I thank you for your generosity
and your hospitality. I was well fed today. Steak was
about as big as me. And that's a big steak. But I've had a good day. Enjoy
the fellowship over at Marks and Regina. Turn to James chapter
one. James chapter one. Let me read the first four verses.
The subject today, this evening, is the trying of your faith. The trying of your faith. James, a servant of God and of
the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes which are scattered
abroad, greeting, my brethren, Count it all joy when you fall
into diverse or different temptations or trials, knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that you may be perfect and entire, that you may be mature
that you may grow up in the Lord Jesus Christ, wanting or lacking
nothing. Lacking nothing. Now, James was
the pastor of the church in Jerusalem. And he says here he's writing
to the 12 tribes, but he's not writing to 12 tribes that are
a bunch of rebels that don't believe God. He's writing here
to believers who are the true Israel of God. I'm looking at
the true Israel of God. I'm looking at the true circumcision. We who believe the gospel are
the true Israel. We are the true Jew. We are. And he calls himself here, he
identifies himself as a servant I cannot think of a greater title
that I can have than to be called a servant, a servant of God. And James calls himself here
a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to
think of ourselves as the Lord's servants. As servants, we belong to him.
As servants, we do his bidding. The scripture says we have been
bought with the price. You're not your own. I'm not
my own. I had a man working on my car
this past week, and he has tattooed on his hands, self-made, Self-made. I know one thing. If I'm a child
of God, I sure didn't make myself. I didn't make myself a believer.
God did. God did. To believe God, to repent,
and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is a work of God. That's
a work of God. I told a man here some time ago,
he was talking to me, he's a rich man, wealthy man, unbeliever,
he doesn't claim to believe anything, but as he and I were talking
and he was talking about his adventures and the things that
he's gotten into and the money he's made, and I just had to,
I just felt compelled to tell him that the Lord said, I make
rich and I make poor. I lift up and I bring down. God does that. He does that. We've been bought with a price
we're not our own. And it makes a difference. If
we see ourselves, if we understand and see ourselves as His servants,
and not just saved from going to hell, but His servants. And our attitude
is this, it's the same as our Lord's attitude. I must be. about my father's business. That
is the only reason you and I have any existence on this earth.
To glorify God and to be about our father's business. A servant now is one who serves. It is written in John 12, 26.
If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there
shall also my servant be. It also says, if any man serve
me, him will my father honor. We serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And he writes here and he calls
them brethren. Fifteen times James calls them
brethren in this epistle. Fifteen times. Brethren. Brethren. The Word of God is
written to believers. The word of God as a whole is
not written to a bunch of unbelievers. It's written to those who believe.
And that's why he keeps saying, brethren, I'm writing to you,
brethren. All who believe the gospel are
brethren. You who believe, we who believe.
We truly are brothers and sisters. You are really my brother and
sister. In Christ you are. We are partakers
of the same divine nature. We have the same father. We are
redeemed by the same blood. We are brethren. And no matter
what race we are of, if we are in Christ, we're brethren. We're brethren. And that relationship,
That relationship is real. And that relationship that you
and I have in Christ will outlast any fleshly relationship that
we have on this earth. My wife and I, someday, death
will do us part. And that relationship will be
dissolved. My two sons, as far as this flesh is concerned, someday,
That relationship will be dissolved. But the relationship that I have
with every believer in Christ will never be dissolved. It will
only grow, and it will only grow in love. Someday you and I will
love each other like we ought to. We'll love each other like we
ought to. We feed on the same manna from heaven. We drink the
same living water. We are heirs of the same promises. We are brethren. Brethren. As brethren, we show love and
concern for one another. We look after one another. We
enjoy one another's company. I enjoy your company. I enjoy
the company I had today. Enjoy it. And James is writing
this epistle to instruct and comfort his brethren. He feels
a real kinship to the people he's writing to. I feel a real
kinship to preaching to you tonight. I'm a monk brethren. I'm a monk
brethren. And he's not writing to them
as an instructor, but as a brother who has tasted that the Lord
is good, and he wants his brothers, other brothers and sisters, to
taste that the Lord is good. You ever taste something and
it was so good, you just had to have somebody else taste it? I'd say to my wife, you've got
to taste this. You've got to taste this. And that's what James
is doing. Brethren, you've got to taste this. That's what John
says in 1 John. We're writing to you that you
may have fellowship with the Father, with His Son, Jesus Christ,
and we may have fellowship together in Christ. Then he says this to them in
verse 2, and he knows that these people are scattered. He knows
what they are going through, the persecution, the trials.
