Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship 8/20/2023

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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Grace and peace to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our

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God. Please stand. For the call to worship,

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I'm reading a portion of Psalm 96. For the

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Lord is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods.

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For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

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Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

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Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength.

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Give to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts.

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O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Tremble before him all the earth.

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Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. The world also is firmly established.

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It shall not be moved. He shall judge the peoples righteously. Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad.

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Let the sea roar in all its fullness. Let the field be joyful and all that is in it.

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Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord, for he is coming, for he will judge the earth.

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He shall judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth.

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What a blessing it is to be called by the name of the Lord to come with his people, to gather in his presence.

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Come now, let us worship him. Please pray with me. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we, your people, acknowledge your absolute reign and rule over all things, that none other could receive worship.

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You alone deserve all the glory and honor. I pray that your people would hallow your name and that they would rejoice and be glad to be called your sons and daughters.

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We ask, O Lord, through the perfect mediation of Christ, that our feeble worship would be elevated and magnified and acceptable in your sight.

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We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please kneel for the corporate confession of sin.

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Let us confess our sins together. Lord Jesus, I have sinned times without number.

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Please stand. We have been confronted with the holiness of God, and we look upon ourselves, and we are sinned, and we see our sins, but we have

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Jesus, and we have assurance of pardon in him. Receive that now. He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

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For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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O people of God, take heart today. If you be in Christ, your sins are forgiven.

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Amen? Amen. Please take up the hymnal and turn to number 693.

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Blessed Assurance 693.

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Let us begin. Blessed assurance is my strength, my savior.

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So may my song be my savior, my savior.

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Bulletin insert, and find Psalm 35. The tune is

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When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. so we should be able to manage it well.

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Psalm 35. ♪

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For with close trust to my soul in mercy sent ♪ ♪

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Salvation unto you to desire to take my life before you ♪ ♪

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Shall be for love chasing them ♪

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Please turn in your Bibles for the reading of the word from the book of First Peter in chapter three.

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First Peter chapter three. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives.

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When they observe your chaste conduct, accompanied by fear, do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine carol.

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Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incomparable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.

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For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trust in God also adorn themselves being submissive to their own husbands.

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As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.

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Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

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Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, as tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.

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For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceits.

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Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the

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Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the

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Lord is against those who do evil. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?

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But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed, and do not be afraid of the threats, nor be troubled, but signify the

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Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

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For it is better if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

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For Christ, who suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the

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Spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved through water.

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There is also an anti -type which now saves us, baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to Lord God.

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Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers and having been made subject to him.

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This is the word of God. Thanks be to the Lord. I'd like us to put the blame on someone else.

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Let us now confess our faith in the singing of the Apostle Paul. ♪

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I believe in God the Father, he reigns ♪ ♪

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Christ is only begotten Son, our Lord ♪ ♪ Who was conceived by the

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Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ Born on the water

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Pontius Pilate ♪ ♪ Was crucified, dead, and buried ♪ ♪

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He descended into hell ♪ ♪ The third day he rose again from the dead ♪ ♪

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He ascended into heaven ♪ ♪ And is seated at the right hand of God the

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Father Almighty ♪ ♪ From there he will come to judge the living and the dead ♪ ♪

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I believe in the Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ I believe the

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Holy Catholic Church ♪ ♪ The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins ♪ ♪

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The resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting ♪ ♪

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Everlasting, amen ♪ Please turn in the hymnal now to 672.

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Trust and Obey, 672. This is a good hymn for the book of James, and it's very familiar to us.

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Let's sing it with great zeal and joy in our hearts. Number 672, let's begin.

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♪ When we walk, we share

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God's goodwill ♪ ♪

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We obey, we trust, we trust and obey ♪ ♪

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We share in Jesus, love to trust and obey ♪ ♪

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Love we never can prove, the delight of his love ♪ ♪

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Until all the joy he brings, love to trust and obey ♪ ♪

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We will sit at his feet, or we'll walk by his side ♪ ♪

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In the way he says ♪ Preparations now for the prayers of the people.

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After this manner, therefore pray ye. Lord, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.

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Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays his power and be pleased to dispose all things to his own glory.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Pray that Satan's kingdom may be advanced and the kingdom of grace,

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I'm sorry, pray that Satan's kingdom will be utterly destroyed and that the kingdom of grace advanced.

