How to be Blessed in Suffering

I'm going to invite Anne up, who's going to read scripture for us.

She's going to read James chapter 1, verses 9 to 18.

James 1:9–18

These are the verses that Corey's going to teach from just shortly.

! Thank you, Anne.

Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation,

and the rich in his humiliation,

because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.

For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass,

its flower falls and its beauty perishes.

So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial,

for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life,

which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted,

I am being tempted by God,

for God cannot be tempted with evil,

and he himself tempts no one.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin,

and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of lights,

with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth,

that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Amen.

All right, well,

I don't know if you've had the experience,

I think I do know you have,

that you go to bed on a weeknight too late,

and then you get up too late the next morning,

and your morning self hates your nighttime self for it.

And then you can't find your keys,

and then, or you go to the bus stop,

and the bus never comes,

despite the fact that the app said it was two minutes away.

And then you get into work or uni,

and you're frustrated, and you're flustered,

and you get an email,

and it says,

we need to talk,

and it's from your boss.

It's the email I send to David Court every week.

We need to talk now.

And then the next day comes,

and you get that unexpected bill.

And the next day comes,

and you get a ticket,

because you drove in the bus lane.

And then the next day comes,

and your friend wants to talk,

and poor,

and addiction they're struggling with,

into your life,

and say,

I need your help.

And it's good,

but it's a burden.

And then you come,

you drag yourself to church on a Sunday.

After a hard week,

and an ordinary week,

and the text is James 1, verse 2,

James 1:2

that says,

count it all joy,

brothers and sisters,

when you face trials of various kinds,

big and small.

Now, the week I just described

is not martyrdom.

It's not the persecution

that the first century scattered church

was facing,

and the week I described

was not a life-ending diagnosis.

But sometimes those weeks do come as well.

It was quite a normal week,

quite an ordinary week,

that we face.

Various trials,

big and small,

James says.

Count it joy when you face them,

no matter what they are.

So we saw last week

that Christians meet trouble

on ordinary roads.

And just because you're a Christian,

it doesn't mean

that you're exempt from suffering.

In fact,

it's exactly the opposite.

It's a guarantee

that you will suffer.

And we learned that

when you're a follower of Jesus,

you need an entire cognitive reframe

of what suffering is.

And James is telling us

the reason suffering is so different,

we receive it so different as believers,

is because God can grow you

and mature you in the midst of it.

It has a completely different purpose

than we normally think about suffering.

And so he said,

count it all joy.

Consider it joy.

Put the events of that week

in the credit of joy

instead of the debit of misery.

It's a thinking term.

It's a thinking command.

And he says also

that every single moment like that,

the week I described,

is a, quote,

testing of your faith.

It's a trial.

That's a testing.

And a testing is a smelting term.

That's the Greek word that's chosen

as one of the verbs

for how you smelt precious metals.

And so if you're going to smelt gold,

you've got to stick gold into a furnace

and heat it up

to at least 1,064 degrees Celsius

to smelt gold.

And you do it in cycles,

over and over again,

pulling it out,

sticking it back in the furnace.

And the impurities fall away over time.

And you move from 80% gold

to 90% to 92, 93, 94,

up to 98, 99% gold.

That's as good as you can get.

It's never perfect.

And that's exactly what he means

by reentering the furnace

over and over again.

You can become perfect.

Not sinless, but whole.

More and more mature.

More and more Christ-like

over time is the idea.

And so today, we come back.

He's talking about the same stuff

in the passage we read.

But today, he's getting more specific

and saying,

well, how does this work exactly?

What does this mean

in certain circumstances more precisely?

So he's talking here

about how to be blessed

in the midst of reentering the furnace.

Whether the bus,

that's the bus doesn't come

day after day

or the life-ending diagnosis,

you reenter the furnace

big and small all the time.

And how can you be blessed?

How really can you?

What does it look like practically?

And you see that in verse 12.

He said,

blessed is the one

who remains steadfast.

You say,

how could we be blessed in that?

And so that's what he's answering

for us today.

