Finding Joy in Trials

G'day, thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornsville Heights, Sydney, Australia.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many

kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, Who gives generously to all

without finding fault? And it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe it and not doubt, because the one who doubts

is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position,

but the rich should take pride in their humiliation, since they will pass away like a wildflower.

For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant,

its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.

In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood that test,

that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those

who love him. This is the word of the Lord.

By the way, Ankar, I thought of kookaburra as well. Definitely extremely rude animals.

Yeah, and good reasoning. They laugh at you and they steal. That's a bad combination,

no matter how you might look at it.

One of the things that happens if you ever have a child is that at a certain point,

they reach an age where they start saying things or asking questions that bring

up your own childhood trauma.

Recently, my son asked me, Dad, when you were at school, did you used to win

ribbons when you ran the cross country?

No, mate, I did not. I did not. Let me tell you a story about one time when

I thought that I might, you see,

when I was a kid and I'm taking you to a time on the Gold Coast,

I went to Keningrabah State School when I was in year five and I was a little

boy filled with white bread and Devon and delusion.

And at that point, I thought, you know what, this year could be the year that

I make a mark on the cross country.

And I remember I started running for the first time in my life and I started

running around to the point where I could run around the block.

And I did this for a couple of months leading up to the cross country.

And I thought, you know what?

I might even, I might win a ribbon. I might get a ribbon this year.

Maybe not first, but not going to be too confident.

Not going to rule it out either, but even second or third.

Well, I remember I lined up for the race and the starting pistol went and within

just seconds, I was at the back of the pack.

Within a few more seconds, I was a long way behind the pack and I realized the truth very quickly.

Okay, maybe this is not the year that I am going to get a ribbon.

I'm not going to come first or second. I don't think I'm going to come third.

I'm going to be way too far back for any of that.

And you see, the thing is, is that I didn't just fail being sort of in the pack of the runners.

It's that I fell so far behind in the year five cross country that by the time

I arrived at the finishing line, they had packed up and left the space and no

one actually saw me cross it.

The crowd of students and teachers had moved on to a different event,

which I looked over and saw as I finished, so that when I finished,

no one noticed that I was even still running that race.

It was a sad story, a reality check for young Chris.

The only thing is that I said no one noticed me. There was one person that noticed

me because I remember I sort of finished and looked around and went,

well, I don't really know what I do now.

Do I even, do I tell someone that I finished or do I just pretend I don't exist? Do I just run away?

But I remember my PE teacher ran across from the far side of the oval,

came jogging across and he said to me, hey, good job for finishing the race.

He was very nice about it.

Made me feel just slightly better about what to me was a huge and epic failure.

That was year five. And the next year, I remember in year six,

I had all but forgotten, or at least tried to forget about that embarrassing situation.

And I remember early in the year, we're sitting in assembly,

whole school, and the PE teacher got upset.

Hey guys, cross country is coming up for all the grades. This is how it's going to work.

I know some of you might not be that keen to run, but I just want to do something right now.

And what he did was he went, Hey, Chris Eagles, can you stand up right where you're sitting?

Have you ever known a year six student to be excited about what could be happening

next? I was absolutely not.

I remember I stood up and I thought to myself, what's he going to say here?

I thought, my first thought is he's going to say, hey, everyone,

that kid there, that's who you don't want to be like, okay?

That kid there sucks, okay? Don't be like that kid.

My instinct was wrong. What he said was, he said, last year I saw Chris run

the cross country and he might not have come first, but I'll tell you, he did something.

He never gave up and he showed perseverance.

Perseverance. You see, what had happened was I had emotionally framed my story

as something humiliating and pathetic, but to my PE teacher,

he insisted, he was insisting on framing my story as one of success and celebration

and this word perseverance.

And I remember that word perseverance reverberating around the assembly.

I remember people would bag me out of Mr. Perseverance.

And I remember that because when I became a Christian, I started reading the

Bible. I opened up to the book of James and there's the word perseverance.

