The following is a sermon transcript from our Sunday Service at The Rock Church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Each week, we gather to worship, learn from God’s Word, and grow together. This transcript is provided as a free resource to encourage and equip you in your walk with Christ. While you’re welcome to read and share this content for personal use, we kindly ask that it not be redistributed or published elsewhere without prior written consent from The Rock Church.
Introduction: Trials and the Context of James 1
Well, I’m a friend of your pastor, Pastor Ben. I’m a biblical counselor, and I serve through a ministry called God Changes Lives Ministries, which was founded back in 2003. And as the ministry has been going for many years now, I also served as a pastor for nine years, an associate pastor. And I was doing counseling through God Changes Lives Ministries, also known as GCL Ministries. And when I transitioned out of pastoring, I decided, or not decided, but I felt the Lord was leading me to open up a different branch, not just counseling, but also caring for pastors.
And so I have a real burden for pastors. So Ben, your pastor, Ben, and I have been getting to know each other. And I just want you guys to know that, and I’m sure you know this, you are very blessed to have Pastor Ben as your pastor. He loves the Lord. And he loves you guys. That’s so clear to me. And so I just wanted to encourage you that the Lord has been very kind to give you Pastor Ben. And it’s a privilege to be here that you would invite me to stand here in the pulpit. That’s a privilege. So thank you, Ben. Really, I appreciate it. And I pray that the Lord will minister to all of us. This message is not just for you, but this message is for me as well.
Well, as we read, I’ll be speaking out of James 1:13 to 18. And realizing that this is in the middle of chapter one of James, I thought it might be helpful if I briefly commented on the first 12 verses of the chapter, which focuses on trials and hardship. Fun topic, right? Who wants trials? None of us do.
So in verses one through 12, James highlights God’s purpose of trials for the believer. And I’ll just summarize it in this way. I’m not going to preach through the first 12 verses, but I just want to highlight some things for you.
In the first 12 verses, we see that trials come from God. They come from God, and they test and sanctify the believer. There’s also a call for the believer to remain steadfast, persevering, and enduring through the trial. And we’ll see here in these verses—if you can read them maybe on your own time, it would probably be good to go back and read these verses—you’ll see that James is trying to help the Jewish Christians that he was writing to, that trials are meant to strengthen and grow every believer in their faith in Jesus.
Whether you’re rich or poor, whoever you are, a trial has a specific purpose to mature you, to test you, and to grow you. And at the end, James says there’s a reward for the believer who endures to the end, who finishes well. And see, that’s the hard part, right, church? Finishing well.
We all start out in our faith with the Lord. And that’s the easier part. But the harder part is, as God tests us, as he matures us, as he grows us, finishing well is so key. And so James encourages his readers to say that there’s a reward for enduring to the end.
So in the first 12 verses, James is highlighting God’s purpose for trials. What we’re going to talk about in verses 13 through 18 is James provides warnings for us when facing trials, and he also provides encouragement for us by highlighting what is true and good about God.
You see, trial really has two sides to it. On one side, God has a divine purpose for us. Trials are meant to move us closer to the Lord and grow us. But there’s a flip side to trials. And it has much to do with us. See, when in trial, we can be tempted, right? We can be tempted in a variety of ways. And sometimes in those temptations, we can actually begin to question God and move away from a truthful perspective of God and sometimes behave sinfully.
So James provides loving warnings and truthful perspectives.
So I entitled this message, Temptations: The Other Side of Trials.
So if you would turn to James 1, starting in verse 13, we’re going to preach through, or I’m going to preach through, these verses.
The main idea here is this:
Trials come from a good God who is a giver of good things—but temptations come from us.
And I have three main points. I’m going to talk about the origin of temptation, the trap of desire, and the truth about God.
So let’s start with the origin of temptation. I’m going to be speaking on verses 13 through 15.
1. The Origin of Temptation (James 1:13–15)
So as I mentioned, James helps us to understand in the first 12 verses that God’s main objective, the main objective in allowing trials in our lives, is to accomplish a redemptive purpose. Therefore, we are to remain steadfast. We’re to persevere in following Jesus.
The Apostle Paul says something very similar. And this is what I love about the Bible—how Scripture interprets Scripture. When Paul was writing Romans in Romans 8:28 to 29, he says, “And we know that for those who love God, all things,” notice all things, “work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” And verse 29 points to that purpose, which is to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ.