Now, this is James,

the biological brother

of Jesus Christ,

writing to the church,

Jews and Gentiles,

scattered all throughout

the Roman Empire

in the first century

or all the empires

of this world today to us.

And he's going to teach you today

in verses 9 to 18

that you can be blessed

in the midst of suffering

when you will see

that number one,

suffering will strip away

your idols.

Number two,

that suffering exposes

your truest,

greatest problem.

And finally,

your suffering will point you

to the man

who is the blessed one.

All right, so first,

let's think about that.

Suffering,

suffering can bring a blessing

when you will allow it

to strip your idols away.

All right, so if you look down

at verse 9,

he says,

let the lowly brother

boast in his exaltation

and the rich brother

or sister in their humiliation.

Now, it looks like James

is switching topics here.

Suffering, wisdom,

and now rich people

and poor people.

But this is the same topic.

He's still in the realm

of talking about suffering.

And we've already said

just this morning

that a trial for James,

suffering is a test

of your faith.

And so what he's talking about

when he brings up

the poor,

the lowly brother or sister,

the lowly,

the poor Christian

or the rich Christian,

he's saying that

if you're poor,

if you're a Christian

and you're poor,

you don't have money.

If you're a Christian

and you're rich

and you've got a lot of wealth,

you're still going to face

the same problems.

And that's suffering.

But you come at them

from different perspectives.

He's drawing a difference

of perspective there.

Now, the first thing

he says is to the lowly person.

And the word for lowly here

is not the most normal word

for a poor person.

So it would be different

in English than saying

the homeless

or something like that.

Instead, it's a word

that's more closely associated

with a person

who has been humbled.

And so it's more than economics.

It's, you know,

there's, as we grow older,

I think we learn

that there's lots of different ways

to be wealthy.

You know, you can have

a lot of money,

but you can have

really poor friendships.

And so there's lots of ways

to be lowered,

to be a lowly person.

And I think the reason

he uses this particular word

is because,

if you remember last week,

he's talking to people

who in the first century

were scattered

by persecution

across the Roman Empire.

And from Acts 8,

Stephen was stoned to death,

and then people dispersed.

And if you were one

of those Jewish Christians

that got dispersed

from Jerusalem,

you ran,

and you left behind friendship.

You left behind your money.

You left behind everything

that you would call wealth

in this life.

You left behind

market relationships.

You know,

you don't even have a source

of generating a new business

and living in Antioch

or Corinth or Thessalonica.

You don't have anything.

And so he's talking

to that lowly person

who has lost it in life.

All material wealth,

friendship wealth,

market wealth.

And he's saying,

you've entered

into that station in life,

and that is the trial.

That is the test.

And you've got to take it,

and you've got to think

of your exaltation.

What is he talking about?

He's explaining

how exactly a person

who doesn't have a lot

in this life

would consider it joy

or count it joy.

So he's saying

to the lowly person,

look, it'll be your temptation

if you don't have a lot

in this life,

if you don't have a lot

financially,

if you don't have a lot

in terms of relationship,

whatever it may be,

whatever lack of wealth,

it will be your temptation

to despair,

to even say things like,

God doesn't care about me.

God doesn't value me.

I've done everything I could,

and God's left me where I am.

And so God clearly

doesn't care what I'm doing.

And that'll be the temptation.

And there's another temptation

that you will face,

and that's the same temptation

that the rich face.

And that's that you might say,

if only I had economic wealth,

if only I had

these different types of wealth,

then my life would be better,

then everything would be okay.

And so the poor person

who's suffering

is facing all sorts

of temptations

to think God hates them,

even.

And what he's saying

is you've got to,

how do you move

that suffering

from the ledger

of debit to credit,

of misery to joy,

and you've got to consider

your exaltation?

What is he saying?

He's saying you've got to realize

that if you're a Christian

and you don't have a lot

in this life,

that you are so united to Jesus

that His glory is your glory.

In other words,

you've got to actually think

about the fact

that God sees you as exalted.

You think God hates me

in the midst of my lowliness,

my suffering, my poverty.

No, no, no.