He knows they've been scattered through affliction over the gospel.
And he says to them, and listen, he doesn't say, brethren, I feel
for you. Brethren, my heart goes out to
you. Although it did. But he says,
brethren, count it all joy. What you are going through, whatever
the trial is, no matter how severe the trial is, Count it, listen,
here's another translation, count it gain. Count it gain. However hard it is, it's gain,
it's spiritual gain. God may be taking away from you,
but in reality, you're gaining. It's an account of the joy. When
you fall, God brings you into different trials, plural, temptations. And the word there is trials.
It's not temptation to sin. God never tempts us to sin, but
it's trials. Seems like strange language,
doesn't it? Strange language. To the baby
in Christ, it's strange language. to the baby in Christ, he's saying,
or she's saying, why is this happening to me? But as the years
go by, you say, why not me? There's a difference. Why not
me? It's an opportunity. Trials bring
us the opportunity to glorify Christ in our conduct. It gives us an opportunity to
glorify our Lord by our conduct. Now why does James write this?
Count it all joy when you fall into different types of temptations. Well, first of all, because God
the Holy Spirit moved him to write this. And then he writes it so that
you and I would expect trials. Trials are to be expected. We
shouldn't be surprised. We should not be surprised when
something comes our way, knocks us off our feet, and we're saying,
why did this happen? And James is teaching us, listen,
he's teaching us how to handle these trials that God is going
to send our way. He has, David said, he has appointed
all my afflictions. All of them. Why did James write this? The
Holy Spirit moved him to write it, so that you and I would expect
these things, and that you would realize that if you were not
a believer, He wouldn't send them to you. There wouldn't be
trials for your faith because you don't have it. It's a trial,
we'll see this, it's a trial of your faith. Now faith, we
know, is the gift of God. But it's your faith. If I give
you a gift, It's yours, isn't it? If I give it to you, it's
yours. If God gives me faith, though it be a gift from God,
it's mine. It's a trial of your faith. And then he writes this, that
you and I would know that there's going to be many trials. All the way to the end, faith
is going to be tried, it's going to be purged. You know, I owned
a machine shop, and I used to do what they call babbit bearings.
And we would heat the babbit up to 800 degrees until it was
molten liquid metal. And then we'd pour it around
a mold. But every time I heated it up, I would have to skim the
dross. The dross is the dirt, the trash,
off the top of the babbit. I take a skimmer I had and I
skim it all off the top. And I might pour, out of 2,000
pounds, I might pour maybe 100 pounds or 200 pounds. I might
heat that pot up 15 times before I ever use it all up. Every time
Every time I heated that pot up, that babbit up, every time
I had to skim the dross off. You'd think my sow is, I thought
I got it off the last time. I mean, I got a whole bunch of
it off the last time. Oh, there it is in a pile. And here I heat
it up again, and there it is again. I heat it up again, and
there it is again. That's what trials do. It keeps
bringing to the surface sins that we don't even know are there.
You don't even realize it. It constantly is skimming the
drops off. That's what it's doing. Many trials, Peter calls them
manifold. Manifold, many. Then faith is
the gift of God. It gives God all the glory and
salvation, and it's the one thing Satan hates the most. All of Satan's powers are opposed
to faith. When he tempted our Lord in the
wilderness, the first thing he tempted was his faith. If thou
be the Son of God. If thou be the Son of God. The
scripture says the just shall live by faith. Therefore, it
is Satan's aim. It's his goal to destroy your
faith. But in doing so, you know, after 6,000 years,
you'd think he'd wise up, wouldn't you? But this shows you how sin
just dumbs us down. If left alone, you just get dumber
and dumber and dumber concerning God. His aim is to destroy your faith,
but in doing so, He only proves the power and the strength of
it, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. It just proves to us that much
more how much we need Christ and how His grace is sufficient.