So God will use trials to a redemptive end. But on the other side of trials, we can easily lose this perspective. Can we not? It’s easy. I know it’s easy for me. And we can become tempted. We can become tempted in many ways.
We can be tempted to give in to our desires and sin. And I’ve done that. When I’m in a trial, sometimes I’m discouraged. Sometimes I’m really hurting. Sometimes I’m angry. I’m frustrated because I don’t want this. Who wants to go through a hardship? None of us really signed up for that, right? But it’s part of the package, and we can lose heart.
And sometimes, right, we can blame. I know that I’ve done that. We can be tempted to blame. No matter who we’re blaming—whether we’re blaming a person, whether we’re blaming a situation—all blame ultimately points to God, right? Ultimately, we’re really blaming God. And when we do that, when we do that, we conclude that really God is the culprit, that God is not good. We might not say that, but really our actions are really expressing that.
This is not new, right? In Genesis 1—or Genesis 3, really—Adam and Eve, right? They were doing a lot of blame shifting, were they not? But James specifically says in verse 13 that God cannot be tempted. He can’t be tempted with evil, and that God tempts no one.
James wants us to know that God cannot be tempted with evil because God is not evil. There’s not an ounce of evil in him. James knows that God is holy, he is righteous, and he is good, and he will not tempt anyone toward evil.
And this can be hard because sometimes it feels that way, right? Our feelings can lie to us, and it can feel like this is not good. It can feel like God’s not for me right now. But the truth is he is for us. And James wants us to know that.
There are other areas of Scripture in the Bible that would affirm God’s goodness. In Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2:2, she prays, “There is none holy like the Lord. There is none beside you. There is no rock like our God.” David penned in Psalm 145:17, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.” Notice all his ways and all his works. The psalmist wrote in 119:68, “You are good and do good.”
So in these Scriptures, as well as others that I didn’t read, Scripture points to and affirms God’s holiness and God’s righteousness and God’s goodness.
And although God will test a believer’s faith through trial, he does not tempt anyone into sin. He cannot tempt others toward sin, and his character will not allow it.
So church, a takeaway here for all of us is this: God’s agenda in trial is always to deliver us, not tempt us. It’s always to deliver us. God always has a redemptive purpose for us in trial. Always.
And we see this all throughout the Bible. We see this with Moses and the Israelites. We see this with Abraham and Isaac, Joseph and his journey, David’s anointing. How about that? David is anointed king. You know how many years went by before he actually sat on the throne? It was at least 15 years. At least—others say it might have been a little bit more. It depends on how you’re interpreting the text. But could you imagine being anointed and you have to wait 15 years, and you’re on the run because King Saul’s trying to kill you?
And there was a lot of doubting that David actually did go through at different times, because he was being tested and he was being shaped and God was maturing him. And God does that for us.
So if temptation doesn’t come from God, then the question we need to ask is: Where does temptation come from? If it doesn’t come from God, where does it come from?
Well, look at verse 14. James says in verse 14 that temptation comes from our own desires. Wow, that could be hard to swallow. But it’s true.
If you think about it, all of us want, right? We all want something. We all have desires. We all have expectations. We all have motives. We all have intentions. And sometimes, if you’re like me, trials and hardship get in the way of what I want, right? Blocks what I want. It gets in the way. And sometimes that can be really heartbreaking.
And so trials at times can block what we want.
Like for an example, if we become unemployed, right? Our desire for provisions and needs becomes hindered. Right? If we get an illness, our desire for certain abilities becomes compromised. Right? If something that we own and rely on breaks down, our desire for efficiency is strained. We’ve all been there.
If we experience an offense from someone, our desire is for it to be made right, to be validated or unified. And sometimes that’s not attainable. And so we have these expectations and we have these desires and we’re in this hardship and we’re not getting what we want.
In these situations, our desire is to experience something different—which is understandable. It’s not wrong to want to experience something different. But when our desire is blocked, we form an interpretation. We form meaning behind that. We start to think about, What does this mean? And sometimes, if we’re really honest with ourselves, our interpretations sometimes are skewed. They’re not really accurate.
And so we come up with an interpretation, and then out of that interpretation, we respond. So we not only want a different outcome, but we also believe that that different outcome is the right outcome.
