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00:00:01 today's passage is taken from James 1 verse 1-12 James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the Nations greetings consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face Trials of many kinds because that the testing of your faith develops perseverance perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything if any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him but
00:00:42 when he asks he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind that man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord he is a double-minded man unstable in all he does the brother in Humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position but the one who is Rich should take pride in his low position because he will pass away like a wild flower for the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers the plant its Blossom Falls and
00:01:20 its beauty is destroyed in the same way the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him this is the word of God thank you very much I think I need to move this away good thanks right um John wanted that there so that I won't run away away so I promise not to run away uh welcome uh I haven't seen you guys for a long time
00:02:07 two weeks away so blessed Chinese New Year to all of you who are of that ethnic origin and for the rest of you uh my may God's blessings beond you the next week's sermon would be by our brother Elder Arnold limb two sermons in a row and then we've got a guest speaker from overseas called John Hy just to remind all of you okay so let's start with the word of prayer father Lord we commit into your hands this difficult topic for adversity hits every single person in this room and we need your wisdom and your
00:02:45 knowledge and your spirit in order to navigate these challenges in our lives grant us your word and transform Our Lives we ask for Jesus sake amen right so let's look at the Book of James and the the context of the sermon today is quite appropriate because we are facing 2023 and we're just coming out of that horrible pandemic uh and then there's a war raging in Ukraine our prime minister as soon as he gets inaugurated within a week tells us the good news we've got I think the number is wrong now it's 1.5 trillion
00:03:25 ringid debt and he says the poor actually will suffer more and if you look at the World Bank they say that the risk of recession this year is very very high and we're starting to see twinges of here and there so we will go through difficult times and then on the horizon is a Green Wave if you look at the last election uh amazingly pass got 49 seats and we are a bit disquieted at this possible Green Wave that may take over this country so there a lot of storm CL CLS uh and James is very realistic he
00:04:04 says count it all joy my brother when you meet Trials of various kinds he didn't say if he says when which means we are definitely going to have trials every single person have trials and if you actually listen to sermons on pain and suffering and difficulty we always have to grit our teeth and and sort of weather the storm as it were but is this how the Bible greets various trials if you look in the first 12 verses of James it doesn't encounter difficulties and adversity with what you think we should
00:04:45 be doing with that kind of face to green and be if you look very carefully there are three commands there there are three verbs there and there are Rejoice seek and boast hardly three verbs you will see in anybody encountering adversity this is unreal and so we need to unpack how the knowledge of God in adversity actually transforms our adversity first of all we need to Rejoice very counter intuitive isn't it when we in seeing God's purposes in adversity we need to seek God God's wisdom and making sense of our adversity
00:05:34 and number three we need to boast yes boast in how God sees us not how we see ourselves so these are three things so first of all we need to rejoice in seeing God's purposes in adversity first of all who is James we've got this controversy over who is this James and uh James is a servant of God he describes himself and the of the Lord Jesus Christ um the tradition in church history he's regarded one of the four pillars of the early church with James John and there are about five candidates who may be the author of this
00:06:11 particular book but most Scholars have settled the fact that he is actually Jesus brother all right the son of Joseph and Mary half brother to Jesus and imagine living with a perfect brother Hi living brother difficult already right imagine living with a perfect brother every time you are wrong one sure one isn't it because he's perfect so I don't think James would have liked that situation I think it's difficult to live with a perfect brother because you always lose every argument Al you lose imagine that uh and and and and that's
00:06:49 why if you look back in John chapter 4 John actually writes that his brothers don't even believe in him not surprising isn't it all right because they sibling rivalry going back in fact it's worse in Mark chapter 3 they thought he was nuts he thought he was crazy his parents his family came and and saw him preaching they said you know he's out of his mind so this is the background of James he'd probably be the last person to believe my brother is god wow what that does what does that make me demig
00:07:21 God and then it was in Corinthians 15:7 when he first appeared to James and then to Apostle and that transformed his enti entire Outlook that his brother where he saw him die and then Rose from there and that transformed him to one of the leaders of the church in Acts 15 Council he was the one who led that Council and made the conclusions about uh the Gentiles and he was known as a man of prayer they call him camel knes big big knes why because he's on his knees all the time and he was marted in
