Faith in Trials (James 1:2-18)

Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome this morning. It's great to gather and worship God together.

This morning, Jeff Bradford is out of town, so you know what that means. We are back to James on James, the sermon series that continues intermittently when Jeff is not preaching. So last time, about a month ago, we looked at James 1:1, and this morning we are going to look at James 1:2 through 18.

So let's read that together and then I'll pray.

Consider it a great joy my brothers and sisters whenever you experience various trials because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete lacking nothing. Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord being double minded and unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of humble circumstance boast in his exaltation, but let the rich boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. For the sun rises and together with the scorching wind, dries up the grass. Its flower falls off and its beauty appearances perish. In the same way, the rich person will wither away while pursuing his activities. Blessed is the one who endures trials because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. No one undergoing a trial should say, I am being tempted by God. Since God is not tempted by evil and he himself doesn't tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights who does not change like shifting shadows. By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that he would be a kind first fruits of his creatures. — James 1:2-18

Oh, Lord Jesus, we pray that you would be with us as we consider this very challenging passage. Lord, it seems likely that this is the first set of commands, the first guidance in the book of James that your spirit wrote down for the church. And Lord, there are some really powerful instructions and guidance here. But Lord, we cannot follow it. We have no hope of even applying it or even thinking about it apart from your spirit. So would you send your spirit? Would you help illumine your words to our hearts that we might encounter your word and walk away more like Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen.

Background on James

Well, I do want to begin with a brief summary of what we went over last time. Partially because I think there are some important things that we covered last time and it's been about a month. Some of you may have forgotten that, and also the last sermon wasn't recorded, so some of you might not have been here and might have missed it. But I want to kind of review what we talked about last time.

If you recall, we started with who is the author of this book. We started with the story of James, the brother of Jesus. And you might recall that his story begins with him being a critic of his brother—largely just showing up and being a naysayer throughout the gospels. He was very negative on Jesus' ministry. At one point he was saying that Jesus is crazy. At one point he was just telling him to go on up to Jerusalem so he could be humiliated from his perspective, not believing anything that he said but listening to all of it.

And then we learned about his conversion, really from Paul. Paul points to the fact that James was one of the first people that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, and from that point there's a radical shift in James's life. He becomes the Bishop of Jerusalem, and we don't get a lot of information other than that in terms of the introduction. James doesn't begin by saying, "Let me tell you about how I became so powerful in the church, how I became such a big deal." He doesn't begin with any of that. All he talks about is him being a bond servant—the literal word is bond slave to Christ. He doesn't talk about being the brother. He doesn't talk about his conversion. He doesn't give any qualifications. He just says, "I'm a servant of the Lord for you."

And he's writing to the early church that has been dispersed because of the early Christian persecutions. In fact, really the only insight that we get in the book of James about his testimony comes in verse 18 of our passage this morning. Did you catch it?

By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. — James 1:18

Notice his testimony isn't individual. He's not saying, "Hey, I'm the only one that saw him risen from the dead." In fact, he doesn't really give an apologetic for Christ's resurrection. There's not a lot in James about Jesus really did rise from the dead—believe me, I saw it. You know why? Because it's one of the earliest books written. He's writing to a bunch of Christians who have either seen the resurrected Christ or know someone who has. It's almost like it really happened. He's like, I don't really need to prove it. You all know.

And he's recognizing his siblinghood. Notice the language of brothers and sisters. That's very important in James because he is the brother of Jesus, but he considers himself a brother of Christians because of his rebirth. Verse 18 says he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. He sees himself as a sibling of the early church because of the rebirth that Christ has brought about through the word of truth—the gospel. Because he was chosen by God, by God's will, he's brought forth as a sibling of other Christians. That's James's testimony. It's really understated and subtle, but there it is.

I made the point last time that you have to look at the book of James through the lens of the resurrection—the impact of the resurrection and what it had on James is how you have to read it. There are a lot of commands, a lot of wisdom, a lot of guidance, but he's not offering that because that's what you need to do in order to be saved. He's doing that because he has experienced the resurrected Christ and therefore has a new purpose, a new direction, a new directive to live.