He's saying when you're a believer,

you can suffer differently

even when you're poor

because you can say,

inasmuch as Jesus Christ

was exalted into the heavenly realm

at His resurrection,

so God the Father sees me

like He sees Him.

See, boast in your exaltation.

Boast in the fact

that you have glory

because you're connected to Jesus.

Be lifted up in that.

Think about the next life.

That's what he's saying.

And this is striking something

so hard for us

as modern people

because in our culture,

in our moment,

really since the time

of the Enlightenment,

we think we're tempted

to secular materialism

all the time,

even as Christians,

to think that way,

to live in that framework.

And when you live that way,

you don't believe

that there's a life to come.

Not really.

Not practically.

And so if you are a person

in this life

who's a materialist

and you lose all this stuff in life,

you lose your economic wealth,

you lose your friendship wealth,

you lose relational wealth,

you lose market possibility,

business opportunity,

you fail your degree,

whatever it may be,

you're left saying,

I don't have anything left.

I don't have a glory

that is to come for me.

And so you're living

in this horizontal plane

without any hope.

And he's saying,

but when you're a believer

and you face suffering,

you might lose everything

and you can still say,

I boast in the fact

that I know

I will be exalted.

I have hope in the next life.

So in other words,

he's saying that the opportunity,

the blessing,

the blessing,

even when you're poor,

is that you're having

your idol stripped away from you,

even when you're poor.

Because you're being told

that there is a hope

of everlasting life

that's far greater

and that's sharing

in the glory of Jesus Christ.

Now, I've got to move on.

To the rich, he says,

secondly,

he gives more words to the rich,

more clauses to the rich.

Because when you're rich,

it's far harder

to have your idol stripped.

It's far harder to let go.

And you see,

I think one of the reasons

he chooses humiliation

for the rich,

exaltation for the poor,

is he's saying,

you're facing the same things,

but you've got to think about it

in opposite ways.

And that means that

suffering,

when you suffer with Jesus,

it almost lifts the poor

to the same plane as the rich,

and it lowers the rich down.

See, it humbles the rich

to be equal to the poor,

and it raises the poor

to be equal to the rich.

Because you're all facing

the same things.

And so he turns to the rich here

and he says,

you know,

the poor man or woman

is going to be tempted

to despair,

to say,

God hates me.

I'm not a person of value.

Nobody sees me in this life.

You've got to think

of your glory

with Jesus.

But the rich person

is going to be far more tempted

to hang on as tightly as possible

to the pursuits

that that person has pursued,

to the things of this world,

to get it back,

to say,

no,

this is what completes me.

I've got to have these things

that I've built my life around.

And so he's saying,

you've got to consider it joy,

count it joy,

by thinking about the grace

or the humiliation,

the humbling

that you're experiencing.

You've got to think

not about the glory

that you're to receive

because you've been living that life.

You've already lived

a life of glory.

But you've got to thank God

and say,

here's how I can count it blessing

because God is lowering me

to remember

that everything is grace.

Everything is a gift.

The rich man suffers,

the rich woman suffers,

and the gift of God in that

is your humiliation.

You're being humbled.

You're having your idol

stripped away from you.

The poor person suffers

and they're being lifted up

and say,

remember that you're sharing

in the sufferings of Christ

to share in the glory of Christ.

You see how it goes

two different ways

to make an even plane

right across the board.

Now, the reason I think

he's focused a little bit more

on the rich here

is because

what's the biggest danger

pretty much every one of us faces?

So James is talking here

to first century people

who ran away from their homes.

They're living as refugees.

They don't have anything.

That's none of us.

We are the rich.

Very few of us in here

can say that we're the poor,

really,

when we talk about this.

If we eat every day,

we're the rich

that James is talking about.

So that's all of us,

mostly in the modern Western world,

mostly everyone sitting

in this room today.

And so the reason

he focuses on us

a little bit more

is because the most dangerous

place to be

is to be wealthy,

to have plenty of food,

plenty of water,

plenty of shelter,

and to never have trouble.

That's the most dangerous place to be,

to be prosperous,

to have a lot,

but to never have any trouble

in this life.