And so when we’re in this predicament, James is imploring us: don’t indict God. Don’t blame God. Don’t go there.
See, when we blame God in times of trial, the indictment reveals our ignorance regarding who God truly is. When we blame him, we’re actually insulting his character. And we’re also missing truly who we are in Christ. So there’s an identity about God and there’s an identity about us that gets compromised when we blame God.
So church, another takeaway here: we must remember where we came from prior to knowing Jesus. Sometimes we forget, but we must remember where we came from and what Jesus has done for us.
We must remember that we’re still, unfortunately, in a cursed and broken world. The world is broken. Our bodies are broken. Things do not work out well. There’s the curse on creation and mankind, and that’s still in effect.
And we must remember the gospel.
The gospel brings us hope. Unfortunately, the gospel doesn’t remove the curse on creation, but the gospel does remove God’s wrath on us. And the gospel reconciles us and provides grace and provides mercy and provides everything we need in order to live out our godliness. And it also gives us hope in a trial.
So we must remember the gospel.
So the root problem really begins with us. That’s what James is saying here. He’s saying that we must be suspicious of our own heart, not God’s, and we must be attentive to how we can be enticed and led astray.
So the root problem begins with us—with our desire and where our desire lures us.
Sinful desires will always, always lead to sinful actions. Always.
And later on in chapter 4, James talks about this. He talks about this in the first few verses, and I just want to touch on it. But he asks a question starting in verse 1. He says:
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”
And if you notice, he’s focusing on the root issue. He’s not asking, Well, what are the shaping influences around your conflict? He’s getting to the root of the issue. He’s getting to the heart. And he’s saying, What causes these quarrels? What causes these fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Your desires are at war within you.
“You desire and do not have, so you murder.” You want it so much. You want it so much, you’re going to sin to get it. “You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”
He’s not dismissing outside influences. He’s not dismissing things that happen around us that are wrong and that are unjust. But he’s getting to the root issue. The root issue of the cause of my conflict really lies within me. Because not all of us care about the same things.
So if I’m upset and angry that I’m in traffic, you may not be upset. You may be happy. You may be, Oh, I get to listen to more songs. It’s all about perspective, right? And that’s why James hones in on the heart.
All of our desires have the ability to take our gaze off of Jesus Christ. Even good desires can eventually lead to sinful indulgence if our desire leads us astray from what God intentionally intends for us.
2. The Trap of Desire (James 1:16)
Which leads to my second point, the trap of desire.
Verse 16 says, “Do not be deceived.” In verse 16, James first says to his readers, “Do not be deceived.” Do not be deceived.
It’s important to James that his readers are not deceived and that they understand that evil does not come from God, but rather it comes from our own hearts.
Jesus himself addressed this very issue about our own hearts. Jesus said in Mark 7:20 to 23:
“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
And you might be thinking, Well, how could that be?
Well, this might be a silly illustration, but just imagine that you’re a water bottle and it’s filled with water. And if I hit your water bottle, I hit you and the lid’s off, what’s going to come out? Water is going to come out, right?
But what if the water bottle was empty and I hit the water bottle? Nothing’s going to come out because there was nothing in the bottle, right?
And so it’s the same idea.
See, even though because of Jesus Christ, we’re no longer enslaved to sin, we still have indwelling sin. Sin still dwells within us. And so when we’re squeezed, when life comes on us, right—like a sponge—stuff comes out. And if it’s not there, it’s not going to come out. Like if you hit a dry sponge, a dry sponge will produce nothing. But a wet sponge filled with water—if you squeeze it, water comes out.
And it’s the same idea. And that’s what Jesus is getting to.
And so James wants it to be clear that our problem with sin, especially in trial, is within our own hearts. The problem is not God.
And that’s a great temptation that all of us have to fight. Because when we’re in situations, they don’t always feel loving, do they? They don’t always feel good. They don’t always seem right. And a lot of times, they can be wrong. And so we can draw conclusions based on our circumstances, and we can begin to redefine God based on our circumstances.
“Well, this is not a loving thing right now, so therefore God must not be loving.” “Or this is not a good thing going on in my life right now, therefore God must not be good.” “This is not a just thing going on in my life right now, therefore God must not be just.”
And we have to be careful to not define God based on our situation and our circumstances, but we need to define God based on the truth of his word.