James's Story After the Book

This morning, what I want to do with James's testimony is give you the rest of the story. We talked about how he became a leader in the church. I want to give you what happens to him after this book.

This book is written in a time of heavy persecution. You probably remember in Acts 7, Stephen is stoned. Saul, who becomes Paul later, is there, and they lay the coats at his feet. That probably took place around 35 A.D. Acts 12 gives us the story of another James, James the Apostle, who is killed, and that probably happened around 44 A.D. He gets beheaded. His head's chopped off. This is real persecution. People are getting killed by rocks being thrown at them. Heads are getting chopped off. This is not a fun time, and that's the setting in which James writes this book—probably about four years after James the Apostle's head is chopped off by Herod.

Now I want you to understand this: Let's fast forward fifteen years after this book is written. James himself will be killed. We have two historical records of that—one from Josephus, the Jewish historian, and one from Eusebius, the early church historian. Their descriptions are similar but slightly different. Josephus says that James was stoned to death, similar to Stephen. Eusebius says that earlier church accounts point to the fact that James was tossed off the temple first and then stoned to death. Whichever one you take, that's not a fun way to die.

The importance of this is as we move into this passage that talks about trials and sufferings and hardships. It's important to understand that James isn't writing in a time and context where he's unfamiliar with that. He gets it. He knows what trials look like. He knows what a hard life looks like. His life post-resurrection of Christ is filled with trials, and he's staying in Jerusalem while everybody else has run away. There's no telling what stories about suffering and persecution that he had to endure in that time that aren't recorded for us in Scripture.

The Three Points of This Passage

So I want you to understand that as we move into looking at this passage. I want to look at it in three points. Number one: consider it all joy. We're going to spend a little time on that. I just like that passage—that verse is great. Secondly: various trials and temptations. What do those mean? What is he talking about? And then thirdly: don't be deceived. That's the end where he talks about not being deceived and gets into the section on the Father of Light.

So: consider it all joy, various trials and temptations, and don't be deceived.

First of all, consider it all joy. What does the passage say? It says consider it. The CSB leaves out a word that's actually in the Greek.

Consider it all a great joy my brothers and sisters whenever you experience or fall into various trials. Now I'm going to be honest with you. When I first read this passage, I was in college, was not in a happy place. And I came across this passage and this is what I did. I took my Bible and I threw it across the room.

Now I do that now for two reasons. Number one, some of you are in hard places and some of you really read your Bibles and some of you are in touch with your emotions. If you really read your Bible and you're really in touch with your emotions, you ought to be throwing your Bible from time to time. Because there are passages in scripture that are really challenging and hard. And this is one of them. The very first thing that the Holy Spirit wrote down for the church is a really hard command. Something that falls right in line with what Jesus said:

Pick up your cross and follow me.

This is a hard passage. If you aren't throwing your Bible when you come across stuff like this, you're probably not reading it. And I'm going to pick it up because I do like this book. And that's what I did in college too. After I threw it, I picked it back up and I've been wrestling with this verse for years. I wrestle with it on a regular basis and when I come across it, I'm not particularly thrilled about it. But as I have wrestled with it, I have come to a place where I have experienced a peace with it and found some encouragement in it.

But before I get to that, what I want to say to you is this passage gets misused in the church all the time. You need to be very careful with this passage. If you know somebody that is suffering and you take this passage to them without really investing in the suffering that they are in, without really experiencing and walking with them in that, then you are doing a disservice to what this passage is meant to do. This is not a passage that is designed to comfort those who are in lament. It is designed to prepare saints to encounter hard things. It is a passage that is meant to come to people before they experience hardships.

The Bible is full of examples and exhortations for what we are to do with those who are in suffering. We are to:

Weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.

We're not supposed to come and—often times this passage gets misapplied to say, hey you should put a smiley face on this. Whatever hardship you're experiencing, you should just smile because it says to consider it all joy. This should be a joy for you. Aren't you lucky that you get to experience this really terrible situation in your life? That's often how this is used. Don't do that. Do not do that because if you do that, I will tell you, you will experience a different kind of trial. It will be the trial of me sneaking up behind you and smacking you on the back of your head saying don't misuse the Bible.