And what I found was, and perhaps what you might find with me tonight,

is that this scripture in James that Lockie read for us reminds us that just like my PE teacher,

God does not always see things like the majority of people see things.

God looks at the world and he sees it slightly different to what we have been trained to see it like.

We're told that while the world will look at outside appearances,

God will look at the heart.

Jesus taught us that the last will be first and the first will be last.

He taught us that God sees the unseen generosity and he sees the goodness in the margins.

We naturally are trained to want to reward the visible, but God prizes the invisible.

We reward the fast, but God prizes the slow.

And with that idea in mind and thinking about our life, perhaps,

if you'd make that jump with the metaphor with me as some sort of race or some

sort of adventure, some sort of hike or trek or something that you are on where

there is a starting point and an end point,

have that in mind that God doesn't prize and value and celebrate things in the

same way that the world will.

And James opens in his book with these words, and this is James's letter.

This is not one James, because there's a two James and a three.

This is his one letter, and this is how he opens.

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.

That's how he opens. I've thought about many times about the boldness of James

to open his letter with these words, Because I think to myself,

if I was going to write a letter to a church, if I was going to write some words

to somebody to encourage them, I would not personally, if I wanted them to read

the rest of the letter, say, hey.

You know, when life sucks, feel really happy about that. It's such a bold way to start.

There's been many times in my life when maybe I've been going through something

or just feeling a bit flat or fatigued, and I've opened up the book of James

because that's where I'm up to, or that's just what came open.

And I've got, yeah, let's read the book of James. And I've got to verse two

many times and thought, you know what? Not today. Today's not a James day.

Today's a Psalms day, I think, or a Colossians day. Nevertheless,

in our Bibles, book of James, the words are there.

And James is telling us somehow, in some way, that every time in our lives,

when we encounter difficulties, every time when we encounter suffering,

every time that we go through a difficult period in our life that in some mysterious

way that we are urged to count it as an occasion for rejoicing.

And not just joy. James is going all in.

Consider it pure joy, the highest

form of joy, a joy that is untainted and unmixed with anything else.

But thankfully, James gives from that point on a valid explanation,

a valid reasoning for such a challenging command.

And I wonder, as I go through this now, whether you would consider in your own

life what it is that God is forming within you, what it is that God is trying to do in you,

with you, what he's trying to encourage you to do in your life.

Because he gives us this challenging commandment, consider it pure joy,

even when life gives you every reason to feel the opposite.

And what he then doesn't say, he doesn't say that, well, the reason is the way

that you do this is that you suppress your emotions. You treat your emotions as invalid.

He doesn't say, well, the thing is other people deserve happiness and you don't.

So minimize yourself. It's that, look, you're just not one of those people that

gets to have agency and respect.

No, it's not that. He doesn't say that. What he says, he doesn't give any of

those lies that we might be tempted to believe.

So let's not metabolize any of that from my sermon tonight.

No, what James says, he says is

that in our life, stuff is going to happen that's going to be really hard.

And when those things happen, because it's a when, not an if,

there are going to be a certain point during and after when we will try and

make meaning of something that feels like no meaning.

And he points out that sometimes, and particularly in the context of what this

church in this time in history was going through that he was writing this letter to,

that we are going to go through stuff, but God is seeing it slightly different to how we are.

And what he says is, is that the

reason why we can in some way consider

our trials and our difficult times as pure joy is because if we see perseverance

as a characteristic that is so valuable that we will chase after that before

we chase after anything else,

that we will see that some of the hard things that we go through can lead us

to having a little bit more of that.

Perseverance is a characteristic in our life that means never giving up.

It means resilience, endurance.

It's a characteristic that has nothing to do with winning the races of life,

but one that has everything to do with taking the next step forward,

wherever you are right now, toward the part of your journey that God is calling you into next,

no matter what the circumstances are.

And perseverance is by far one of the bravest characteristics that we have because

perseverance doesn't look at things and go, well, all of this just has a meaning.

We just need to keep going.

Perseverance isn't just like, oh, my emotions don't matter. I need to squish myself down.