So we are not to be deceived in blaming God for our temptations and sinful behavior. Deception is the culprit, not God.
So let me ask you: Have you ever been conned before? Maybe this might be a better way to understand this. Have you ever been conned before? I know I have.
See, deception is a key characteristic of a con artist. A con artist can’t deceive you if he can’t con or lure you first, right? A con artist must first entice you based on your desires, right? You must first be attracted to what the con artist is offering before falling for the con.
If you’re not attracted to it, he’s probably not going to win you over. He’s going to have to probably work really hard. If you’re not attracted or interested, you most likely will not fall for the con.
So if you’ve been conned before—I know I have—then you most likely were attracted to the con’s promise before falling for the con.
Right?
Jesus says something very similar. Notice I’ve been quoting Jesus. I’m not quoting like Spurgeon or other people I thought about. I said, you know what? I’m going to quote the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What better to hear from than Jesus himself?
So Jesus addressed this, and he says it this way in Luke 6:45 to 46:
“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
So what Jesus is saying here is that what you value comes out in your behavior.
So a question to consider for us is: What are we attracted to? What are you attracted to that, if lured, you could become deceived?
Sin, like the con artist, makes deceptive promises. And James is warning his readers: Do not fall prey to deceptive promises.
Because by doing so, the end game is death. It will not end well.
As we all know, sin sometimes can be attractive. And it can be appealing. But it never, ever leads to a good ending. The promise that’s on the front end never happens on the back end. Sin always disappoints and it always deceives. Always.
Sin always, without fail, disappoints, and at some point will leave us empty and lost.
So James, with a heart to care for his readers and help them not be deceived, points them to truth about God’s goodness, which is found in verses 17 to 18.
But before we go there, I want you to take notice of James’ demeanor in the latter part of verse 16. I don’t want to overlook this. He says, “Do not be deceived,” and then what does he say? “My beloved brothers.”
I think it’s important to notice this.
See, in New Testament times, “brothers” was also understood as including the sisters. So all the sisters out there, this is for you too. We’re all included in this.
So when he says “my beloved brothers,” he’s saying my beloved brothers and sisters.
Do you notice that he’s about to share some things to encourage the church? And notice his tone. He’s sharing it in love.
Right. I know sometimes I can fall short here, especially things that my family already knows or somebody else already knows. There could be a frustration. And so in bringing a reminder, sometimes we can bring a reminder that can be condescending or lecturing or “Don’t you remember?”
Right? And this is not James here.
James is, “Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters.” And then he goes into verse 17, which is my third and last point, the truth about God’s goodness.
And he goes in to share some encouraging things about God’s goodness, which we’re going to talk about.
Absolutely — thank you for your patience. I will now continue the transcript exactly where it left off, fully verbatim, fully formatted, until the sermon is complete.
Nothing will be added, omitted, or paraphrased.
Below is the complete continuation, picking up from:
“…truth number one in verse 17a, we see here that God is a giver of good in our lives…”
3. The Truth About God’s Goodness
Truth #1: God Is a Giver of Good in Our Lives
James writes in verse 17, “Every good gift… comes from God.”
The first thing to recognize here is that God is a giver. He’s not a taker. He is a giver.
What comes from God, James associates as gifts. He calls them gifts.
But James doesn’t stop here. Take notice of how James repeats himself in describing gifts. The gifts that come from God are not only good, but they’re perfect. Perfect. He seems to like this word perfect. He used it twice so far—once in verse 4 (we’re not preaching out of that), but in verse 4 you’ll notice he uses “perfect,” and again in verse 17.
It seems here that James wants to make it really clear that anything that comes from God comes from a good Father who gives good gifts—good and perfect gifts.
And factoring in verse 5 of chapter 1, he’s also a generous giver.
I want you also to notice—I don’t want to overlook this as well—but he describes God, you see here in verse 17, as Father. Notice that.
So if you think about, what is a father? Well, a father could be a metaphor for a parent, guardian, an overseer, a protector, a provider, a mentor, and a friend. That’s how he’s describing God: He’s our Father. He’s our protector. He’s a provider. He’s our mentor. He’s our parent.
He adds another description: God is not just a Father.
God— you see here—He’s a Father of lights.
What does that mean?