That's the greatest

spiritual danger

you can face,

the Bible says,

is to be prosperous

but not suffer.

Whoa.

You see,

he's saying that suffering

is a blessing

because it strips away

your tight hold

on the potential idols

that we all have

in this world.

And so he gives you

a little illustration

in verse 11.

And here's why

it's so dangerous.

You know,

the flower rises in the morning,

it's beautiful in the springtime,

but then the summer heat comes

and it falls to the ground.

And he says,

all of us in our pursuits

are the same way.

The flower fades in the summer.

And in the same way,

when you hitch your heart

to something,

to some pursuit

that's going to fade,

if you hitch your heart

too tightly to it,

you're going to fade with it.

So as it fades,

you will fade.

And suffering is meant

to strip that away from us,

to take that away

from our hearts.

Best time of the year

in Edinburgh,

it's not the Christmas market,

it is when the cherry blossoms

bloom in the meadows, right?

And you can walk through

the meadows

or wherever else

under those archway trees

in the meadows

and the cherry blossoms are out

and it's late April

and they're out.

And you know

that if you've lived here

for any time,

probably far longer than me,

that you can walk

underneath those beautiful blossoms

in the morning

and you come back

in the evening

and where are they?

They're all on the ground.

You know,

it just goes by like that.

And that's exactly

the nature

of the wealthy life.

The glory will fade

and if you have your heart

too tightly attached

to the cherry blossom,

you're going to fade with it.

And it still will remain beautiful

because it is beautiful

on the ground for a while,

but you know

it turns to vapor

and dust eventually.

And that's the warning

he's given us.

There's a genre of art

called memento mori art

from that Latin phrase,

remember,

you must die.

And that genre of art

is reminding us

with skulls

and crossbones

and all sorts of things.

Remember,

you must,

and that's what he's saying,

remember,

you must die.

The rich man has got to remember

that you're sharing

in the suffering of Christ,

your humiliation.

The poor man,

the poor woman

has got to remember

you're sharing

in your suffering

in the glory of Christ.

You're being lifted up

like he was lifted up.

You see,

vice versa.

It's how you can be blessed

in the midst of suffering.

Boy.

Secondly,

the second way

he teaches us here

is to be blessed

in the midst of suffering

is that suffering

then exposes

our deepest problem,

our truest problem.

So let me bring you down,

we'll pass over verse 12

and come back to it,

but verse 13 to 15.

Now he says,

let no one say

when you're tempted,

I'm being tempted by God.

Now there's a temptation.

If you're rich or poor

or something in between,

if you're a human being,

you're a sufferer.

You're facing trials

all the time,

big and small trials.

And now he's turning

and saying,

with that suffering,

with those trials,

there are temptations

coming about

in your life

all the time.

Let me say it like this.

Trials are a test of faith.

He keeps saying that

over and over again.

Your suffering is there

to test your faith.

And that testing of your faith

can grow you,

it can make you mature,

it can make you compassionate,

it can make you,

it can strip away your idols,

it can do so much good

to make you like Jesus,

becoming more and more like Him.

But it can also break you,

it can make you bitter,

you can respond to it

in ways that you actually

end up chasing after

addictions because of it.

So we can respond

to our suffering

with coping mechanisms.

There's things that we need

to run from suffering

with these addictions in life,

we can respond with anger at God,

anger at other people,

bitterness,

this isn't fair,

why have you put this

into my life?

All sorts of ways.

It's not automatic.

Suffering can make you

or break you.

And so now in verse 13 to 15,

he's addressing that temptation

because the temptation

for anybody who faces suffering

is going to be something like,

yeah, I've been in this

long season of suffering

and maybe I haven't handled it

well all the time.

It's made me into an angry person,

a bitter person,

an addicted person.

But you know,

God made me like this.

This is just who I am.

These addictions that I grab hold of

when I'm suffering

to cope with my life,

this is just who God made me to be.

Or you might come and say,

on the other side,

in the midst of my suffering

and my pain and my sorrows,

it's clear that God hates me.