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Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it and the kingdom of glory hastened.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Pray that God for Christ's sake would freely pardon all our sins.

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And we are encouraged to ask this because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

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Lord, hear our prayers. Our father taking encouragement and prayer from you alone in our prayers, we praise you ascribing kingdom, power and glory to you.

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And to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say together, amen.

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Amen, please stand and take up the bulletin again. Find the insert with Psalm 102, the psalm of the month.

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Psalm 102, let us begin. ♪ Do this my prayer,

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Lord, and let my pride be true ♪ ♪

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In this day and all together,

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I stand before you now ♪ ♪

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Desert pelican, walls filled with anger, my name dismissed ♪ ♪

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For you are meek and in anger frown ♪ ♪

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You raise me up to throw me down ♪ ♪

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Leaving strong ♪ Please remain standing and turn in your

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Bibles to the book of James and chapter one. We start the body of the epistle this week.

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We'll be chiefly concerned with verses two through four of chapter one. I'm going to read the chapter again to help set it in context.

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This is God's holy and infallible word. James, a bondservant of God and of the

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Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad.

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Greetings. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

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If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him.

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But let him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

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For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double -minded man, unstable in all his ways.

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Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation because as a flower of the field, he will pass away for no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass, its flower falls and its beautiful appearance perishes.

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So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. Blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the

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Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted,

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I am tempted by God for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he himself tempt anyone, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.

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Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death.

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Do not be deceived my beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights.

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With whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

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For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

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But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.

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For he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

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But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

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If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

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Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

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May the Lord be pleased with our study of his most excellent word. Please pray with me.

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Oh Lord, we are rattled by trials. We don't find joy in them.

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And I pray that you would cause us to see the great value of trials that we might grow up in the faith to full maturity and that we would be able to count it joy when we fall into various trials.

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Oh Lord Jesus, we pray that your gospel would shine through and we also ask that your great application of truth would happen and that the

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Holy Spirit would open our hearts that we might examine ourselves and the fruit of our lives to test the genuineness of our faith and our progress in growing to maturity.

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We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. As I mentioned last week,

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James is a very practical book and it comes for us at a good time after spending many months in apocalyptic prophecy in the book of Zechariah to come to a very practical and accessible book for the church.

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The title of the message today is that you may be perfect and complete and that comes from the end of verse four, that you may be perfect and complete.

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For those of you who are in need of an outline, I have two points for you. First is to count it all joy.

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That would be number one, count it all joy. And two, let patience have its perfect work.

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Let patience have its perfect work. I also will have a fairly lengthy list of the purposes of God in trials and I'll enumerate those to you as we go through.

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Count it all joy and let patience have its perfect work.

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What is it that you value and treasure the most?

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What is it that makes you get out of bed in the morning and ready to run into the day?

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What is it that your heart is set upon?

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What captivates your attention and grabs your interest? It's a very telling question.

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For us to properly understand the point of James in this first message, we must understand that James is operating under the premise that Christ is preeminent in the heart of the

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Christian. You say, well, that's obvious. It may be theologically obvious.

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It may be in terms of precept, it may be obvious. But what is your life characterized by?

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What is it that moves you and motivates you to live your life?

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What excites you? What is something that you're passionate about?

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James thinks that we should be zealous for Christ and there should be no rivals.

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And this zeal for Christ orders and arranges our lives in such a way that even negative things like trials are recast in our own eyes and image that we see the value of trials and temptations and sufferings because they drive us to Christ not only in faith, but for help.

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It drives us to show that we love Christ by obeying his commands.

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So today we consider James 1, verses two through four.

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Let's look at it again. The first words here, my brethren. We generally gloss over greetings and things like this and James has some hard words for his audience.

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There should be times when we're going through the book of James together that you should be put back on your heels and drop back into the pew because you are halted with a deficiency in your life and your walk with Christ.

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But he starts with a term of affection. It's familial, this very common word, adelphoi, my brethren, the people whom

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I love in Christ. It's familial, it's pastoral.

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James is hard on the people, but it's a hardness that's motivated by love like a father correcting a wayward son.

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He corrects him because he loves him. He corrects him because he seeks his good.

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James says that you should be glad and rejoice. That's what that word greetings means.

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And brethren, the people I love, we're part of the family of God. I want to give you some pastoral wisdom and you must apply it to your life.

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And then he starts in. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

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I was thinking about this and how would you explain this to a young child?