I need to pretend like I'm not feeling anything. No, it's saying I feel all of this in its entirety.

I feel angry that this has happened. I feel devastated that this has happened.

But I'm going to be brave enough to just wake up the next day,

to take the next step, to keep on going.

And according to James, this idea of perseverance is the necessary atmosphere

in which every other virtue, every other characteristic that we might wish to

have in our life, perseverance is the atmosphere in which all of those things can grow.

And we know this because someone who has gone through it, whatever it might

be for that person, whether one time, 10 times, 20 times.

Have something, they have something that the comfortable person who's never

gone through a hard time in their life does not have.

Whether it might be empathy with

others who are going through a similar thing whether

it is deeper sense of the complexity of the world that we live in whether it's

being able to have a bigger heart for when other people maybe don't go through

the same things but are going through something maybe it's a strength that hey

i went through that so this little inconvenience today is not going to knock me over.

We know this. The one that has

gone through it has something that the comfortable person doesn't have.

And God says that he values the creation of a perseverance within us more than

he values us being comfortable.

He values perseverance being formed within our character more than he values

us having easy victories, easy paths, leg up, and public acclaim.

And I think sometimes in life, we hugely underestimate the value of just keep going.

We hugely underestimate the value of perseverance. But this is what we do know.

God does not underrate it.

He desires that within each of us, within each of you tonight even, that...

You would start to see that ability to keep taking that next step to where you

need to go as a keystone part of your character and life and things that you

are aiming for and aiming to have,

not just as a bonus, but actually as one of the things that are top of the list.

Hey, if I could, when I grow up, have one thing, it would be the ability to persevere.

You see, if in the story that I shared with you from when I was in year five,

if I valued what my PE teacher valued.

I wouldn't have focused on my embarrassment.

I wouldn't have focused on comparing myself to other people.

I would have been able to walk into what he was inviting me to do,

which is to see it as he saw it.

In that moment, I couldn't. And many times in our life, God is inviting us to

see something like he sees it, even though it is hugely difficult for us to do so.

But I want to tell you something tonight, that until we learn to value this

characteristic as much as God values it,

we cannot even get a glimpse of what James means by seeing trial and suffering

in difficult times as an occasion for some sort of version of pure joy.

Because as long as we think that what we are going through either doesn't matter

at all, because we don't matter,

or for as long as we think that it is the only thing that matters in the world

and it matters more than what anybody else is going through,

we're not able to see what God might actually be wanting to do in the difficult

times and the challenges in your life.

You see, perseverance is having a steadfast tenacity, the ability to stick with

it, to keep moving and to keep wanting what God wants.

The quality that keeps us standing within us, everything screams, sit down.

And let me acknowledge something. James here, and I'm certainly not saying,

that considering our difficult times as joy, it doesn't take away the horror.

It's not as simple like someone's had something terrible happen to them,

and then a Christian comes alongside them and says, hey, everything happens for a reason.

No, what's being encouraged of us here is something even deeper than that.

It's not talking about a shallow dismissal of pain and suffering.

No, what we are being invited to is to see the unspeakable glory that God ascribes

to the person who, despite going through the valley of the shadow of death,

keeps on going, wakes up the next morning, does the next thing,

takes the next step again.

There's a story in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament where we find a story

of Naomi, And Naomi's family lived in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born,

many years before Jesus was born.

And at the time of Naomi, Bethlehem was hit with a famine, a famine so bad that Naomi had to move.

In and of itself, that's a trial. That's a challenge.

And they moved to Moab and Naomi's sons got married and it was all going okay,

but then her husband died and then her boys died and she lost everything.

And she decided at a certain point that it was time to move back to Bethlehem.

And in the book of Ruth, Naomi describes her experience of having to move to

Moab and what happened in Moab.

She says, I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.

And at this point of the story, Naomi is a shattered wreck of a human being.

Pain has consumed her. And she says, the Lord Almighty has made my life very bitter.

And she didn't mean it as an accusation that God was bad or blasphemy,

to her, it was perhaps that it was something that perhaps you've had in your

life that there are things that have happened that are just simple,

terrible facts.