Joy vs. Happiness

So how do we make sense of this though? How do we engage with this passage? What is it really saying? How are we supposed to apply it? Let's dive in.

First of all, verse two, the word is joy not happiness. We confuse those all the time. We confuse joy and happiness. We like to think that joy is happiness but here's the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is a reaction to circumstances. When really good things happen, when NC State beats Boston College, I'm happy. Right? When they lose to Syracuse in overtime, I'm not happy. Right? They're reactions. Those are reactions. Joy is something deeper. It's more of an outlook and it's rooted in something greater. Often, identity, who I am. I have joy because no matter what happens with NC State's basketball team, thank goodness, I am in Christ.

Identity. It also has something to do with eternal realities. I will tell you that when I have worshipped, experiencing worship, coming in here on Sunday mornings is great. There have been some incredible, phenomenal Easter Sunday services in this church that I've experienced over the years. They are some of the best worship services that I've been. But when I consider the top five worship services that I have experienced, I want you to know that four out of those five have been funeral services. You know why? Because lament doesn't detract from joy, it highlights it. When the background is darker, the reality of who we are in Christ shines brighter.

The father of lights doesn't change with shifting shadows. He is always bright. He is always loving. He is always kind and who we are in Christ Jesus does not change. So when James is saying consider it all joy, he's not saying hey you should look at the circumstances that you're in, the hardness that you're experiencing and you should stop lamenting. You shouldn't have sorrow. He's fine with that. He's fine with having sorrow. He's simply saying lean into the reality that is greater than the circumstances that you find yourself in.

Faith Is Tested, Not You

Secondly, notice that James in verse three says, "You know that it's a testing of your faith." Here's another way that we misuse this passage. You can read that and say, okay, the trials are a test for me. I gotta pass the test. To a certain degree that is true—it is actually your faith, right? And so there is a sense in which it is testing you. But notice that it's your faith that's being tested. Not you. It's your faith.

What is our faith? Our faith is in Jesus Christ, the one who rose from the dead. And so what he's saying is when these hardships come, these challenges, they are tests to see if what you believe in is actually worth believing in. If it is something that is actually powerful enough to stand up to those tests. And as you walk through them, what happens is Jesus Christ, the one whom your faith is in—your faith will pass the test. You will see time and time and time again as hardships come like waves against the shore that the faith in Jesus Christ like a rock stands firm, doesn't recede, doesn't fall back. The trials and hardships of this life, none of those stand up to what Jesus Christ has done.

Testing Produces Endurance

Secondly, thirdly, you know that when your faith is tested it produces endurance. Produces endurance. So this test comes. Something hard comes. Faith is applied to it in a way that we are able to survive and see through it. Basically all it did was increase the value. Even as we lament the pain, it increased the value of what we have in Christ. And so therefore we come out of it on the other side with endurance.

And how do we know that that's what's going to happen? James has seen it. Right? He's seen hardships come to his brother. He saw his brother carry a cross up to a hill and be crucified and died and then he saw him rise from the dead. That's some kind of endurance. Not even death could be a trial that could take him down.

Hebrews puts it this way:

For the joy that was laid before Him, Jesus Christ endured the cross. — Hebrews 12

Notice the same language as James one here. Jesus Christ found joy in the identity and reality of the heavenly reality of eternity that He was achieving for us—us being in heaven with Him. He saw that joy. That was what defined Him and because of that He endured the cross. We who experience and pick up our cross and follow Him, we endure that for the joy that's set before us being with Him in eternity. And as we experience more and more challenges and we see God's resurrection power at work in those things, we endure.

And what does that endurance produce? Verse 12 gives us the picture: the full effect is maturity and ultimately, the crown of life. Maturity and the crown of life.

Maturity Brings Confidence

Over Christmas my mom sent a text just before Christmas with a picture of a zip line. She said you should consider getting that for the kids for Christmas. And I thought, wow, that would be fun. Where am I gonna put a zip line in my house in Downtown Raleigh with our point, you know, 10 acres of land? But my parents have a house in Nashville. So you know what I got my mom for Christmas? I got her a zip line. My parents are in their seventies. We had this zip line and we ran it all the way across their house and you know the first part of it was kind of a pretty steep drop off. And the kids and my parents, they were all looking at that and they were going, "I don't know. I don't know about this."