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Because when hard things come, those things aren't fun. And if you said it's very hard for me, or I should say

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I enjoy when my car, the wheel breaks off on I -4 and I almost get into a wreck, that's exciting and fun for me.

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Let's say you were deranged. Or when I get stricken with some disease.

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Oh, this is great, I love being stricken with some disease. How do we count it all joy?

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We need to understand that this idea here is to reckon and consider and esteem that the trial and this whole thing has a thrust in the accusative.

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And that'll make some sense here in a moment. I can be joyful, you can be joyful in trial because the trial tends toward your greatest joy.

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Your faith in Christ first, communion with him, and that the trials prove and improve upon your faith.

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You see, if Christ is preeminent in your life, then anything that makes you closer to Christ, more adoring of Christ or more reflective in Christ's likeness of Christ, you're about those things.

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Anything that makes me more like Jesus, I should be excited about because that's my greatest desire is to be united to Christ and to be like him.

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To count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

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This is not part of the text in Greek. It's more of an idiomatic expression from our own language.

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I think it's appropriate for us to say, if, not if, but when you fall into trials.

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No Christian lives without trial. No Christian has ever lived without trials.

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Sometimes our friends in the broader evangelical world portray the gospel of a life of ease.

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You come to Christ and all of your problems go away. I've mentioned a few times a world of trouble comes upon the

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Christian when he comes to Christ because now he's at war with the old man that resides in him.

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He is putting to death that old man that the new man might thrive.

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And you have the world, the flesh and the devil coming at you and you fall into various trials.

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So the question has to be asked, what is the benefit of trials?

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Some of us live our lives attempting to avoid trials. Like a good life would be to avoid trials.

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The scripture gives us some guidance and I had some help with many commentators to compile this list with some edits and revisions.

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I have nine purposes of God in trials. And if you're note taking, this would be good to pay attention to this.

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The first is this, let me explain the reasoning here. I'm called to count it all joy.

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And I'm called to count it joy when I fall into various trials. So the natural question that must be answered when you're reading this text is, what is the purposes of God in trials?

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That question has to begin to be answered, I think, before we can understand the idea.

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The first one, and it's a big one, it's an overarching one for the book of James, is to test the genuineness and strength of our faith.

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I'm going to add to that, to test the strength and genuineness of our faith, and to expose our weaknesses.

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The purpose of God in trials is to test the strength and genuineness of our faith, and to expose our weaknesses.

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I'm asking you to turn back one or two pages in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews in chapter 11.

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The convenience of this section to our book is very helpful. We're going to come here a couple of times today, a couple of different illustrations.

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Instead of reading the account in Genesis 22 about Abraham offering up his son

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Isaac, a story, a history, a scripture that we're all familiar with, I'm going to use the short account in Hebrews 11, beginning at verse 17.

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By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.

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And he who had received the promises offered up, his only begotten son.

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Now you have to remember the background. Abraham is promised to be this patriarch of many nations.

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He's promised to be this really conduit of God's working in the world. And of his line is not only going to be

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Israel, but more importantly, the capital SC, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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And he and his wife are barren. They're unable to have children in their old age.

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And so God miraculously, with a hiccup in the Hagar incident, he enables

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Abraham and Sarah to have a son, Isaac. And it's not long after,

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Isaac is a young man, an older boy, perhaps, a teen, perhaps. God calls

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Abraham to take his son, Isaac, up to the mountain and to sacrifice him there.

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Abraham has been in a world probably, coming out of Ur of the Chaldeans, where human sacrifice might've been something that was around.

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It was totally antithetical to his understanding of who God was.

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The pagans sacrificed humans. But in faith and obedience,

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God calls him and he does it. He goes up the mountain. He prepares it himself.

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He's ready to offer his son, Isaac. You gotta wonder how does

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Abraham handle these conflicting messages. In you,

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Abraham, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. In you,

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Abraham, I'm gonna give you this miraculous son of promise. It runs through Isaac.

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You're as good as dead, and the future is gonna be found in Isaac and his son, Jacob, and his sons.

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But he obeys. He believes God. Paul says, and James say, it's accounted to him for righteousness because he believes.

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In James, the thrust in chapter two will be that Abraham's faith is legitimized by his obedience.

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Not just his willingness, it was his actions of taking Isaac up the mount.