And you can take the approach

of Job's wife and say,

you know, curse God and die.

You've done something bad.

He hates you.

He's left you in the midst

of this misery.

And in verse 13, he says,

let nobody say that.

Verse 16,

don't be deceived,

brothers and sisters.

Let nobody say that.

If you're in the midst of suffering,

God hates me.

Or if you're not handling it well,

not with wisdom,

but with foolishness,

it's God's fault,

not my fault.

He's the one tempting me to this.

He's the one that made me like this.

He says, let nobody say that.

You can't say that.

So in verse 13,

look at the language really specifically

because it's so specific.

Let nobody say when they're tempted,

I'm being tempted by God.

Now, the word temptation there,

you can't see this in English,

but it's so important

that the word temptation there

is the same word in Greek

as the word trial

throughout the passage.

All right,

so when it says in verse 13,

let no one say when he is tempted,

there's two different uses

of the word temptation

or trial in that verse.

So let me translate it a different way.

Let no one say

when they are under a trial of suffering,

I am being tempted.

All right,

it's the same word in Greek.

Let no one say

when they're under trial,

I'm under trial.

Let no one say

when they're tempted,

I'm being tempted.

What is he saying?

He's using it in two different ways.

Let no one say

when they're under the yoke

of a trial,

God is tempting me

to sin in the midst of it.

Now, what is he talking about us today?

He's making this very important distinction

about the psychology of sin,

how does sin work in our lives?

When we react badly to suffering,

whose fault is it?

And he's saying,

you've got to know

that God will put you into trials.

Yes, God gives you suffering,

but he never gives you desire

in your heart

to sin in that suffering.

So God will place you

in an objective situation

of test,

of trial,

of suffering.

God never gives you

the desire in your heart

to react badly,

to sin in the midst of that.

Never.

See, it's the difference

between objective testing

and subjective temptation.

God does not tempt.

He never gives you evil desires.

No.

Any evil desire you have,

any way you react poorly,

who did it?

You did it.

I did it.

That's what he's saying.

And so he uses

a couple illustrations here.

Let me give you one

that's not in the text.

We all know this.

So if you're in school,

you're in uni,

or you have been,

you know that

a good teacher

gives you a test

in order to grow you,

not to break you.

Right?

And that good teacher

tells you in advance,

this is when the exam is coming.

And that exam is meant

to force you to study

and to raise up your knowledge.

And if you go

and you take the test

and you make a,

you make an F,

you fail miserably,

you can't turn and say,

the reason I made an F

is because the teacher,

it's the teacher's fault.

You know,

the teacher should have

never tested me.

The teacher,

the teacher tried to trick me.

The teacher tried to do this

or that.

A good teacher,

no, no.

A good teacher

wants to grow you

through the test.

So he's saying,

look,

God puts you

in objective situations

of suffering

in order to grow you

and change you.

But when we

make the wrong choices,

when we adapt

to those situations foolishly,

it's us.

It's us

that are doing the wrong,

that are doing the sin.

You can never say,

like Job's wife,

you can never say,

God's hating me

in this moment.

And you can never say,

it's God's fault

that I keep doing this,

that I keep coming back.

You keep seeing

that same test of faith

in your life,

that same person,

that same image,

and your heart

is lured and enticed.

You can't say,

it's God's fault

he made me like this.

So he uses here

a sexual metaphor

to explain it.

And you'll see that

down in verse 14 and 15.

Each person is tempted

when they are lured

and enticed

by their own desires.

And that word for desire

is a very important word

and I want to give it to you

in the Greek

because you'll know it

partially in English.

And it's this word,

epithumia.

Thumia just means desire,

but epi, epi,

like epic,

epic, big, bold,

epicenter,

the core,

bold desires,

big desires,

centering desires,

deep desires is the word.

It's not the normal word

for desire,

it's deep desires.

Why?

Because he's saying,

how does sin

take place in our lives?

Especially when we're reacting

to situations of trial

and suffering.

He's saying that

deep down at the core

of your heart,

deeper than

all of your thoughts,

deeper than

the self that you even know,

there is epi desire,

deep desire.