00:07:57 1862 this man is a man of prayer this man is a man of faith and what's happening here is that he writes a letter that basically tells us how Faith Works in the real world when Paul writes letters he tells you how faith is constructed in a in in theology in all the beautiful Concepts and philosophies James is a little bit different he's the guy on the ground and he tells you how to deal with the problems that we face and in fact we're going to be studying in gamma 21 from March onwards and we're
00:08:36 going to study the Book of James if you're interested so this is this sermon is actually a teaser so that you come and join us we're going to go into detail topics like knowing god in adversity understanding the nature of Temptation the Christian and the word what is true spirituality what about the Christian and the poor how are slandering and judging something we almost do by fault in church planning and worry materialism patience my biggest problem praying for the sick spiritual restoration these are when the rubber
00:09:13 hits the road the faith that works come and join us we start Wednesdays March 2nd contact Church office for details now James writes to the 12 tribes of the dispersion which is basically the Jews dispersed all over Asia minor and there are lot of dispersions when the Babylonians came they they had exiled All the Way to Babylon then you've got the Greeks and then later Romans they're scattered all over Asia Minor and they've been persecuted and for Christians they actually have a double dispersion not only you you are
00:09:47 dispersed away from Jerusalem you are in the synagogue and in the synagogue they threw them out because they believe a criminal called Jesus Christ is God is the Messiah and that's is an anathema so they got double distur verion for Christians and he says uh counted all joy when you meet Trials of various kinds so these Christians were going through trials severe poverty exploitation by wealthy land owners religious uh legal oppression persecution powerlessness and even illness during death and that's the same
00:10:22 isn't that you see all over the world you've got the rich living right next to the poor contrast in society extremes of wealth and extremes of poverty and the First Command comes out is counted all joy this is a very funny word because it says counted all joy means it's ego mind it means have a consider or have a leading thought the whole idea is that you've got a whole range of emotions when you are down and the leading emotion is what Joy I mean you the leading emotion for me will be sadness and depression and worry and
00:11:04 helplessness but what he's saying is very very counterintuitive how do you actually have a leading emotion Joy but you can have some sadness as well you can have some worry as well but the leading emotion the one that's predominantly in your life is Joy how can we have this in the midst of Sorrow well I I look for wisdom in uh uh Victor Frankle a man who has known much adversity in his life he was a psychiatrist taken into a Nazi concentration camp where his father was killed he saw that his mother was killed
00:11:42 he saw that his brother was killed he saw that his pregnant wife was killed and out of all that he actually gleaned a lot of wisdom about suffering they took everything away from him they took his dignity away from him he took his belongings away from him and yet he was he was unbroken you know why because he found meaning and this is what the words that he writes and he says between stimulus and response there's a space in that space is the power to choose our response in our response lies our growth
00:12:22 and our freedom and what he did whatever the gods did to him pow stimulus how would you respond pain hatred Vengeance he says between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space is how you interpret that event that determines your feelings and your response so you can respond if you're fired from your job you could respond with sadness fear hopelessness powerlessness frustration why because you interpret that stimulus as unfair I'm a victim I'm useless I'm no good so how you respond actually is
00:13:03 determined by your interpretation that space in between which the gods could not choose and it's our power to choose how we interpret the response that's what Victor Frankle is saying so if you look in the secular world today in the Greeks at that time for epicus who was a stoic he says happiness and freedom begins with a clear understanding of one principle some things are within your control some things are not now you can see a lot of this parallels in today's philosophies with non-Christian friends
00:13:33 and what they're saying is that you can't change anything but this is passive resignation and is that how we are to approach adversity what about many of my patients who are facing terminal illness and disease they've already resigned to that and they only go one wish dog make sure no pain all the time that keeps coming out because they've resigned themselves to this senica a famous uh Roman orator he says on many an occasion I felt an urge to cut my life short there and then suicide I was only held back by the
00:14:11 thought of my father who had been the kindest of fathers to me and was then in his old age having in my mind not how bravely I was capable of dying but how far from bravely he was capable of bearing the loss I commanded myself to live there are times when even to live is an Act of Bravery so the face of adversity senica finds comfort in what courage and willpower and that transforms his adversity is that how we are to face adversity where's the joy if you face life like that they will be very Bleak in the world today we are to
00:14:50 choose our attitudes you talk to our non-Christian friends think comforting thoughts it's going to be all right how do you know it's going to be all right it affects everybody else but not me my glass is half full is not that bad these are things that we do it's basically denial and sometimes delusion so how do we actually have the leading thought as Joy give you an example some time ago before just when the co9 jab was out I remember sitting at uh my favorite coffee place called risk and with who is