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As you know, the Lord miraculously provides a ram caught in the thicket.

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And Abraham is extolled for his great faith in God. The verse 18, it says, of whom it was said in Isaac, your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, which he also received him in a figurative sense.

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Isaac's standing again up off the altar of wood and being untied was a resurrection of sorts.

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And of course, this is a type of what God would do in sending his only son, his only begotten son,

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Christ to the cross, only there is no other substitute to be offered.

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Christ alone himself will suffer and die, and this will be used by James in our illustration here even to show the value of obedience.

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James will make Abraham prominent in his interpretation of events in chapter two, will be the greatest controversy in the book, but we know there is no controversy actually.

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Paul and James are not at odds. They speak of two sides of the same coin.

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Abraham's patience and endurance in the most difficult trial proved to him that God was with him and he provides for our greatest needs.

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There's something about trials that I've been reacquainted with in thinking about James. The trial is really not for God's benefit.

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He knows what's in the heart of us. He knows what sort of faith we have, the genuineness of it.

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The trials for us that we could see where we are, that we can see our desperate need of Christ.

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We can see the progress in the faith maybe that we have made in him.

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Later we'll learn in scripture, if you're proceeding from Genesis, that Christ for the joy set before him endured the cross.

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It's also important to remember that Christ was perfected, and that word comes up in our text today, the idea that we get the theological understanding of things, the end, the goal, the end of the thing, that Christ's suffering is the validation and the stamp of approval and the validation of his messianic office and the perfect mediation that he supplies.

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Christ doesn't do this in the abstract, but in real trials,

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Christ really suffered. Christ really endured heavy trials.

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He was, as Paul prayed today, tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

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Christ's exaltation comes through his patient endurance of trials.

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Therefore, the Christian must walk after the trailblazer himself. We must walk in these things.

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We too must persevere and endure great trials.

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The trials reveal the strength and weaknesses of our faith.

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This is the first one. And this should yield a twofold joy in us.

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In the positive, we take encouragement for the triumphs of our faith.

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When you endure and you get through the trial in faith and obedience, it's a cause of rejoicing.

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I urge you to be more reward -centric in your Christian life. Persevere in trial to get the blessing and the reward of obedience at the end.

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We kind of are negative about those ideas, aren't we? Doesn't seem very spiritual. I want you to have all the blessing that could come to a child of God walking in faith and obedience.

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And secondly, how can this be good negatively? Our need of strength is revealed and we run to Christ to fill our want.

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Don't have to turn there. I'm gonna read a very brief portion of Galatians chapter three to tie a bow on Abraham's faith, a test of the genuineness and strength of faith.

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Galatians 3, seven through nine says this. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.

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In the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, in you all the nations shall be blessed.

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So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing

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Abraham. It's interesting, the chief figure of covenants in the

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Old Testament, you could argue, is Abraham. And covenant keeping, obedience, is a rich, central component of his greatness as a man, worthy of our emulation.

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Christ, par excellence, does this. So Abraham does it on a pretty grand scale.

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Christ eclipses it. We of the faith of believing Abraham, following after our

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Lord and Master Christ, we, too, must walk through trials to test the strength of our faith and to expose our weaknesses.

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Secondly, you and I need humility.

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I'm gonna ask you to turn to 2 Corinthians in chapter 12. 2

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Corinthians 12. We just heard this morning some more about Paul and his character.

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And it's interesting how he perceives the trial of the thorn of flesh in his life.

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How does Paul view the thorn of flesh in his life? 2

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Corinthians 12, beginning at verse seven. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, and hold your finger there just to be reminded of the revelations, he says at the beginning of the chapter,

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I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. He says, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body

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I do not know or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a one was caught up to the third heaven.

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I believe this is autobiographical of Paul. So Paul gets discipled and gets seminary with the

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Lord for three years. He gets caught up into heaven. Verse three, it says, and I know such a man, whether in the body or not, out of the body

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I do not know, God knows, how he was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which is not lawful for a man to utter.

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Of such a one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast except in my infirmities.

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For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool, I will speak the truth.

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But I refrain lest anyone should think me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. Some of this internal evidence about Paul being the one who these things were revealed to.

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Verse seven, and lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.

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I remember as a young man, remember being in what, so old that I went to junior high.

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I didn't even go to middle school, I went to junior high. And I remember in that season of life that the one thing that you couldn't have happen to you was to be embarrassed.