And that deep desire

sees opportunity for sin.

And then,

you see the rest

of the metaphor,

then it gives,

it conceives.

So when your deepest desires

for something

that is other than God,

see opportunity,

there's a conception

that takes place.

See,

it's a sexual metaphor.

And then,

that conception grows.

It says it grows

and it grows

and then it gives birth.

And birth brings forth death.

So it's saying,

every act of sin

follows that trajectory.

And what are these epi desires?

Thomas Aquinas

helped us know

what they are

and all sorts of

Christian thinkers

from the Bible

throughout world history.

There's really only four.

So you can desire

all sorts of things

in this life,

chase after things

that are sin,

but there's only four

epi desires,

really,

epithumia,

deep desires in you,

and that is the desire

for the illicit,

disordered desire

for power,

the disordered desire

for security,

a disordered desire

for comfort or pleasure,

and a disordered desire

for approval.

So if you take power,

pleasure,

approval,

or security,

and you want those things

more than you want God,

that's the real core

of epithumia.

That's what's at the bottom

of all of our souls,

giving birth

to actionable sins

all throughout our life.

And you can think about

Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Eve.

This is just,

I think James here

is just teaching us

Genesis 3.

It says that Eve

saw that the fruit

could make her

like God,

wise like God.

So those epithumia

were triggered

with an opportunity.

And it says,

it tells us that she saw,

she delighted in

the opportunity.

She reached out her hand,

she took,

and it gave birth

to death.

And James says

the same thing.

Your deepest desires

see an opportunity,

it conceives,

you let it grow,

and then it gives birth.

And when you reach out

your hand and you take,

death has entered the room.

The psychology of sin,

it's the way it works

every single time.

And he's specifically

bringing it to the lens

of suffering and saying,

when we're walking

through trials and suffering

in our life,

and we keep grabbing the fruit,

grabbing the apple,

keep chasing that same thing,

we say we're faced

with the test of faith,

and it's a,

boy,

is it suffering.

Yes,

it is.

It keeps coming back,

the same temptation,

and we keep reaching out.

He's saying,

who did it?

You did.

Not God.

God puts you in the test

to grow you,

but when you fail,

when you struggle,

it's me,

it's you that struggle.

It's our sinful desire

at the bottom.

There's a golem,

there's a golem

at the very bottom.

That's what he's saying.

And what can you do about that?

And what you can do about that

is, I think,

just one or two things,

because we can't say everything

that could be said

about what to do about it,

but today,

in the passage,

what can you do about it?

He says,

blessed are you

when you use trials

and suffering

and even your failures

to actually understand yourself.

So I think one of the things

you can do today

is realize,

he's calling me here

to self-knowledge.

What are my deepest desires

that are giving birth

to sin in my life

when I face trials

and suffering and tests?

Do you know them?

Do you know yourself?

Do you know

what your deep idols are?

Do you know

what your deep idols are?

One of the ways

you can learn

is in the midst

of your own failures

and your struggles

to ask,

to do a sort of

removal process.

So,

do I really crave power

or security

or pleasure

or approval

more than the other four?

Right?

So you can almost

take them away

and say,

I know I can,

I won't spill the beans

on my own,

but,

you know,

I can look at my life

and I can say,

I know that it's not

security that I love most.

I know it's not,

it's not comfort

that I love most

and I can whittle down

to what it really is

in the bottom of the soul.

Have you done that?

Have you,

have you looked

at your idols?

That's what,

that's what tests

actually show you,

self-knowledge.

The second thing

he tells you to do

is he says,

instead of saying,

what is God doing?

He must hate me.

Instead,

he said,

you've got to do

some theology

and you've got to say,

God is never doing wrong

by me in this.

And so you'll see

in verse 13,

remember,

God tempts nobody.

He never creates

a desire in your life

to sin

because he cannot

desire evil.

He can't desire sin.

So he would never

give you a desire for sin.

No,

not at all.

It comes from you.

But then secondly,

in verse 17,

cognitive reframe.

Instead,

verse 17,

he is giving you gifts

in the midst

of this process

of learning.

