, literally. It matters to him about you. It matters to him about you.

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The one who spoke all of the universe into existence with a scope that the human mind cannot even begin to comprehend.

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In comprehensible size, in comprehensible order, incomprehensible precision.

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And he spoke it into existence. He did all that. And it matters to him about you.

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Whatever it is that you are going through, dear one, it matters to him about you.

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Selah. What an awesome, awesome thought that is.

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What an awesome, awesome God we serve. It matters to him about us.

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I take great comfort in that. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

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Endurance. Trials produce endurance in us. This word endure, endurance, in the

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Greek is the word hupomenai. And hupomenai, hupa, you probably know like hupa, hypodermic, hypodermic needle goes under the skin, right?

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Hupa means underneath, monai in the Greek means to remain.

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Comes from the Greek word meno, which means to remain. So literally, endurance, it literally means to remain underneath.

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God will give us his sufficient grace to, not to have the trial removed most of the time, but to hupomenai through the trial.

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To remain underneath the trial. And even though the trial may weigh on us,

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God's sufficient grace helps us to hupomenai through it. To bear up underneath the trial.

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He doesn't take the trial away. He gives us his grace to hupomenai through the trial.

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It's the same word used in Hebrews 12 verse 2. Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured, hupomenai'd the cross.

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The cross was not taken away, but somehow in the mystery of God's triunity,

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God gave him the grace to hupomenai, to endure it. Why?

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For the joy set before him. And God will give us his sufficient grace, no matter how severe the trial may be, to hupomenai through it.

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He won't take it away. Most of the time, he won't take it away. He didn't take it away from Paul. Paul prayed three times that it might be removed.

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Jesus said, my grace is sufficient. My grace will help you, Paul, to hupomenai through this trial.

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And God's grace will be sufficient for us to endure, to hupomenai our trials.

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And let endurance have its perfect result. So that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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Now, this perfection of which James speaks is not sinless perfection.

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There are those who say that you can attain a state of sinless perfection, this side of heaven. No, you can't.

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No, you can't. I think Romans chapter seven stands in stark contrast against that. Those who would teach that you can attain sinless perfection, this side of heaven does not truly understand human depravity, does not truly understand the gospel itself.

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Salvation is not perfection, it's direction. Which direction is your life going?

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Over time, are you growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is there an increasing pattern of holiness in your life over time?

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Is there a decreasing pattern of sin in your life over time? Again, we Christians can stumble into sin, but Christians don't swim in sin.

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Let endurance have its perfect result, not perfection in that we never sin, but it is direction.

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God in Christ has equipped us with everything that we need to face trials in our lives, no matter how severe they may be.

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We are perfectly equipped, thoroughly furnished unto every good work to face the trials that come in our lives.

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Dear friends, we have the Bible. We have the written word of God. We have the inerrant, infallible, all -sufficient word of God.

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We have God's word. What a treasure. If you're not reading and studying God's word, you're not going to be prepared for the trials that come.

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If you are reading and studying God's word, you will be prepared. Doesn't mean it'll be easy, but you'll be prepared.

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We have the Bible. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. Think about that. The third person of the triune

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Godhead lives inside of you and lives inside of me as a Christian. We have the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit. We are partakers of the divine nature. The Holy Spirit of God illumines the meaning of God's word to our hearts and to our minds.

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He enables us to obey God's word. So we have God's word. We are indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit and we have the fellowship of the what? We have the fellowship of the saints. Dear friends, if you, going back to what

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I said earlier in my sermon, if you, when you became a Christian, if you have been alienated from members of your own family, you know what?

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I know that hurts. I know it does. I've experienced this in my own life. But when you became a

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Christian, you gained family all around the world. You have millions upon millions of brothers and sisters in Christ who have a closer relationship to you than do members of your own blood family who are not saved.

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And one of the joys that has been mine is as an evangelist, I have been able to travel to different countries and it doesn't matter where I am.

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I've been in 25 different countries and it doesn't matter where in the world I am. When I am with like -minded believers in Christ, there is an instant bond there.

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There's an instant fellowship there. There's an instant kindred spirit there. There's an instant love there.

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No matter what country I'm in, what culture I'm in, doesn't matter what language is spoken. And you know what else doesn't matter?

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Doesn't matter what color their skin is or mine is. I don't care what color their skin is. They don't care what color mine is.

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Why? Because we're family. We're family. We have been adopted into the family of God through the merits of Christ.

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We have family all over the world. We are thoroughly equipped to face the trials that come our way.

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The Bible, the Holy Spirit, the fellowship of the brethren. And I'll close with this. Peter says in 1

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Peter 1, 6 -7, Peter says, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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So why do we go through trials ultimately, dear friends? Here's why we go through trials.

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So that our lives will be found to result in the praise, in the glory, in the honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Sometimes God is most glorified in us when we suffer. And yet through the suffering, through the trials, through the persecution, through the sickness, through the disease, whatever the trial is, we will be found faithful to him, all to the praise of the glory of his grace.

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And I know growing up in a Southern Baptist church, Wednesday night prayer meeting. You know, we would have

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Wednesday night prayer meeting. We would start with some kind of a little meal that usually wasn't too good. And then after that, you know, they'd have some announcements.

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And then they'd have the prayer meeting, you know, and they would always ask, does anybody have any prayer requests?

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Anytime prayer requests are asked for what 99 out of a hundred prayer requests are for what? Health.

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Somebody's sick. Somebody's in the hospital. Somebody's having surgery. Somebody's got cancer.

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You know, somebody's got whatever. And dear friends, I'm not making light of that. And I am, hear me, hear me.

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I am not against praying for God to heal someone physically.

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I'm not against that at all. But maybe instead of spending so much time for God to remove our trials, maybe we should spend a little bit more time praying for things like this.

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God, use this trial in my life to conform me into the image of your son.

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Use this trial in my life to bring me to the end of myself. Use this trial in my life that I might learn your statutes.

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Use this trial in my life and use it in such a way that I will lean harder on you and use this trial in my life so that I may glorify you.

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And through this trial, may I carry your name well to the praise of the glory of his grace.

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Maybe we should spend a little bit more time praying for things like that. The truth about trials.

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Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, what a comfort it is knowing that we are not meant to enjoy our trials, but through our trials we can have joy.

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Knowing that nothing can come to us that does not pass by your sovereign hand, does not even indeed come from your sovereign hand.

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So Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the fellowship of the saints.

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And Father, through our trials, and they are many and they are varied, may we carry your name well all to the praise of the glory of your grace.