But then my stepdad, hero that he is, former army soldier, he steps up in the glory of his seventies and he hops on this zip line and he goes. And we see him and all of a sudden the kids are like, "Alright, let's do it. If he'll hold him, right? It'll hold us." And now I was still a little nervous because I'm still a little heavier than him. But then I went and then after that we were good. We just kept going, we just kept going, we just kept going.

When you apply your faith to the hardships and you experience the way in which it produces endurance, it brings about maturity. And when you have maturity, right, you're confident in the crown of life which is ultimately what you're gonna get.

This past summer when I was struggling with depression, I called a mentor of mine. A mentor who has been through a lot. He's also in his seventies. He's this very wise pastor. And I said, "I'm struggling with depression." And you know what he said? He said, "It's because you're a wimp." I was reflecting with Jeff Bradford afterwards. I was like, there are maybe two people in the world that could have said that to me. But he's one of them. You know why? Because he's been through it. He's mature. He knows what he's talking about and he was able to help me see that I had lost a grip on the joy that was my identity even as I was clinging tightly to the circumstances that were so hard. And he encouraged me to grab hold of that again. And that's what James is doing here.

Points of Application

Brothers and sisters, when you go through hard times, please don't take this as an exhortation to not lament. Please lament. Please allow yourself to experience sorrow. Please be a human being like Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus and weep even though he knows he's about to raise him from the dead. But don't forget as you're weeping that Jesus raises people from the dead. There is nothing in this world that can come up against us that has any hope of taking us down.

What James is saying is we can in the light of the resurrection be like kung fu masters who have mastered the art of coming at this and we just say bring it on. Bring it on. Whatever kind of attack you've got, we know that the world cannot stand against the savior who has redeemed us and who will bring us safely to heaven no matter what comes. Remember that. Lament but don't forget.

Various Trials and Temptations

Notice this passage talks about trials and temptations and it differentiates them. First of all, let's talk about the trials. What is he talking about here? It's easy to just assume he's talking about persecution and I think he is. But he gives us some very specific examples of some kinds of trials you might experience.

Right after verse four, starting in verse five, he mentions lacking wisdom. Do you see that in the passage? He mentions lacking wisdom. What does it say? Let me read it.

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting for the doubter is like the surging sea. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord being double minded and unstable in all his ways. — James 1:5-8

So he's describing a trial. Do you see? I'm in a trial where I lack wisdom. So he's saying hey some trials come from the lack of your own self being sufficient for the moment. So that could be things like lacking wisdom. It could also be things like lacking faith.

So he's saying what do you do when you don't feel up for the challenge? When you feel insufficient? When that is the challenge? He says you should ask. You should ask God for whatever you need. Do you need wisdom? Ask Him for it. Believe that He'll give it to you. I think he has in mind Solomon here, right? Who when faced with taking over a vast kingdom felt insufficient. He asked for wisdom and it was given to him. But I think also of the man who came to Jesus and Jesus said anything's possible for those who believe and he says, Lord I believe help me in my unbelief.

When you face the challenge of not being enough, James says you should ask. What are you lacking this morning? Where do you find yourself insufficient for the challenges you're facing? You should be praying that God would use the challenge to bring about growth in your life. To bring you to maturity. To give you the thing that you need.

Circumstantial Trials

Notice also he mentions circumstantial trials. This is verses nine through eleven. Let me read that.

Let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his exaltation but let the rich boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. — James 1:9-11

Isn't it interesting that he mentions both poverty and wealth as a trial? Both poverty and wealth are trials. Think about that. When you don't have enough money, that's hard. But sometimes when you have enough money that's a different kind of hard. There's all sorts of things like this in our life. Some of you are single. Some of you are married. All of those are trials. Sometimes when we're single we think that marriage isn't a trial and when we're married we think single isn't a trial, don't we? We have this tendency to think if our circumstances just changed the trials would go away but that's never true, is it? You could be healthy, you could be sick, you could have a job, you could not have a job. All of those come with their own trials.