And what are those gifts?

Now,

as we read our English Bibles,

as we kind of do

a day-by-day reading plan,

and you're reading

through James,

in verse 17,

you would read this clause

very quickly.

Every good and perfect gift

is from above.

But you've got to slow down

right there and realize

that when he says

every good gift

and perfect gift,

he's talking about

two different types of gifts.

So it's a temptation

just to say,

oh,

every good and perfect gift.

It's all from God.

Good gifts there

are what kind of gifts?

They are the sunshine

and the rain

and the food that tastes good

and music

and Spotify

and, you know,

all the good gifts

that we have

in this life.

Right?

Every good gift

is from God.

And he's saying

that first category,

remember,

what do you got to do?

You got to realize

all the good gifts

in your life

are coming from God.

He's not tempting you

toward evil desire.

That's coming

from your heart.

Instead,

in the midst of that,

you got to realize

that the only reason

you even know

you're suffering,

the only reason

you know you're suffering

is because you're being

lavished with gifts.

You're in the context

of being surrounded

all the time.

You know,

you might be in the midst

of trial,

but did you eat today?

Did you drink water today?

Do you have a friendship?

Do you have a church?

Yeah.

You're being lavished

with gifts all the time.

That's the only way

you can even know

you're suffering.

You see?

He's reframing

and helping you see.

If you're a materialist,

secular materialist

in the room today,

you got to think about it.

You got to say,

do you say,

it's not fair?

I hate my suffering.

But if God doesn't exist,

if there's no gift

coming down from on high,

the lion doesn't care

when he eats the gazelle.

And cancer doesn't care

when it eats up your body.

But if you're really committed

to materialism,

you've got to say

the same thing.

I don't have any right

to be upset about this.

This is the ordinary

process of nature.

But you're not.

You're not happy with that.

And the reason you're not

is because you know

that your life

is being lavish with gifts.

You know that you

weren't made for suffering,

that that's not what

true humanity

is meant to be like.

And so you struggle with it.

You wrestle with it.

But it's not just good gifts.

He says,

then it's perfect gifts.

And the word perfect there

is the same word

as in verse 4

when he says,

your suffering

can make you perfect.

So he's saying,

what is he saying?

He's saying that

when he gives you

trials and tests,

they are gifts.

They're perfecting gifts.

So he's saying,

you've got to reframe

and realize that your life

is being lavish with gifts.

But when suffering

does come,

the Christian can say,

that's a perfecting gift

in my life.

God is actually using that

to grow me.

He's testing me.

And I've got to see it that way.

I've got to reframe

my life in that way.

God never gives you

desire to sin.

And he doesn't hate you.

He loves you.

He wants to grow you.

Why?

Because he is the God

with whom there is no shadow

due to change.

He gives you a little metaphor.

He says,

look,

God never changes.

And that means that the God

who gave the suffering

into Job's life

in order to grow him

is the same God

who's giving this suffering

in your life

to grow you.

It's the same exact situation.

He's never changed.

He's the God

of the sun,

moon,

and stars.

stars.

And as he shines,

you know,

he doesn't have a shadow

due to change.

What does that mean?

It means that when you

stand outside

and the sun is shining,

the sun shines on you,

it casts a shadow

on the ground.

And if you turn,

if you turn one way

or the other,

the shadow turns,

right?

He's saying God

never casts a shadow.

In other words,

he's not a creature.

He doesn't turn

right or left,

or he doesn't,

the sun can't hit him

and cast a shadow

on the ground.

He doesn't change.

The God

who has given suffering

in the life of Job

to grow him,

the same God.

He's doing the same

exact thing in your life.

Now, finally,

and very briefly,

just a couple minutes.

Thirdly,

our suffering points us

to the blessed man.

And here's how.

Verse 12.

Verse 12 tells us

as we close,

blessed is the man

who remains steadfast

under trial.

Now, this has all been

about how you can be

blessed in suffering.

And you might say today,

can you say today with me,

some of the things

I listed in that ordinary week

at the beginning

of the service,

beginning of the sermon,

happened in my life this week.