00:15:23 there I think was Joyce and yishan and a few people and we're all worried about whether we can actually get the covid-19 jab imagine everybody sing down and they open at 12:00 and they were busy you know internet so you rely on all this young people and when they got the jab appointment is like lottery ticket but you think about it you actually happy about somebody coming and stab you and inject some unknown liquid into your arm that may possibly kill you right and then you see all the pictures
00:15:57 and people have their jab w fantastic isn't I took a picture but but this is actually something terrible isn't it it's an injection you you know and yet so therefore what's happening here is your response your interpretation depends on your life's goal so most people's life's goals is Personal Achievement or happiness or or or or relationship intimacy and if that's the case then everything every adversity in life is interpreted as a pothole you go to life you're down you're down then you're up you're up you're down and you're trying
00:16:34 to avoid all the potholes in the world you live life kind of scared worried planning all the time is that what life is about life is avoiding potholes or already IM reimagining potholes that that pothole is not so shallow not so deep all right so what James is saying count it all joy because for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness it is something that comes out of this adversity that is what you should focus on so just like the covid-19 jab you don't focus on the needle the more you look at the needle
00:17:11 the bigger it becomes and then when you and right after the injection do you have to spend next three weeks discussing how big the needle was you don't you focus on the advantages so God has a purpose it's not random it's not out of your control and the ROM Paul tells us not only that we rejoice in our suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance endurance produces character and character produces hope the the biblical concept of Hope is not an ay fairy hope for the future but it's actually a certainty so when you
00:17:46 actually undergo trials trials are designed to produce endurance or state fastness which then gives you a certainty of what's going to happen in the future the state fastness that you have in your faith today in the midst of Trials is actually a glimpse of what's going to happen in the future two very famous marriages separated by decades in time when you look and them they look reasonably happy right right what is the leading emotion there on the right on the left whether you're separated by 50 years the leading
00:18:21 emotion is Joy what is the Joy Based on what is is it real well later on you have trials and temptations come that's a trial Temptation and then oh Philip also had some trial and temptation but he survived it and and after years and years and years this love story has a beautiful ending in the 90s where the steadfastness and the genuiness of their love and faith for each other has been proven so if you were to look back at your wedding photos I think you would look back at that wedding photo with joy and you look
00:19:00 at the other wedding photo with sadness because that Joy was actually fake it's not tested and and when when James says you are to have the leading emotion is Joy he's bringing you forward to the future because when the adversity comes and you stand stead fast that is a down payment or a guarantee that he looking to the Future that that produces something that is actually meaningful therefore you can have joy it's a con rete spiritual proof and what is that endurance going to lead you to that you may have been perfect
00:19:36 and complete lacking in nothing that is how you should view your adversity Genesis 17 in the Old Testament they use the same Hebrew word for perfect as blameless so when Abraham was 90 years old God appeared to him and said I'm God Almighty walk before me and be blameless that is the condition for which we must be found if we in fellowship with God same thing with Israel he says to Israel you shall be blameless before the Lord your God for all these nations which you are about to dispossess listen to
00:20:15 fortune tellers and deiners but as for you your lord your God has not allowed you to do this so Jesus says to them you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect now what is this concept of perfect Perfection well that actually you want be perfect because your father is perfect is because it's in the context of I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and
00:20:49 sends rain on the just and the unjust so god is perfect in the sense that he's complete whatever he sends to the just he sends to the unjust when you are perfect you are actually complete and if you look at that rich young man he had obeyed all the law and he came to Jesus what else do I need to which box do I need to check off before I get eternal life and Jesus said to him well if you would be perfect H perfect go and sell what you have possessed what you possessed to give the poor and you have
00:21:23 treasure in heaven and come and follow me the young man heard it he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions he was missing one thing for for Perfection or completion it was the Devotion to God so basically concept of per Perfection is positively completion comp possessing all the ingredients to make something whole negatively is lacking nothing which means the concept is like a jigsaw puzzle all the little bits in place so that the picture can be seen he's looking for every trial that we go
00:22:00 through he's looking for one little bit to make it complete so that our hearts are completely devoted to our Lord Jesus Christ unfortunately you look at our picture today it looks like that the mouth somewhere the eye somewhere most of our jigsaw puzzles are wrongly placed we either are missing pieces or we have the mouth where our butt is or something so the real picture is this the the face of Jesus and for all the P all the elements of the pie of the jigsaw Apostle to come together we need humility we need compassion we need