His grace is sufficient no matter what you go through. you know the Lord said that He
would not lay upon us, it's written in scriptures He would not lay
upon us more than we could bear but now here's the here's the
kicker He can enable me to bear everything He lays upon me no
matter what it is He takes Job and just takes the ten kids are
gone and everything he has is gone, his health is gone Where's Job getting that strength? He's getting it from his Redeemer.
He's getting it from the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our strength. He's our strength to bear all
things. And he says here in verse 3,
Knowing this, now the Greek word for knowing here means knowledge
gained by experience. And what he's saying here is
you know this. By experience, you know this,
that the trying of your faith, it worketh. Patience. Patience. When I first heard
the gospel, I started writing Henry, started writing Henry
about preaching, and he kept writing me back, wait on the
Lord. He kept telling me, wait on the Lord. I was 23 years old. I'm 61 years old, and I just
got called down there to Spring Lake, North Carolina to be a
pastor. Wait on the Lord. Wait. Wait. Joe Terrell said,
well, you got 19 years on Moses, so you're ahead of the game.
He was 80. He was 80. Oh my, wait. Wait on the Lord, knowing this,
that the trying of your faith worketh patience. What is it
that's being tried? Your faith. Now listen, I want
to know in this life, I want to know now that the faith I
have is of God. I want to know it. I want to
know it in this life. I don't want to be like the scripture
I quoted to you this morning. They were confounded because
they had hoped. I don't want that. I don't want that. It's your
faith that's tried, and there's going to be many and various
trials to quit, to fall, to turn back. And some of them are going to
be very severe. some of them will be severe. God knows when the trial is, the measure
of the trial, and he always knows where the full mark is. He always
knows where the full mark is. James is telling his brethren,
and us, we are his brethren, Don't despair when God brings
you under a heavy trial. Don't fall apart. Don't despair,
but REJOICE! Here's the attitude. He said,
REJOICE! This is our attitude when we're under trials. REJOICE!
Because God is the one PROVING your faith. And He's not proving
it to Himself. He knows. He's the one who gave
it. He's the one that gave it. But he's proven it to us. And
also proving something is when you test the metal of it, the
strength of it. You know the only way faith can
grow is trials. The only way to make your body
stronger is to exercise it. And the way God Makes us exercise
faith is through trials, hardship, heartaches, heartaches. Most of the time these trials
come upon us when we're not even, you're not looking for it, you
don't expect it. You're like, Job is like one
after another, boom, one after another, just one after another
came to him. And his faith proved to be of
God. In all this, it says, Job said
not with his mouth, nor charge God with folly. One of the things the trials
will enable you to do as you grow older is be still and know
that I am God. Be still and know that I'm God. Would you know that the faith
you have is real? Well, the only way that's going
to happen is for God to try. The only way you're going to
know that a ship won't sink is you put it out and let it do
business in deep water. That's how you find out. And I can assure you this, that
if your faith is of God, it will come forth out of the
furnace every time stronger than it went in. Stronger than when
it went in. Job said, He knoweth the way
that I take when He has tried me. He knows. I don't know how
I'm going to come out or I don't know how the way I'm going to
take but He knows. Listen, He knoweth the way that
I take when He has tried me and I shall come forth as gold. It's confidence. See that's faith. I can hear faith right there.
I can hear faith right there. He said, I know this. He knows
the way I take when he's tried me, and I'm gonna come out like
gold. If I'm his, I'm gonna come out
like gold. I'm gonna come out of this thing stronger than I
went into it every time. And there's nobody, well, there
will be no saint in glory whose faith has not been tried and
tested time and time again. Turn over to Revelations chapter
seven. Revelation chapter 7. Look at verse 9. After this I
beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of
all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and
palms in their hands. Now go down to verse 13. And
one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which
are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said
unto him, Sir, thou knowest, And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." That's all of God's saints right
there. All of them. Now, what are the blessings?