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It was horrifying to think that anything could embarrass you or that the people would laugh at you.

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That you would spill your lunch tray on the ground and everyone in the cafeteria would erupt in laughter.

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That was death for a person in junior high that something would happen like that.

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But as Christians, we should smile every time when we're big in our britches and when we fall down.

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Every time when we're humbled and where we're self -exalted in our hearts and we think highly of ourselves.

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Anything that comes into our lives that brings us down and brings us low, the trial that leads to our humility is glorious because it shows us our desperate need of Christ.

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Paul had a thorn in the flesh and it was so unpleasant. He says in verse eight concerning this thing,

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I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

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My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly,

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I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

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Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distress for Christ's sake.

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For when I am weak, when I'm humbled, then

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I am strong. We must long to have trials bring us low.

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Unless we be exalted above measure, we have need of humbling.

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Anything for us to forsake and mortify our pride will be uncomfortable, it'll be painful.

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But it's needful. Paul was left seeing his weakness and need of Christ and this is the very substance of what made him strong.

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So what is the purpose of God in trials? To test the genuineness and strength of faith, to expose our weaknesses and to yield humility in us.

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Something else, and this is the third of that list, is to break our sinful attachment to the world.

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I wanna turn your attention again back to Hebrews 11. The hall of faith is here and it's so nice that it'd be right here by our book and our study in James.

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You need to break your sinful attachment to worldly things and to the young among us,

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I have to confess to you, this isn't the first time that a group of young people were drawn away by worldliness.

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In fact, all of us have a tendency to be drawn away by worldliness.

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We must, we have to put this to death and we know James is gonna later say to have friendship with the world is to be an enmity with God.

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We make God our enemy when we are friends with the world.

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This is halting. Whatever is worldly in you, without exception, give the enemy no quarter, purge it out of your life, put it to death, set fire to it, excise it, whatever you have to do, drive out the worldliness of your life.

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A helpful way to do that is to read the scripture, to pray, to be disciple, to have relationship with other brethren who sharpen you like iron, but the

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Lord also provides trials to wean you off of the world.

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A great example of trials, and it's an interesting thing, is

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Moses, and he's the figure we're going to look at in Hebrews 11. It says in verse 24, by faith,

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Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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Something happens very powerfully and majestically in the life of Moses.

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He's growing up in Pharaoh's household. He has honor, he has wealth, he has access to all the things the world has to offer.

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The wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, and he eats at Pharaoh's table, but he sees a trial, an affliction, and he wants to unite himself to that trial and affliction.

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This is a work of God in him, verse 25, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward.

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He forsook the wealth and privilege of Pharaoh's house. He saw the trial of his people, and he esteemed, he counted it all joy, same language, the reproach of Christ as being of greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

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It sounds a lot like Paul this morning in Philippians. He saw his union and communion with Christ as being superior and better than anything this world has to offer.

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We would do well to be instructed by Moses. The believer can count it all joy.

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Because they look to the reward. In faith, you can peer through the fog of the trial, and you can see it.

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I'm all for us being in the moment and invested in today, and not just thinking about when we die and go to heaven, but if we were wise, we would seek the treasure that moth and rust and thieves cannot destroy or take away.

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Our lives are but a vapor, a moment, a mist, and then they're over.

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All of the things that are trendy and cool today will be out of fashion tomorrow. You will look back 20 years from now, young people, in horror at your hairstyles, in the clothes that you're wearing today.

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We need to break our sinful attachment to worldly things.

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Well, that's the third one, and this is the fourth, and it's the inverse of this. We need to have a great hope in our heavenly citizenship.

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Turn quickly to Romans 8. I'm just going to read a shorter portion of that text,

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Romans 8. And again, we're trying to ask the question, what is the value of trials?

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If we understand it and we have that deeper knowledge, we may be more readily able to count it all joy.

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Romans chapter eight. Begin reading in verse 16.

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The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

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If indeed we suffer with him, that we also may be glorified together. I should point out to you that this view of hope of a heavenly citizenship is not only eschatological, but it's very much informs our life now.

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We are citizens of heaven. We are joint heirs with Christ.

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We are princes in his kingdom now, and therefore we live a different way.

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The hope of heavenly citizenship has not only caused us to rejoice in the future of glorification and perfect sanctification and all those things, but it has direct relevance to now.