And notice what he does here. He doesn't say in different trials you should just ask God to change your circumstances. Why? Because if he changes your circumstances in a broken and fallen world, there's still going to be trials. The world will always test and our faith will always stand up to that test to reveal the sufficiency of Christ.

So whatever circumstance you find yourself in, he says you should boast in the opposite direction. If you are poor, you should remember that you are going to be exalted. You who are the image of God have been redeemed and are going to be with Jesus Christ as a king in heaven forever. You are wealthy even when you're poor. And if you're rich, you should boast in your humiliation. Your money does not cover over your sin or your brokenness. So you go the opposite direction in terms of boasting.

But notice what he doesn't say.

And notice if you look at the New Testament, it is so rare, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, but it is so rare for people to actually pray for their circumstances to change. They pray for their character to change. They pray for growth in the situation. Paul almost never says, "Hey, pray that I be released from prison." He's always saying, "Hey, pray that I might know the Gospel and others might know the Gospel." They pray for heart change. Almost always.

Almost always when I hear people in America pray, we're praying for circumstances. "Lord, give me this. I want this." And that's okay. It's okay to go to your heavenly Father and ask for things. I'm not saying that's wrong, but what would it look like for us to actually consider the eternal realities of what we already have as the foundation for what we pray for and us becoming more like Christ, being the thing that we desire more than the trappings of this world? That's what he's saying.

Trials and Temptations

And then in verses 13 through 15 he starts talking about temptations. Let me read that:

No one undergoing a trial should say, "I am being tempted by God" since God is not tempted by evil and He Himself doesn't tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and when sin is fully grown it gives birth to death. — James 1:13-15

Temptations are different than trials. Do you see that? He's saying that trials come from God and it's important to note God can use temptations as trials. He's sovereign. What James is saying is temptations don't come from God. They come from this world. They come from not the Father of lights but the Father of lies. Right? That's what he's saying.

These temptations come and they appeal to our desires. And the Greek here is actually "over desires." There's a tendency that we have as broken fallen human beings to want things other than God to fill the hole inside of our hearts. And when trials come, our temptation is to run away from trials and to run towards temptations. When the hard comes, it's like, "I gotta get to something easy, something that'll fulfill me." Right? We've all experienced this.

When something hard happens, you are being attacked in that moment probably more than any other time because the devil comes alongside of you and he says, "You know what would make this really hard thing a little better? It'd be that thing that you really like. How about some food? Like a lot of food. How about something to drink like a little alcohol? Maybe a little more. Maybe a little more. How about that thing you like to look at that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside?" Right?

These temptations, these things that are not necessarily bad things, but when they become the thing they are bad things because they pull you away from the trial and back to the world.

And then it's talking about these two things, these two situations. There's two metaphors here. There's two kinds of unions that are giving birth to things in this passage. Do you notice that? Trials met with faith give birth to endurance. Right? Temptations met with desire, over desire give birth to sin. Endurance when it grows up gives you maturity and the crown of life. Sin when it grows up gives you death. You see?

So it's kind of similar again to Solomon in Proverbs where he talks about lady wisdom and lady folly. You're going to marry one of these things. There's a part of you that wants to get married to the reality of this world in one of two ways. One way you can get married in this world is you can marry the reality that Jesus Christ is enough and as you encounter trials and temptations, you can meet that with faith and see endurance and go on to the crown of life. The other thing you can marry is you can run from those trials. You can run towards temptations. You can marry this world, give birth to sin and then die with it. Do you see?

That's what James is saying. He's saying face up to the trials. Embrace them. Not because they're fun but because they reveal something in you that is eternal. And flee temptation because if you marry yourself to that you will die. You see?

Application

Alright. Our application is simply this for this section. It's really hard to embrace trials. It's really hard to do that. But walking in the path of the cross, picking up our cross and following Christ reveals him in us. Paul talks about us being one with him both in our sufferings and in our resurrection. And our hope that is rooted in him is made more visible not only to us but to a world when we embrace challenges.