00:22:34 Faith discernment of Truth speaking the truth in Love Prayer love of the L mercy and that's a process of being completed to basically reflect the image of God see the reflection of image of God is M suffering not miraculous deliveries is the way God matures all of us and gives us all the little bits and pieces that make us whole you see a supernatural event if you come up here people lay hands on you all that will only encourage us it cannot mature us like it or not life is full of pot full of potholes why because the world is broken
00:23:13 but God in his wisdom is decided oh well Theo world is broken I will use the potholes to make you whole that is how we operate in the world today so therefore life isn't just avoiding the potholes the Pooles now are redeemed and the potholes actually serve a purpose and that is why we have joy whenever we we if we encounter difficulty the first thing is sit down what's God doing there must be a purpose now the second problem is we need to see God's wisdom to make sense of our adversity because when we are hit with
00:23:52 adversity we don't really think like that if any of you lacks wisdom and in suffering you actually lack wisdom you don't you don't know how to handle it let him ask of God who gives generously with all to all without reproach and it will be given to him let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord for he's double-minded unstable in all his ways is that a separate topic when I was
00:24:24 young I used to read this before every exam I claimed this Bible Pro I want wisdom and I got a actually that's classic misinterpretation because it's taken out of context isn't it this wisdom is in the context of going through adversity is not talking about getting 5 a or 6 a or 10 distinctions all right so the pro main problem when you're hit with adversity and difficulty is set that you've got your plans and when the adversity come the pothole comes and your car is knocked to the side you're trying to make sense my plans have gone
00:24:58 off how how am I going to get back on the road that's the whole problem making sense we have a world view if I study hard I get my exam I go to university you know get married have 10 kids and then 15 grandchildren and all that goes on but when hard events happen with cancer sickness accidents you know Financial loss then the whole world falls apart and we our Paradigm our understanding our philosophy of life is in disarray and that causes the most problem for us and so therefore we triy to bridge that Gap Hezekiah sermon uh uh
00:25:37 prayer which we did last time I preached to you in November we lament that's number one and number two he was described as a blameless man and the blameless man with 10 children suddenly lost 10 children wife left him everybody left him and he was down with disease left with nothing and he was a righteous man how does a righteous man with all this good planning and all that wind up at the bottom of the Heap he's going to make sense of it and so therefore he starts to complain to God hey what kind
00:26:07 of this is unfair to me your world very unfair Lord God he says there are some move landmarks they see flocks and pasture them they drive away the donkey of the fatherless they take the widows Ox for a pledge they thrust the poor off the road the poor of the Earth all hide themselves so they're ride driving the Mercedes-Benz you drive Ki push you off nobody takes any notice policemen come they pay him money you got no money bye-bye for you from out of the city the dying groan and the soul of the Wounded Christ for
00:26:43 help and yet God charges no one wrong have you ever felt like job when things happen especially things so unfair you work so hard your boss fires you or their office politics and because you don't politic you can and so therefore he brings his pain of Injustice to God because he cannot understand and that is when we actually need to ask God for wisdom all right because the wisdom is required to interpret that space between stimulus and response right unless you are able to interpret that properly then your
00:27:18 response cannot be joy we need wisdom uh and this wisdom is specific wisdom dealing with suffering now John Piper puts up a very good article when he actually brings one of the best articles I've read on this issue what actually wisdom is he says wisdom is comprised of three factors it's like a triangle three legs of a triangle which are every part of this triangle is very very important number one you must have factual knowledge number two you must have situational insight and number three you
00:27:50 must have necessary resolve and all working towards righteousness and being that full image of God factual knowledge why is factual knowledge important when you get wisdom you cannot have I mean I had a somebody speaking to me the other day and he was saying to me you know uh Peter this covid-19 je jab vaccine is terrible it's uh it's it's uh it's it's it's a trap by the some people for conspiracy to to kill the world and I said how you know that he says so because all these are lies he says uh I
00:28:24 said they already discovered the covid-19 Corona virus you can you see under microscope oh no that one not true one there's no such thing as virus so we had a going down a big rapid hole I I stop the discussion already because because we know what lacks factual knowledge you have to have factual knowledge first thing you do is the the Lord says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom if you talk to someone and he doesn't believe there's a God he says and the universe brought me my girlfriend then how to talk already