Every single one of us has simple and terrible facts in our life.

We don't all have the same simple and terrible facts, but every single one of

us has simple and terrible facts in our life.

Every single one of us has our own version of grief or weakness or regret or

affliction, of illness or difficult challenges, of setbacks or pain.

And some of us have a decent mixture of all of the above.

For some of us, it's things that we have done. For some of us,

it's things that have been done to us.

Simple, terrible facts. And as we think of those, you might even be having this

emotion right now, they hurt. They still hurt.

And we live in a fallen world where sin exists.

And even though as Christians, we believe we have the first fruits of the Holy

Spirit, We groan and we yearn for the day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes.

We hope, we look forward to that day, but we do so as people who are still here.

And in this world, we still suffer. We still feel rejection.

We still aim for something and don't quite get it.

We still hope for something and don't quite get it. We still will look around

at other people and think, they are all succeeding at these things and I am not.

We'll feel the sting of loss and grief or relational breakdown and disappointment and let down.

We're not given ever the promise of an auto escape from the problems of this world.

No, Jesus told us, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart,

I have overcome the world. Not that you might have trouble, but you will have trouble.

And here's the thing that we need to believe. God does not send us trials as direct punishment.

If something bad happens to

you, it's not always, in fact, often it's not because you did X, Y, and Z.

Romans 8, 1 says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

that for at least a Christian, there's no sense where God is like,

you did that bad thing, here's a bad thing in your life.

Now, consequences are still a thing, but what I'm encouraging you to not think

is that if you are good enough, if you are right enough, if you are nice enough,

if you please enough people,

then you will control your circumstances enough so that bad things won't happen to you.

It's never going to be the way that it works. But the way that it will work,

is that God wants to create in you a sense of perseverance.

And this is what it says in James 1.12, blessed is the one who perseveres under

trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of

life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

And let's not miss this. Really, tonight, if nothing else, don't go home missing

this, that we live in a world where we are trained to believe that the prizes go to the best,

the prizes go to the fastest,

the prizes go to the one who gets the highest marks at school and gets the best

degree and gets the best job.

The prize goes to the most popular, the one that's cooler than you,

the one that is the most talented.

But in God's eyes. And when he hands out the prizes, he doesn't do it like that.

He doesn't see it like that.

And what he's telling you, what he's encouraging you is you don't have to see

it like that either. You do not have to see your life through that lens.

You could drop that. You can see it a different way.

You see, in God's economy, the crown might not go to the best,

but it goes to those who finish.

It goes to those who kept going on the path that God laid before them,

even when everyone else had packed up from the finishing line.

And there is something to that image because sometimes people's lives and perhaps

your life, sometimes it happens that you are running a race that very few people

in your life will understand.

They won't know what lane you're in. They won't know where your starting line

is. They won't understand why you're aiming for over there.

Shouldn't you be aiming for over there? They won't know why your finishing line

is there and not over there.

They won't understand the race that you are racing so that when you do that

next step and when you complete what God calls you to complete and when you

live the life that God is calling you to live,

it might not be an occasion where everyone is at the finishing line cheering you on for it.

And he's asking you, are you still willing to take the next step knowing that?

Are you still willing to keep on going?

Even when other people don't know where your finishing line is,

this is what God says. God says, you know what?

I know where you're going. I see it. I know the race that you are running.

And I also know why it's hard. I also know the challenges. I know the stuff

that you deal with that no one else deals with.

I know the stuff that you find hard that everyone else seems to find easy because

you have developed or you've become a certain person in a certain way.

I know the ways that you've been pushed down and knocked back.

I know the things that you attempted to think and believe about yourself.

He says, I'm also there at the finishing line cheering you on.

Everyone else might have packed up, but God has not packed up on you.

And what he says is he looks at you. And as you take that next step, he is cheering.

As you take that next step, he is celebrating. And he says, keep moving toward

where you're supposed to be moving toward.

He says, don't look back. Don't think about, well, maybe if I went around that

way, don't think. But like everyone's over there.