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He says in verse 18, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

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If it were possible, everyone who is in heaven would say,

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I would have done more for Christ while I lived. I don't think they would be able to say that because of heaven's glory, but if they could reflect upon their life and the time and the energy and their heart, what it was given to, everyone who would be there now would say,

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I would have done more for Christ while I lived. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for what?

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The revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

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Because the creation itself also will be delivered up from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

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I don't know if you, this is one of the most familiar passages of scripture, but the depth and breadth of these statements is astounding.

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The creation is waiting for the revelation of all of the redeemed in Christ.

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The creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, we also have the first fruits of the spirit.

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Even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

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For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope for why does one still hope for what sees, what one sees?

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But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

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We endure all of these trials and all of these hardships because of the glorious heavenly hope that is ours in Christ.

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Likewise, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses. We don't know how to pray as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered.

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Now, he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

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We have two intercessors. I don't know how that works. Two persons of the

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Trinity are described as intercessors. The Lord Jesus Christ who knows all about us, the spirit who is united to us.

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When we are in our trials, the spirit of God is praying on our behalf and at work in us.

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We know that all things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose.

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On your way back, I'm going to stop at 2 Corinthians 4, but you go ahead and go back to James 1.

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2 Corinthians 4 says, "'We are hard -pressed on every side, yet not crushed. "'We are perplexed, but not in despair, "'persecuted, but not forsaken, "'struck down, but not destroyed, "'always carrying about in the body "'the dying of the

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Lord Jesus, "'the suffering of Christ, "'that the life of Jesus may also be manifested "'in our body, for we who live "'are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, "'that the life of Jesus also may be manifested "'in our mortal flesh.

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"'So then death is working in us, but life in you.'" Skipping down to verse 16, "'Therefore we do not lose heart "'in these trials, "'because of the hope of our heavenly reward "'in our communion with Christ, "'we do not lose heart, "'even though our outward man is perishing, "'the inner man is being renewed day by day "'for our light affliction is but for a moment, "'it's working for us a far more exceeding "'and eternal weight of glory.'"

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Well, time demands that we move on. The next few will be quicker.

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The fifth one, the fifth purpose of trial in the life of the

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Christian, it's already been touched on, so I won't spend a lot of time here, is to reveal what we really love and treasure.

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When the trial comes, and our first impulse is to see, or to say, why is this happening to me?

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We have to acknowledge that our first impulse is of self -love and it's idolatrous.

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So this would be a progress report, a great barometer of your faith going forward from this day.

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When the trial comes, don't be offended and go, why, oh Lord, is this happening to me?

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Say, oh Lord, how will this be used for your glory and my growth in Christ's likeness?

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This reveals what we really love and treasure, and we look at ourselves, it's very painful, we love comfort and ease, and we want things to go our way, that's what we really want.

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We want to control, we want to be self -satisfied.

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Trials reveal our desperate need of a change, of repentance, that we would really love and treasure

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Christ and growing up into full maturity more than all of those things.

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The sixth one, the purpose of the trials, that we might count it all joy, is that we would highly esteem communion with God and the blessings, as I mentioned earlier, that come with obedience.

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Jesus is our best example of this. From Hebrews 5, don't turn there.

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Listen to Jesus, and this is how, in his high priesthood, he esteems communion with God and sees and lives and strives for all of the blessings that are only achieved and only come through obedience.

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In the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son, now listen carefully, this is the king of glory.

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He holds the worlds together. It all belongs to him, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

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How are you and I going to learn unless we go through trial and suffer? If Christ has to suffer, if Christ has to learn obedience through suffering, then you and I must have to go through some trials, and having been perfected, having the work be accomplished in his life, the trials came, and even better than Abraham, under the trial, he patiently endures them in obedience, and he comes out the other side perfected.

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It reached its end. He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

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Philippians 2, which we just studied, he was humbled. He offered himself in obedience, and God highly exalted him.

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You and I get to enjoy the privileges that come from the faithful fruits of our labors that result from faith and obedience.

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Children, you'll have lots of regrets in your life for your sin and your disobedience.

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You will never, ever, ever regret your obedience. There's no regret in obedience.

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The trials that we endure should push us to commune with Christ, to be like him, and to trust and obey.

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A couple more, then we'll wrap this up. Again, we're trying to understand how we can count it all joy.

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The next one is interesting because sometimes your suffering is for others.