00:28:57 because that's that's Bic basically no knowledge there at all so it begins with the knowledge of God uh and and and James says do you not know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness so you got this knowledge pet just preach you go home so what you go home at home okay I know know I got this terrible lawsuit and it's produced state fastness but I don't really care about State fastness I care about my lawsuit isn't that so the next thing that you need to have besides knowledge is you must have emotional ins sight and
00:29:29 here is a nice story told of Saul the first king and the first king actually was rejected by God because he was unfaithful and here you can see a picture of him pleading because Samuel the prophet toim buy for you uh God Will Take Your Kingdom away he grabbed he the knes he grabbed the the the the cloak of Samuel and it tore off and God said to him just like this thing tear off your your kingdom will be torn from your hands so are very upset very angry and then God told Samuel you better go back
00:30:03 there and I want you to anoint somebody else as King number two and his name is going to be David La so imagine he goes back there to the same place and Saul will ask hey where you come well I come here to to choose uh pikata National you know what will happened to you huh the MC fell will invite you to his place you have a bit of a chatler isn't it so so how is he going to do it an amazing thing you can't lie isn't it you can't s so no no I'm going to buy buy something 7-Eleven I'm just passing
00:30:41 by you can't do that he cannot lie and this is what God said to him God said Samuel said how can I go if Saul hears it he will kill me sure uh and the Lord said to him take a heer with you and say I've come to sacrifice to the Lord and invite Jesse the father of David to the sacrifice and will show you what you shall do and you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you wow this is God's plan you go there when Saul ask you anything you say I come here to sacrifice Ma I didn't say anything about
00:31:13 the second king right and so what happens here is that he actually anoints David and what we learned that Samuel did not lie everything said was true but not everything true was said correct so what happens is that he's got facts but he got situational insight and that's what God needs to give us and a famous Dutch lady called Cory tlon was involved in hiding and protecting Jews persecuted by the Nazis during World War II and she couldn't lie because she's going to honor God and yet she has to love the Jews who God placed in her
00:31:55 hands to protect and hide in her house and the Nazis came to the house asking where the Jews oh under the table so they always look under the table Bo nobody there she didn't lie you know why they were they were under table underground she told the truth but she had the kind of situational insight to have wisdom and so just like a choir just like the pieces here just now uh each one is a a music note each one is a musical instrument all of these if they go off all at once unless they coordinated they did do not become a
00:32:33 symphony and spiritual Insight is able to take all facts and weave them into something coherent you know our world cup had this famous chap called Lionel Messi and he led them to Victory just a couple of weeks ago and did you know a very interesting fact about n Nel Nessie do you know if you watch ly nessi in any football match you know what he's doing he's walking 85% of the time he's he's he's not on the ball he's off the ball he's strolling drling looking mildly uninterested and the average they say he
00:33:12 walks three miles per match I pay you big money to walk walk right and the the fact is it's an exercise in scanning surveying taking the measure of the defense noting where the vulnerabilities Li calculating when and how opportunities may arise after 5 10 minutes walking walking walking he has got a map he what we call situational insight and that is part of wisdom a lot of people got money got cleverness like this fellow Le what's his name maska second second richest man in the world got money he buys Twitter okay and then
00:33:53 straight away he says that's why I bought it I want to change the world and then he sex 80% of the staff Twitter collapses then he hire them back and he whoops important to admit I'm wrong I firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes this one got knowledge but no got money and my knowledge but no situational Insight so therefore he has no wisdom not only that you not only you must have factual knowledge your situational inside you must also have necessary result you can be the cleverest man in the world like this
00:34:26 fellow King Solomon cleverest man in the world you get trouble fighting who wants the baby go and take to him right he'll solve the problem for you but do you know he got 1,000 wives or girlfriends or concubines whatever you call them so he's got knowledge he's got situational Insight but he got no necessary resolve which me cannot control that particular part of his organ or his body there lot people like that isn't it right they know but cannot control that's not wisdom here is a young lady uh uh uh Greta tberg I think her name uh
00:35:05 uh and she was in Sweden or Norway one of these countries and every Friday before the 2018 election to the parliament she would sit alone with a sign there school strike for the climate she knew about climate change she knew how bad it was going to be she knew that her generation would inherit the crap which the world lays out older generation and she decided she had the facts she had the Insight but she had the resolve she sat down only she sat down every Friday until the election and right after that too and many young
00:35:35 people also followed her example and she wound up you know where at the United Nations 2019 and she gave an address she said you stolen my dreams my childhood empty words entire ecosystem is collapsing we in the beginning of a mass extinction all you can talk about is money and the fairy tales of Eternal economic growth how dare you a young girl who had the knowledge who had the insight and the resolve and the result worldwide marches in 163 countries and look at what she says for more than 30 years the science has been