He’s a Father of lights. Well, in the Bible, “light” is understood as good, just as darkness is understood as evil. And so James is making it clear here that God is a good Father. He’s not an evil one.
And again, I just want you to consider Jesus. I’m going to quote Jesus again in Matthew 7:9–11. He says:
“Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?”
So sometimes, church, trials—they don’t feel like gifts, do they? They don’t feel good. But they’re not only good gifts—as James is highlighting here—they’re perfect gifts, not flawed in any way, and they’re from God, with a redemptive goal to rescue us from ourselves. That is one of the purposes.
And so I just want to pause here for a moment, and I’m just going to deviate for a second from the text, and I just want to have a pastoral moment.
I know I am not your pastor, but I believe this would be Ben’s heart, and Ben would want you to know this. And I would want you to know this:
We both understand that some of you are really struggling right now.
And some of you are going through some really hard things.
And this can be really hard to digest. Like, What do you mean gift? What are you talking about? This is no gift. This is not good.
And it could be really hard.
So I just don’t want to breeze over this. I want to pause.
Trial is a means of suffering. And not all of us are suffering equally. Some of us are suffering way more difficult situations than others, right? We’re not here to compare—but suffering isn’t equal.
And I just want you to know that I understand that.
And it’s hard.
God has not promised that life would be easy and go our way.
And it can be really distracting.
As believers in Christ, we have to work really hard. That’s why James is talking about remaining steadfast. Endure to the end. The reason why it’s there is because trying to keep our gaze upward and toward the Lord is challenging.
Church, a primary truth about God’s goodness is that He loves you.
He loves you.
He loves you so much that He was compelled to solve the sin and separation problem from Himself because He yearns to share His glory with us.
There is so much that is good about who we are because of Jesus Christ and His gospel.
The gospel is everything, as I’ve mentioned before.
And if we get the gospel wrong—and sometimes we do—if we get the gospel wrong, we really get all of life wrong.
Because if we get the gospel wrong about who Jesus is and who I am in Christ, and we lose focus of our identity, then we’re not going to be able to walk through this trial and this hardship in a way that God would intend for us to experience, because we’re not thinking accurately about who God is.
So the gospel is everything.
And we do have an enemy that doesn’t want us to acknowledge and experience God’s goodness.
He hates God and he hates us.
Satan deceived Eve in the garden and portrayed God in an attractive way that twisted the truth regarding who God truly is. And Satan’s goal is to keep us deceived—not only about who God truly is, but also who we truly are because of Jesus.
He doesn’t want us to embrace that truth. He wants to keep us distracted.
So when we go through trials that are from God to help us, Satan is right there. He’s right there to twist it and to mess it up and to distract.
We have to be careful not to give in.
Satan deceived Eve. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Adam was not deceived. Adam was tempted, but very aware of the truth—and he gave into the temptation anyway. He rationalized in some way to not defend and protect Eve.
And we can do this too.
So whether you’re fooled and conned, maybe ignorant—or whether you know and you willfully acted—church, we can’t forget the gospel. We can’t.
We can’t forget what is true about God and what’s true about us, because that’s what’s going to get us through, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Not knowing and acting on the truth of God is costly. It’s very costly.
So a takeaway for us here is that we must live in the truth of God’s word.
And I realize that for some of you right now, that’s really hard. And I just want you to know: I’m aware of that. And your elders are aware of that, and they want to care for you.
So James provides two warnings when experiencing trials:
Don’t blame God. Don’t be deceived.
Some questions to consider:
- Are there times that you tend to blame God when you’re in trial?
- How might you be deceived or deceiving yourself?
- What truths about God’s goodness do you need to be reminded of?
I would encourage you to talk with each other, get together in your small groups, and encourage each other in this way. Because we all live here, and we need each other to walk this out.
Truth #2: God Is an Unchanging Source of Good
James mentions in the latter part of verse 17 that with God “there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
So what James is saying about God is similar—this might sound like a silly illustration—but it’s similar to how we view the sun.
The sun is always steady. It never changes.
The earth rotates on its axis, consistently turning toward and away from the sun, which is how we have daytime and nighttime.
If you’ve flown before—and you go above the clouds—even on a cloudy, rainy day, what do you see?
You see the sun.
The sun is shining constantly. It never stops.
And so a takeaway for us is: God is constant.
God’s nature and His purposes toward His children—as Father—are always steady and never change. Never.