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Sometimes your suffering is for others. Sometimes the purposes of God's trial is for the benefit of others.

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The seventh one is to minister to those who are going through similar trials.

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One of the great examples of this, this is right on the cusp of Peter's denial before the rooster crows three times.

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Peter and Jesus have an interaction in Luke 22, and this is what the

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Lord says to him. He says, Simon, Simon, indeed

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Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat.

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But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.

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What's interesting, in the intermediate period, Peter's faith fails, but not finally.

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And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren.

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After you fail miserably and come back, you're going to go through the trial of disobeying me and failing me.

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When you come out the other side, you're going to be able to minister to all those people who have disappointed me and failed me.

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Peter, through his failure, would be able to strengthen the brethren.

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Have you had hard times in your marriage? There are other people who have had hard times in their marriage, and maybe you're called to minister to them.

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Have you been stricken with physical infirmity? There are a lot of sick, hurting people in the church.

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Maybe you're called to minister to their needs. Have you been through a financial crisis and come out the other side?

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There are people who are in financial crisis, and there are people today who don't know it. They're about to embark on a great financial crisis.

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They need believers to come alongside and help them in their struggle. Have you had trouble parenting your children?

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Maybe you're going to get victory that you might teach others how to parent their children.

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Our God, in his mercy and grace, sanctifies the ordinary difficulties and trials of life for greater purposes.

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Sometimes it's not all about you and your sanctification. Sometimes it's about your service to the larger body of Christ.

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It's hard to see now a big snowball of reasons why we can be joyful in the midst of trials.

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There's something else, the eighth one, next to last. It's to develop a strength that is capable of great endurance and to be used for greater service and usefulness as God's instruments.

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There's something that happens in a boot camp. My mother was born in 1950.

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I told you guys to think about this one other time. And her graduating class, nearly all the males who graduated with my mother died in Vietnam in the summer of 1968, a huge percentage of them.

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They were sent from their graduation. They were drafted. They went through a short boot camp, shorter than normal.

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They were less trained soldiers. They were sent to the front and they died, a lot of them.

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But you and I are going through a spiritual boot camp of sorts that we might be sharp instruments of usefulness in God's hand.

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Our trials and our little incremental steps of progress may mean that we're going to take on more responsibility and have greater responsibilities in the kingdom.

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A soldier's medal is only tested in the fight. You can be the best at calisthenics.

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You can be the best marksman in boot camp, but the real medal of a soldier is tested and found when the real bullets are flying.

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So you and I have to get prepared. For the battle, we are being trained today to fight as God's instruments in the biggest of all spiritual wars.

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And finally, I believe this is probably underplayed as an application of this.

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I believe that we have purpose in trial from God that we might be witnesses to the lost and dying world around us because we would be enduring trials differently than them.

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Both the object of our faith, Christ, and his powerful working in us are real, and that needs to be on display.

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And when everything's going rosy, we don't look much different than the people around us.

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But when the pressure comes, when the trial comes, when the affliction and the suffering comes, then the

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Christian is a bright shining light in a dark and dying world.

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The patient endurance of trials, to count it all joy, testifies to the world that we are a peculiar people and that there is something profoundly different about us.

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Well, I intended to do a good bit more on James itself, but let's conclude here.

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We can count it all joy in light of this evidence.

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We're going to fall into various trials, and we want our faith to flourish.

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We want the testing to reveal great competence in communion with God, trust in Christ, and walking in obedience.

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There's something about the endurance that happens over time that enables us to be stronger and stronger in the faith.

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And it seems like our elder brother, our savior, the bridegroom himself, verse four, we need to have patience, endurance, have its completing work, that you and I may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

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It would seem that to be perfect and complete is to grow up to full

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Christian maturity in Christ. Book of James is going to be a great study for us.

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I pray the Lord will bless our continued study of it. Please pray with me. Oh Lord, I ask for us, your people, that you would make us perfect and complete, and that the trials of the past and present and future, that we would make full use of them, that we'd be instructed by them.

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And oh Lord, our obedience and our submission and our joy and our endurance of these trials would be such that we would not have to keep going through the same trials over and over again, that we would learn the lessons and we would reach the end of these things, that we would be mature and complete and lacking nothing.

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Oh Lord, we ask for your blessing upon your people. Help them today to bear up under trials, knowing it's yielding good fruit in its season.