Maybe they happened

in your life this week.

You know,

the ticket that comes

in the mail

or the bus that doesn't run

or you can't find your keys

or whatever else it is.

And you say,

in the little annoyances

and the big things of life,

I have not faced the test

in the trial

with wisdom in every way.

And I have been frustrated

with God

and I have wondered,

does God hate me right now?

And I have wondered

if I have any value.

And, you know,

I think suffering shows us

that if we use it

in Jesus' metaphor,

our house is not entirely

built on the rock.

It's sort of on the rock

and halfway onto the sand.

And when suffering comes,

you know,

I realize I've got to

shift my life

a little more on the rock

because right now

it's 50% sand underneath.

And that's what suffering

does for us.

I told you last week

that when you're reading James,

one way to realize

is that James doesn't mention Jesus

but two times

in the whole book.

But he's teaching

Jesus' teaching

all throughout.

When he says

in verse 12,

blessed is the man

who remains steadfast

in all trials.

He's been talking

the whole time

about brothers and sisters,

the beloved plural,

but then he uses

this masculine singular,

blessed is the man.

And what is he quoting there?

He's quoting

from the Beatitudes,

Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And he's drawing us

to see something

that when you're walking

through suffering

and trial in your life,

what do you need most?

You need beloved

brothers and sisters.

You need to know

that just like

the first century

people James was talking to,

they didn't suffer well

all the time.

You're not suffering

well all the time.

I'm not suffering

well all the time.

You need to know

that the blessed man

has already walked

the road that you're walking.

The blessed man

has already faced the trial

and he was steadfast.

The blessed man himself,

Jesus Christ,

has run the race for you

and now you are following

in his footsteps.

You need to know

Jesus lover of my soul,

you are with me.

You need a person.

And that's what verse 12

is pointing us to.

He's saying that

when you know

that he has walked

through every trial for you,

he stood in the fray

on your behalf,

he went to the cross for you,

you can say,

now I'm walking a road

where the rock

is already secure.

He's not going to leave me.

I'm going to get

across the finish line.

He's going to take me

all the way to the crown of life.

And crown of life there

is not what we think of.

It's not diadem.

It's the athlete's wreath.

It's not the crown

of a king or queen,

but it's the woven athlete's wreath.

You run the marathon

and the king leans over

and puts the athlete's wreath

upon your head.

He's saying,

because he has already

walked the path,

you will receive

the crown of life.

Finish with a story.

The Christian life

is a lot like this

in the midst of our suffering.

I don't know

if you've come across

the video.

If you are a person

who scrolls,

you will undoubtedly

have come across

the video of Derek Redman.

And Derek Redman

was an athlete,

U.S. athlete,

in the 1992 Olympics.

And he had trained,

he was a favorite

for the 400 meter sprint.

And he got about 100 meters

into the 400 meter sprint

at the 1992 Olympics.

And he pulled his hamstring.

And maybe you've seen it.

And he goes down

to the ground.

And he tries to get back up.

And he hobbles, you know.

And everybody else

has already finished the race.

And his dad,

his father,

jumps over the barriers

and runs out

onto the Olympic track.

And he picked,

and the security guards

are trying to get him,

you can't come out here.

And he pushes him away.

And the dad picks his son up,

Derek,

and he puts his arm

over his shoulder

and he carries him

all the way

to the finish line, right?

And they're weeping.

And he carries them across

and he gets the crown of life,

the athlete's wreath.

That's the Christian life.

You're going to pull

a hamstring this week.

Maybe literally.

But figuratively, definitely.

And Jesus Christ,

the blessed man

who has already

walked the road for you,

he will carry you

through your suffering.

You might,

some of you will sprint,

some of you will crawl,

some of you will walk fast.

You will grow

to different levels

of maturity,

but Jesus will take you

all the way.

Will you grow with him?

Will you become like him

in that?

That's the question.

Let us pray.

Father,

we ask

that you would train us

to be mature

in our sufferings like Jesus.

And we thank you

that we have a blessed man

who has run the race before us.

So help us to trust in him today.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.