00:36:10 Crystal Clear how dare you continue to look away and come here saying you're doing enough when the politics and solutions are needed are still nowhere in sight so the world is being castigated for the lack of resolve it's not that we don't have knowledge we don't have Insight we lack necessary it resolve and if you combine all these three together it gives you a direction and understanding of the righteousness of God that's what it's about and if you are actually wise James chapter 3 says you are going to
00:36:44 have Good Conduct right and and and this Good Conduct there are two words in Greek that that that James could have used one is aatos is good and one's Kalos which is beautiful and he chooses to use the word Kos which is beautiful a wise person even in the midst of Trials will produce a beautiful life if you look at the picture of all these four people they all went through suffering you know one of the most influential figures in history but they all live Beautiful lives here's another picture of three
00:37:20 more people most influential people in the world but they made other people's lives miserable so good conduct so if any of you lacks wisdom especially in your trials ask God because God is going to give you a a promise you can take home to the bank today he's going to give you generously it doesn't mean he's going to be PhD but he will give you generously because you ask for it it's a guarantee and and job is the testimony of that if you look at Job James chapter 5 behold we consider those blessed Who
00:37:58 Remain steadfast on the suffering you've heard of the steadfastness of job you've seen the purpose of the Lord how the Lord is compassionate and merciful you see job was tortured actually he lost everything but and and you know that job never really understood why God never told him why you know at least James tells you why job never knew he never the answered but you know what he did he discovered that the Lord is compassionate and merciful that was the wisdom that he found in the end he experienced God in
00:38:35 such an overwhelming manner kind of through the suffering and God ministering to him in the suffering opened up a whole new dimension of his personal awareness and intimacy of who God is that is job so let him ask in faith no doubt that the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea that's driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord he's double-minded and unstable in all his ways so when you asking God for wisdom during your trials ask in faith do not
00:39:09 doubt all right do not doubt doesn't mean oh my sh Market is down God should I buy sell hold refinance lend abandon and then suddenly you sleeping and one day God wakes you up ding a cell or short see when we are actually asking for wisdom we actually asking for wisdom to get out of the trial that's another misinterpretation why I say a misinterpretation well it's because we we we thinking all wisdom is like this the the of Omaha Warren Buffett no you look at the word double-minded it appears again in James chapter 4 draw
00:39:48 near to God He will draw near to you cleanse your hands you Sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded so the same word is used by James and basically double minded is a sense of drawn near to God cleanse your hands purify your hearts so what James is saying is that when you're asking for wisdom you cannot have one foot in each Land one is for God and one is for the world that means when you ask God for wisdom to in your adversity it is in order to discover his will and discover what he's teaching you not actually I
00:40:22 just want to get out of this financial problem all right so basically it's the motive for for asking for wisdom is to draw near to him not merely as a way out of our troubles so right righteously so we need factual knowledge we need wisdom in order to see how we may uh honor God in our adversity third thing that we need to do is that we need to boast very very counterintuitive you suffering some more you want to boast the word boast is uh C calami which is basically uh take pride in let the lowly brother boast in his
00:40:58 exaltation and a rich in his humiliation because like a flower of the grass he will pass away for the sun rises with scorching heat and gathers Withers the grass the flower Falls its beauty perishes so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his Pursuits so here we actually have a contradiction in terms it's counterintuitive it's crazy you see the rich man has got a lot of resources he's usually safe he depend on his resources so the rich man boast poor man buly vulnerable suffer how to go and
00:41:34 boast nothing to boast about how to take pride and so what he's saying is that it's counterintuitive the he's saying that the poor man should boast in his exalted position hey exalted he's poor and the rich man must boast in his humiliation very very counter improv what he's saying is that we need to be careful how we see ourselves if you look at this picture all of us got funny view of ourselves we look in the mirror isn't it that's why I never take I hate taking pictures they always say oh I'm standing
00:42:11 next to my wife said that not this and I look like her father then some people tell me you better go and dye your hair sometimes we feel the way we Act is based on how we see ourselves that's the problem if you are rich you drive your Lamborghini you walk with a Swagger if you're poor you like that that's the default mode of the of the world isn't it see how the world sees a poor person you no confidence you sick of fancy means you whatever the rich man say okay okay yes yes and you find some way to please him so you get