He says, just take that next step from where you are while you're back there,

while you still haven't finished.

And I'm looking around at a bunch of people and I want to tell you, you have not finished.

You are only for some of you, if not for every single person in this room,

in a lot of ways, just getting started.

And God is saying to you, I see your struggle. I see your temptation to stop running.

I see your temptation to stop taking a next step, but don't, don't stop.

Keep going. Let the experience of your life finish its work in you. That's what James says.

And that doesn't mean that we allow ourselves to always be mistreated.

It doesn't mean staying in unsafe environments. It doesn't mean if you're physically

unsafe or emotionally unsafe, we'll stay because God tells you to stay. I'm not saying that.

James isn't saying that. But it does mean some things. It does mean trusting

that the small hidden acts of your life are forming you.

They're molding you into someone stronger than you ever dared to believe possible.

It means that your value is not in how well you hold it together.

Your value is not in how good and righteous you are.

Your value is not in the smallness of the list of people who don't like you.

No, your value is in knowing that in trying to hold it together,

in trying to keep your family together, your situation together,

your workplace together, that God is building you during the holding.

It means that God sees not just the person that you are, but the person that

you are becoming, even if no one else does.

And it means that that ache to be seen, to be known, and to be cared for,

that subtle grief that can sit there sometimes when you feel like no one gets it, no one notices.

It means that you can be reminded that, no, God sees it.

And he's even using that feeling of invisibility to shape you into someone who

he describes as mature and complete and lacking nothing.

And I don't want you this evening to confuse what I'm talking about with the

worldly idea of drive and energy and hustling and all that sort of stuff.

Because sometimes perseverance is keep running.

But sometimes it's, hey, just keep walking.

Sometimes it's just take one more step.

Sometimes it's just keep moving, just holding on through the disappointment

and the grief and the regret and the emptiness and the anger.

Just hold on. Don't give up yet. Even if it's by the very tips of your fingers, do not give up.

I want to tell you tonight that God sees you from the other side of the oval.

He sees you. When all the eyes are somewhere else, He sees you.

And if you feel like that what you're going through and your life is somehow

meaningless, pointless, embarrassing, insignificant compared to those who finished ages ago.

I'm telling you tonight, no, God sees you and he celebrates that you haven't

given up yet. And he makes much of it.

In his assembly, he doesn't hand out ribbons to those who come first.

No, he gets those to stand up who never, ever gave up.

But here's the thing. And as I finish, he

doesn't just want you to sort of know that and believe

that he wants you to celebrate

it too that's what james is

saying when he says consider it pure joy he's not

saying celebrate terrible things happening but he does want you to celebrate

the imperfection of your journey and he wants you beyond all rational or emotional

logic to value that next step as much as he does to cheer on your own next step

as much as he's cheering on your next step.

He wants you to see how much He values that you haven't given up.

So perhaps now as I've finished on that, you can think about the stuff that you're going through.

But also, why don't you think about where am I actually heading towards?

Am I able to let go of everyone else understanding it? And am I able to let

go of not totally understanding the big picture or what God's trying to form in me?

But tonight maybe, and as we're about to sing again, you might take an opportunity

to stand and just trust that God sees you and that he's forming something in

you that even you in this moment can't possibly comprehend,

but he's going to be bigger and better and more beautiful than you could possibly ever imagine.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this word.

And I just ask tonight, Lord, that for those that need that motivation,

that push, that encouragement to keep going, Lord, that you would give that to them.

And Lord, tonight, perhaps we do that through the ascribing of meaning and also

the valuing of this characteristic, this idea that's found in the book of James,

this idea of perseverance,

this idea of, hey, keep going.

And I pray, Lord, that you would help us, help us, God, to value that and to

celebrate that in our lives just as much as you do.

And we thank you so much for all of the things that you are doing for us,

but also for all the things that you're doing within us.

And as we stand and sing, Lord, I pray that you would move in us and give us

imagination to see, hey, what might be coming next in our life. Amen.

All right, if you'd like to stand, we're going to sing a couple more songs.