What are the blessings that come out of tried faith? Well, first of all, Every time
faith is tried, the believer gains greater confidence in God. You gain greater confidence in
the Lord every time. If you want to find out if you
have real faith, if you want to have real confidence in God,
it's going to come through trials. That's how it's going to come. And I'll tell you this also.
We need the rod of trials as much as we need the manna. What were the two things laid
side by side in the Ark of the Covenant? What were they? It
was the rod and the manna. We need them both. One for correction
and one for nourishment. God is faithful to give us both.
He's faithful. Sanctified trouble is absolutely
necessary to prove faith and to make it grow. It can't grow
any other way. And then here's another blessing
of tried faith. It makes us fit for the Master's
use. Fit. If you watch that program,
Forged in Fire, I don't know if any of you ever watched that
or not. They all think he's blacksmith and they have to make a blade.
Then they have to put it through tests. It has to cut wood and
cut meat and whatever. It has to stand the test. It
has to be fit for use. If it bends, if it starts to
laminate, starts to come apart, the guy has to leave. Has to
leave. These trials make us fit for
the Master's use. And then these trials prove the
truthfulness of our faith in Christ. When you've been hit,
and I'm sure some of you have, when you've been hit by a heavy
trial, and you come out of it, you come out of it still believing,
still looking unto Jesus Christ, You find comfort that the faith
you have has to be of God or you would have cracked. You would
have cracked. You look back and you say, like
Jacob did, when he wrestled with him, he looked back and said,
the Lord blessed me there. The Lord blessed him there. And
every time you look back in your life, you're gonna look back
in these trials and these times and you're gonna say, the Lord
blessed me there. He blessed me. Here's another blessing of it.
When your faith is tried, you receive more grace. More grace. And you gain a greater
understanding of grace. It's not just a word. But it's
an experience. You experience the grace of God. You experience it. You know by
experience that His grace is sufficient. When I was a young
man, I heard the gospel and I sat and was taught in the Bible class
and in the preaching and I heard and I read these things. But
now that the years have gone by, I've experienced that God's
grace is sufficient. And now when I see younger people
going through it, I can say to them, and they may not get it.
They probably won't get it when they're going through it, especially
when it's early on. But I can say to them with absolute
confidence, God's grace is sufficient. It'll bring you through. It'll
bring you through. When you go through the water,
we read that, it was read this morning, I think. When you go
through the water, I'll go with you. And the fire
is not gonna kindle upon you. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
was cast into the fire, and that furnace was heated seven times
hotter, and that king looked in there and he said, didn't
we throw three men in there? But I see four, one likened to
the Son of God. I see four. Oh, to know the sweetness of
the mercy and grace of God, faith has to be tried. And then tried faith, listen,
tried faith proves that you serve God for who He is and not what
you get out of Him. It proves that your service to
God, your love for Christ, is because of who He is and not
just the blessings you can get out of Him. Job said, Through
this trial, I mean this brutal, brutal trial. Though he slay
me, yet will I trust him. He took everything from Job. And Job said, though he slay
me, yet I'll trust him. Now brethren, that is faith that
is of God. That is God-given faith. And then faith is a growing grace. And the way it grows is for God
to try it. To try it. Put it under fire. Put it under pressure. That's
how diamonds are made. Diamonds are made under pressure,
aren't they? They're made under pressure. Count it all joy, he said, when
you fall into diverse temptations, because the trying of your faith
worketh patience. Count it as gain if it proves
to be real, even if you lose everything. Even if you lose
everything. Now, they're called trials because
they hurt. A broken fingernail is not a trial. That's not a
trial. A trial is a broken heart. A
trial is a broken spirit. A trial is a great loss. God knows what to try me with. He knows when to do it. And He
knows when the lesson is learned. And what does it work? James
says it works patience. A patience, listen, a patience
that accepts the trial as from our Father's hand and we quietly,
calmly resign ourselves to it. That's what it works. At first,
someone young in the faith, it's why you're confused And then
after the time goes by, and after trials and trials and trials,
and God has proved to be God, you get some understanding of
grace, then you learn to quietly and calmly resign yourself to
it. It's the Lord. Eli said, it's the Lord. When
God killed Hophnath and Phinehas, Eli's two sons, he said, it's
the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. It's the Lord. And this does not happen overnight.