00:42:54 some of the gravy coming down to you or you got Envy I was flying home the other day from overseas and then you go to this A320 jet the was irritating about the A320 jet is when you enter from the front you got to go through business class then you see oh yeah so nice and I can smell the S which I cannot get so what what's the Temptation the Temptation is to cover the rich isn't it now I a yeah you know you know but but you know I wind up there but but when I was sitting coming back from overseas this Sunday I was
00:43:38 sitting next to a very wealthy gentleman he's got multiple properties in here in Australia everywhere else and he's sitting here with me in uh a cattle class Mo and and he was telling me you know um hey my boss are there I just see the cre the curtain there my boss sitting in business class then I say oh you're so rich why are you sitting here with the D service cattle why you should be there he said no we had a conversation we were talking talking talking his name was Frank and we were talking four hours he
00:44:13 said to me you know Peter I sit here this thing I talk to you four hours gone three more hours to go the fell pay how much and sit in front for something that's just going to be three more hours what this man saw was value that's the difference is how you see it he was happy sitting in cattle class because he made a lot of money sitting there and his stupid boss was in front wasted all the money for a short flight just to lie down a little bit you that mean so so basically how we and this guy got joy you know I don't
00:44:48 remember see anybody Joy is Kettle class but he had Joy because you saw another alternative view of value see how God sees us is different he says the poor chapter 2: 5 listen my brothers has not God chosen those who are poor to be rich in faith and hes of the Kingdom which he has promised to those who love him that's a spiritual truth you don't see and act the way you see yourself you see you act the way God sees you that's true spiritual wisdom and that's what my friend Frank had sitting there in cattle
00:45:21 class with me and so and what about the the rich the conventional wisdom rich the world they they see that the guy sitting in the first class he'll be saying I'm arrogant ah I made it I got down here in in in in in in business class all the useless Fells at the back Pride arrogance ruthlessness faith in themselves and their riches and actually works against your citizenship in heaven actually it does wealth does that in fact uh the spiritual wisdom is the rich in humiliation why why is James saying
00:46:00 how God sees them because the flower of the grass like a flower of the grass he will pass away the sun rises with scorching heat and Withers the grass that the flower Falls his Beauty perishes so also the rich fade away in the midst of his Pursuits the rich fade away and nothing to be ashamed nothing to be proud of something to be ashamed of in fact uh he's describing the rich as an endangered species yes endangered species all the Fells don't look at them with Envy because they will be gone Mark zaka lost 87
00:46:39 billion since 2021 one of the richest men in Asia remember this guy gam adani $200 billion man lost 90 billion one shot and he and and it's going further down and so therefore how does the rich boast in their humiliation take pride you know what they should do they understand the transitory nature of their wealth they see past wealth as an estimation of their lives you see your wealth doesn't Define you your self-esteem does not def is not defined by wealth the way you swaggle walk does not depend on how much
00:47:15 you own they do not com use that to compare with other people in fact if you're wealthy you might actually be embarrassed because a lot of your wealth may have come from cous activity or unethical activity during your LIF stand and only you and God know about it so I wouldn't boast of my wealth because you may have gotten it in a roundabout way but you're also aware that your wealth is dangerous because is dead weight at the end of time all God is going to ask you is not how much you left behind because all the thing that
00:47:48 you left behind and you didn't use for his glory is going to be dead weight because God's going to hold you responsible for that and instead instead we should focus on our what responsibility to use our wealth to glorify God so the the the the how you boast in your humiliation is that you understand that what I want to boast on is not my wealth is actually my dependence on our Lord Jesus Christ which is exactly what Paul was trying to get at in Philippians he says whatever gain I had I counted as lost for the
00:48:21 sake of Christ indeed I count everything as lost because of surpassing knowledge of knowing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my lord for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ he puts Christ here and all the wealth here and he only knows one thing to boast of Christ so when the rich man and the poor man enters First Baptist Church The Way You Walk The Swagger the confidence the head held high because you trust and love Jesus Christ not because in what you own and
00:49:03 not because what you don't own you walk in here and the way you interact with each other often is based on what you own and what you don't own or the color your skin James is saying no you walk in here and you walk with your head held high because Christ died for you Paul says we are more than conquerors not nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus today the wisdom of God's foolishness is the cross Christ and his work on the cross is the pivotal Center of God's wisdom because it enables us to fulfill
00:49:46 our destiny has created in His image for his purpose and as we encounter adversity Our Lives understand this we live in a broken World adversity is un avoidable if you think you can escape whether you're rich or poor you live in Disneyland but God has redeemed adversity so let us rejoice in seeing God's purposes in our adversity let us confidently seek God's wisdom to make sense of our adversity and let us take pride let us walk with our heads held high why because we have a Shepherd we have a savior we have a