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We ask these things in Jesus' name. Let us continue our worship service through the presentation of our tithes and offerings.

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And as the men are going around and gathering up those tithes and offerings,

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I just wanted to mention this is an act of worship, not because we happen to do it in the context of the worship service.

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It is an act of worship because we're rendering back, out of thanksgiving, to the service of our

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Lord, all that he has given us. We have just read, well not preached on, but read that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the

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Father of lights. So as we render this time of worship here, that we would be mindful of that.

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Please stand and let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we thank you, oh

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Lord, that you have indeed given us good gifts.

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And Father, we know that our blessings shower down upon us like rain, that our cup indeed runs over, and that you have kindly given us many, many blessings.

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We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to render back a portion of what you have given us for the service of this local congregation.

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We pray, Father, that we have done so with grateful hearts. Pray also for the right use of these gifts.

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We pray, Father, that you would give us the grace to continue to do these things as an act of worship.

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And we ask all these things in the name of Christ, amen. Well, let us give glory to God in the singing of the

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Gloria Patri. ♪ Glory be to the Father as in the beginning ♪

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The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the

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Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord. It is right and a good and joyful thing that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you,

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O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Everlasting God, because you sent your beloved

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Son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may, without shame or fear, rejoice to behold his appearing.

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Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we praise and magnify your glorious name, evermore praising you and singing.

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♪ O, the name of the

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Lord ♪ Amen.

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You may be seated and let us pray.

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O God, the Father of all mercies and God of all consolation, grant your gracious presence in the effectual working of your spirit in us.

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And so to sanctify these elements both of bread and wine and to bless your own ordinance that we may receive by faith the body and blood of Jesus Christ crucified for us and so to feed upon him that he may be one with us and we one with him and that he may live in us and we in him and for him who has loved us and given himself for us.

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And we ask this in his precious name. This morning,

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I was listening to something as I was getting ready to come to the worship service. And it was said that when we hear of the love of God, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that all believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life, or hear our

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Lord Jesus Christ himself say, greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.

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We have this on display for us, Lord's day after Lord's day.

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Sometimes this gets rote, familiar. But when we think about these things, especially when we reflect in the night in which our

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Lord was betrayed, he took bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples.

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This is my body. Likewise, after supper, he took the cup.

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When he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, this is the new covenant in my body.

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As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

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Therefore, we proclaim the faith. Christ has died, Christ is risen,

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Christ will come again. Let us pray this prayer together.

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We do not presume to come to this shore table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.

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We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same

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Lord who always shows mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear son,

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Jesus Christ, and to drink of his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us, amen.

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Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the gifts of God for the people of God.

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Thanks be to the Lord. ♪ And sinners to reclaim, alleluia, what a

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Savior he stood ♪ ♪

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Sealed my pardon, what a

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Savior, thou hast been.

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♪ ♪ Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains.

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♪ ♪ And sinners plunged beneath thy flood, you lose all faith.

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♪ ♪ Thou stream, your flowing wounds subsist.

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♪ ♪ Born this spring, San Riquelme, my successor.

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♪ ♪ In the loving to thy faith, alleluia.

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♪ ♪

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Peace, love, glory, and praise.

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♪ Reflecting upon all these things, let us make this commitment together.

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Almighty and ever -living God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your

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Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of your

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Son and heirs of your eternal kingdom. And O Lord, grant us this by the benefit that you will never allow us to forget these things, but having them imprinted on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in the faith which is at work in every good deed.

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And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our

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Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, the honor and glory, now and forever.

01:50:30

Amen. Please stand. Praise your

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Son. The blessing.

01:51:08

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like -minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may be with one mind and one mouth, glorify the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. ♪

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Christ be with me, Christ within me ♪ ♪ Christ behind me,

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Christ before me ♪ ♪ Christ beside me, Christ to win me ♪ ♪

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Christ to comfort and restore me ♪ ♪

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Christ beneath me, Christ above me ♪ ♪ Christ in quiet,

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Christ in danger ♪ ♪ Christ in hearts of all that love me ♪ ♪

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Christ in mouth of friend and stranger ♪ ♪

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I bind unto myself today the strong name of the

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Trinity ♪ ♪ By invocation of the same, the three in one and one in three ♪ ♪

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Of whom all nature hath creation, eternal salvation is of Christ the

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Lord ♪ The risen and reigning