It takes time. Time and trials. It takes a lifetime.
It takes a lifetime. It takes a lifetime to come to
this point. Not my will, but thine be done.
Brother, that takes a lifetime. Paul said this, I have learned
in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I have learned. I've learned it. It takes time
to learn these things. It takes time for us to grow
up. But we do want to grow up. We
do want to mature in Christ. It enables you to suffer wrongfully
and think the best is going to come out of it. There was a time you'd think
there's nothing, how can anything good come out of this? And then
there's a time when you say something good is going to come out of
this. It weans us from worldliness.
It conforms us to the image of Christ. That's what it does. It worketh, he said, patience.
What is that? It's longsuffering. It will make
you longsuffering toward others. I'm a lot more longsuffering
toward my grandchildren than I was my two boys. I promise
you, I'm a lot more long-suffering with those two. And my boys are
jealous about it, at least they act like it. They say, you never
let us get away with that. I'm like, well, they're not getting
away with it. It's just a different way of dealing with it. You just
deal with it. You deal with it with more wisdom. Patience will bring wisdom and
teach you how to deal with things. It'll establish you. You won't
be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine coming along.
You're settled. You're fixed. You're constant. You're steadfast in the Lord.
That's what you are. And then it will ripen you for
heaven. Someone said this. There are no sour apples in heaven,
just golden delicious. Just golden delicious. It'll make you a better neighbor.
It'll make you a better husband. It'll make you a better wife,
make you a better son or daughter. It will. It will. If the faith
you have is of God, it'll do that. And it'll make you grateful to
God for all his mercies. And I'm gonna close. There's something that's important
here. I want us to get this, if we
didn't get anything else. Let patience have her perfect
work. Don't seek a quick release. Don't ask God to stop the trial,
but give you grace to go through it. Let it have its perfect work. Don't pray that he'll stop it,
but that he'll give you the grace to go through it. When we are
given medicine, and I'm terrible at this, Doctor give me medicine,
take this for 30 days. I'll get 20 days, 25 days into
it feeling better, and I quit taking it. And there have been
times that I've gotten a backsat over it. Did you take all the
medicine? I usually don't tell him. To
tell you the truth, I just don't tell him. No, I didn't take all
the medicine. Well, if you took all the medicine,
And that's what trial, take it all. Drink it all in. It's for your good. It's for
your spiritual good. You're gonna grow up. It's gonna
enable you to grow up. Let's not pray that the trial
will just end, but have its intended effect. It's perfect, James says,
it's perfect work. It's maturing, it's maturing
work. Wanting nothing. That means complete. That means
lacking nothing, essential to a strong, mature believer. That's what it means. To be well-rounded as a believer. Me and my grandson was going
out The other day, I was taking him out, and he's 13 years old,
teenager. And I said, you looking forward
to going back to school? And he said, no. He said, I don't know why. He
said, I don't know why I have to learn what's going on in China.
He said, I live in the United States. He said, I don't care
about what's going on in China or, you know, he was talking
about useless, he said, useless, bunch of useless stuff. He said,
I'm having to learn. I said, well, Cole, it's, I said, it
helps make you more of a well-rounded person. I said, when you're in
a conversation, you can carry on a conversation. And plus,
I said, it also makes your mind, I said, it expands your mind,
it makes your mind to grow. I said, your mind needs exercise
just like your body. I didn't get through to him.
But I need to take my own advice.
I need to listen to what I just said to him. I've learned that
the best advice that I can ever take is always the one I give
to my children. Because you give them the best
you can think of. You give, well take it yourself. That's what these are for. It
enables me to identify with you and your trouble, you and your
trouble, you and your We can all identify with one
another. And it matures us and makes us grow up and conforms
us to the image of Christ, and there's no other way for that
to happen. No other way. The work of God is perfect. Therefore,
let us trust Him to bring us home fully ripe. Fully ripe. And that's what He's
doing. He's maturing us, ripening us, preparing us to bring home, to
bring home. And we grow up and act like men
and women in Christ, not children. All right.