00:50:35 god let's pray father Lord we just asked you to minister to so many of us out here who are going through difficulty and for all those who are diff going through difficulty we ask oh Lord this day that you speak to us help us have joy as our leading emotion that Corrals all other emotions and puts them into perspective help us see your wisdom in our particular situation in our lives that we have enough knowledge and insight and resolve to be able to figure out what you are doing in our lives and
00:51:15 let us be excited because when you are in our hearts when you have died on the cross for us nothing can defeat us for we are more than conquerors we ask this for jesus' sake amen thank you Dr Peter for that message in light of God's compassion and mercy towards us let's all arise now and respond with confidence and joy that our Shepherd will indeed lead us all the way through no matter what we face this life [Music] so I walk I walk to the and I can't see the way Shadows surround me I will not be afraid
00:52:28 rest our souls I will rest my soul I'll trust in you alone for the Lord my Sher leades me Lead Me In he all I need in the darkest Valley I know I know my sheer is so [Music] high Lord I know that you seek me when I'm trying to hide and your love pursu me all the days of my life I will rest my soul I'll trust in you for the Lord I [Music] sh me is all I need in the darkest Valley I know I know my sheer is all I need sing it out I rest my soul I rest my soul [Music] in you alone you li My Way you lead me
00:54:42 on I rest my [Music] soul in you [Music] alone you li My Way you me all for the Lord my [Music] sheer me lead me and hear is all I in the darkest I know I know my sheer is so we are going to be doing a lord supper together you can be seated the Lord supper is basically celebrating a sacrifice and uh if you look back in the Old Testament the sacrificial animal is always perfect perfect means without blemish no spots all white and that's the only thing that God will except and it's emblematic or representative of our own lives Psalm 15
00:56:34 says oh Lord who shall sergeon into your tent who shall dwell in your Holy Hill he walks blamelessly does what is right and speaks truth in his heart so when Jesus came Years Day to OD John said here comes the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world Hebrew says we see him for a little while was made lower than the Angels namely Jesus crowned with Glory because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might take death for everyone that's what he did and Hebrew says it is fitting that
00:57:21 he for whom and by whom all things exist God in bringing many sons to Glory us should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering now this doesn't mean that Jesus is not perfectly moral is this is a term which describes a vocational process where Jesus is made complete or equipped for the office of high priest that he will take for us he's made perfected through suffering because it's through suffering that Christ had to pass as part of the process of which Jesus was perfected and Hebrews tell us how
00:58:02 Jesus was perfected although he was a son he learned obedience to what he suffered and being made perfect he became the source of Eternal salvation for all who obey him the concept here is that it's not that Jesus is not perfect morally it's just like looking at the Isuzu car very nice off the showroom perfect in every manner but it's untested you got to put it through its paces and it's become proven and that Dimension is added on and here we have Christ whenever you take the Lord's Supper look at this Lord's Supper you
00:58:50 must always see in the background a crown of thorns and it's very ordinate when we're talking about making sense of adversity making sense of suffering you understand that the greatest glory of God shown Act of Glory shown to God was by the son of Jesus Christ by his willingness to suffer that's the you know he gives up everything in complete and perfect obedience that is how God is glorified and the willingness to suffer is actually the greatest evidence of the confidence in God if you're willing to die for
00:59:34 God that will actually indicate extent the magnitude of dimensions of your love for him and your trust that he will resurrect you that's why the cross is so important when we take this we do not take this lightly it's emblematic that when we take this the crown Crown of Thorns is not very far behind and that we are willing to State everything on the line because we're willing to trust our greatest asset Our Lives into your hands so when we take this we must have this in the back of our mind so let's take hold of the bread
01:00:16 because this bread represents the body of Christ it represents everything he gave up and the pain he went through for us let us together take this right [Music] now next is the blood the blood is emblematic of his death this is the blood that trickled down his side when they poke that spear into him that is the blood shed to make us whole to bring us to glory to give us the confidence the wisdom and the joy to live our lives let us as God's people take this together and declare that because we have taken
01:01:08 this together this shall be our boast we shall take pride because we have been saved by our Lord Jesus Christ the perfect savior of perfected true suffering let's take this together let's pray pray father Lord we thank you so much that it was true suffering of your son Jesus Christ that brings us perfection in Christ we pray for us as well as we are able to see your purposes through a difficult world to turn adversity into joy we ask this for Jesus sake amen the benediction is taken from 1 Corinthians chap 15: 58 therefore my
01:02:00 beloved brothers be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain so after a few minutes silence you are dismissed and those of you who would like to um have be prayed over um the elders are around and we will be more than happy to minister with you together [Music]