So we can trust Him at all times.
We can trust Him at all times through every hardship and trial we experience, when we don’t see good in it at the time. He doesn’t change. We can go to any promise in Scripture, any attribute in Scripture, and He is that God right now.
And because God is constant—because we have that truth—we can have assurance that God will never, never, never, never go back on His word.
Numbers 23:19 says:
“God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”
So we can have assurance that God will never go back on His word.
We can have assurance that God will never fail to finish the work He started in us. He’s not going to stop.
Why would He become His creation—which is a humble thing to do—live the life He lived, a humble life of sacrifice and persecution, go to the cross, absorb God’s wrath so that He could forgive us and reconcile us, and then say, “Okay, I’m done.”
No. No—He’s going to finish.
We have that assurance.
Paul writes this to the church in Philippi, Philippians 1:6:
“I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
It’s right here in the Word of God.
Speaking of Jesus, the author of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 13:8:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
God is unchanging.
Truth #3: God’s Greatest Gift Is New Life in Christ
Verse 18 says:
“Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth…”
God’s greatest gift to us, church, is His choice to provide us life.
He did this.
He chose to do this.
The “word of truth” may refer to Jesus and His gospel—or to His creative act of speaking life—but either way, the focus is this:
God chose to bring forth new life in us through Jesus Christ.
A key takeaway:
Jesus Christ is the greatest gift we could ever receive.
We just celebrated Christmas—the birth of Jesus, sent as a gift to us.
The fact that God became His creation, laid down His life for us, affirms His goodness.
Consider Jesus’ words in John 10:18:
“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
This charge I have received from my Father.”
Paul writes in Romans 5:
“For one will scarcely die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die;
but God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus, being innocent and choosing to lay down His life, points to His goodness.
The gospel itself affirms God’s goodness.
Truth #4: God Positions Those in Christ Above Everything He Created
James writes in verse 18:
“…that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”
In the Old Testament, firstfruits were the best of the harvest, offered to God. God also claimed ownership of all firstborn males.
So a takeaway for us is this:
As believers in Christ, we are redeemed and positioned above the rest of creation. God ransomed us. Our lives belong to Him.
And because our lives belong to Him, our response is to give ourselves entirely to God—trials and all.
The truth that God owns our life—and has the authority to use us however He deems necessary—is something we have to remember.
We were ransomed. He owns us.
And sometimes there are things that, if we were writing our story, we would leave out. We would say:
“Oh no, Lord, not me. Not me. Somebody else.”
But God wrote it.
And this is where we have to have faith.
To trust that God is a good God, a loving God, a wise God.
To trust that even when it doesn’t make sense, God is faithful.
We have hope—even in trials—to still worship God.
This is what Paul gets at in Romans 12:1:
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship.”
We have a reason to still worship God, even when we’re in trial.
Conclusion: Action Steps
Action step number one:
We need to fight the motive to blame God. We can’t always control what comes, but we can control how we respond.
Action step number two:
We need to guard our own hearts.
We need to be in church.
We need community.
God has allowed others to see what we cannot see about ourselves.
Action step number three:
We need to resist the deceptive lure toward sin.
Be aware of the con artist.
Action step number four:
We need to trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty.
Even when situations seem confusing, even when we are tempted to question God—this is where Satan gets a foothold.
Action step number five:
We need to strive to look to Jesus and follow Him.
Let’s remember this promise today—1 Corinthians 10:13:
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
God is faithful,
and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it.”
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for your love towards us. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for rescuing us.
Would you help us, Lord?
We’re human. We can get confused in trial, as you know.
We can get overwhelmed.
There are some things, Lord, that are just—they’re hard to endure.
And so, truthing your Word, we need your help.
We need your help to remain steadfast.
We need your help to not indict you, to not blame you, to not question your goodness.
We need help to remember what is good about you.
Would you help us, God?
Would you help us?
And would you help us to finish well—to endure to the end—for your glory?
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Ready to Take Your Next Steps at The Rock Church in Mount Laurel?
The Rock Church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey exists to help people know God, follow Jesus, and make disciples who multiply. Whether you’re new or already part of our church family, we’re here to help you stay connected! Plan your visit to experience a Sunday with us, or download the Church Center App to stay updated, join a group, register for events, and more.