So brothers and sisters in Christ, the first command that the Holy Spirit wrote down for the early church to view is essentially summed up in Jesus' teaching: "Pick up your cross and follow me. Trust me, I will go first so you can see how it will go. It will be terrible. It will be hard. But I've gone and I've made a way not only for you to be one with me in suffering but also to be one with me in glory."

Don't Be Deceived

Don't forget that your identity is here, not here. And I'm gonna wrap up now and look at verses 16 through 18. I've titled this: don't be deceived.

This last section says this:

Don't be deceived my brothers and sisters. Notice brothers with the brother of Jesus. Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father lights who does not change like shifting shadows by his own choice. He gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.

Don't be deceived. The reality of the death and resurrection of Christ is assumed throughout this book. It is true James. James doesn't even feel like he needs to defend it. But he says don't forget.

I'll tell you this—last time I talked about this, I got glasses. And you've all been so kind to tell me that I look like 25 or 40% smarter with the glasses. Thanks for that. Some of you have said that I look better with them than without them. Thank you for that. You all look better with them than without them, right? That's the point.

There's a couple things with glasses that I'm learning. Sometimes I don't really like them because I can forget them. And when I forget my glasses now that I've had them and I can see clearly, there's a big difference. And then I'm like, where are my glasses? And I'll search the house and I can't find them. I left them at the office. I hate it when I lose my glasses.

Or, this is the worst—you can get smudges on these things. In fact, I got a bunch of smudges on here right now. And even though they make me see clearer overall, I can get junk on them and not see as clearly. And sometimes I debate in my mind, is this worth it? These stupid smudges that I'm always having to wipe off.

That's what it's like in the Christian life, isn't it? Once we put our faith in the resurrection, we put on these lenses just like James did and we say, "We believe this stuff"—but we forget sometimes, don't we? Smudges can get on and we can see things not so perfectly through that lens because it's a foreign way of seeing. We've been born again. This is new to us. There's something new to it.

And James is saying there are several ways you can be deceived. You can miss see.

One is that you can kind of forget your glasses and you can think that God is giving us trials to hurt us. You can forget about the resurrection. You can think this is just punishment. And that's why he says, God gives us good gifts. Every good and perfect gift comes down from Him. He's the Father of lights.

Then sometimes we forget that God's in control of what's happening around us. We just see the circumstances and we're like, "This is awful. Why can nothing be done about this? God must be unable to change anything." And that's not true. He's the Father of lights. He didn't just create the sun and the moon and the stars. The light itself is Him, right? Everything around adjusts to Him, not the other way around. So these sufferings that we're experiencing, they're very much under His control. He's in control. He's using them.

Deception number three that he addresses is maybe God has changed. Maybe He changed His mind about us. Maybe it's not that He loves us. No? He's unchanging. Or maybe it's that we are of this world.

And then verse 18 gets back to His testimony:

By His will—CSV translates as choice, which I think is a little weak. In the Greek, it's will. He has willed intentionally, willed the word of God to give birth to us, the newborn members of his kingdom.

We're not of this world. We've been reborn. Put on your glasses. Remember that. You can walk through this world and we can just think we're animals, a bunch of animals in the room just talking about some pie in the sky hope that isn't real. But no, brothers and sisters—Jesus rose from the dead. This hope is real.

You remember in The Lion King when Simba runs away and Mufasa comes—James Earl Jones, Darth Vader himself—and he says, "You have to remember. You have forgotten who you are."

Paul's amen to what James is saying is this, and I'll end with this:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. Listen. More than that, who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor heights nor depths nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39

People talk about James and Paul arguing, but they are in lockstep on this. When you put on the glasses of the resurrection of Christ, whatever challenge you're facing, you see it as the cross he's called you to carry on your way to resurrection. Resurrection that will be eternal and is yours because he has achieved it for you.

Christ the King, may we live in light of the resurrection as those who are true followers of Christ. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Amen.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, would you please help us to live in light of your resurrection? Lord, forgive us when we are deceived, when we forget, when we don't see clearly. But Lord, press in on us our identity in you and allow us to live lives of joy in the midst of brokenness and fallenness in ourselves and all around us. We pray this in your name. Amen.