Okay, welcome to Exploring the Bible, and we are exploring the book of James. Thank you, Don, for that introduction. I really, really enjoyed that song, and it goes along with exactly what I'm talking about tonight so well. But let me begin this way. When we looked at James 1, 2 to 4, we talked about trials. And James said this, he said, count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, multiple, multiple experiences, they're difficult. And tonight we return to that subject. So let's talk about adversity, trials, difficulties, whatever you want to call them. Well, I think what we need as believers is some help with coping with the problems that we have in life. And James gave us a reason why we should count our trials as joy, back in verse two and three, when he said, because, you know, we will eventually, if we respond to them the way we should, by continuing to be faithful and serve the Lord rather than giving up on God, if we persevere in that sense, that we will mature, we'll grow, and we become all that we should spiritually. And so this week, he just expands on that. What are some other benefits of facing the trials in life? Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, we need help coping with all these issues and problems that we have. And it occurred to me that what we need is a stabilizer. Now, I didn't say tranquilizer. Some people may need that too, but I mean, we as believers, we all need a stabilizer. And I've got a good illustration I think will help us wrap our mind around this. I took my grandson to Raven Rock yesterday, and we did the 2.5 mile walk down to the rock on the Cape Fear River and back. I made sure that I took a walking stick with me, one that I purchased because I didn't have one and I knew I was going to need it, especially taking him on hikes. And I was very happy to have it because it's just, you know, it's up, it's down, it's full of rocks, it's full of the pathway that is, the trail. It's mostly full of roots, easy to trip over, and it's uneven and it's not level. And at my age, you know, I need a stabilizer. Well, that walking stick was about this tall and fairly substantial, provided me extra stability. It was really important when I walked down all those steps from up on the top of the mountain to the rock down below, I didn't really need any assistance from the walking stick going down other than just stabilizing the balance. Coming back up, I needed a third way to push myself up. So, most of the time, though, on that trip, I didn't really need it. It was fairly level or, you know, I had just watched my step, but I didn't really need that walking stick to stabilize me. There's some things that we need in our mindset that will help us deal with the trials and problems and difficulties when we encounter them. And it's kind of like the walking stick. You know, a lot of times you just carry it, you know, in one hand and, you know, it's stretched this way. You're not even putting it down on the ground unless you just want to do it. You don't really need it. But when the rough patches come, you turn it upright and you push down on it push yourself up, stabilize yourself, help yourself with your balance. When the problems occur, it's there to depend on. And the issue that we face is that we have many blessings and good days and good times. We don't really need a stabilizer, but we need to have it with us because there will soon come a need for it. And what is that stabilizer? It's not a walking stick. It's something that we possess in our mind. It's a mindset, if you will. I like the song that we heard earlier. If he hung the moon, I know he will help you. It says, if he holds up the sparrow, something like that, if he helps the sparrow fly, he will hold you up. and help you. I know I misquoted that, but I wrote it down as quick as I could, probably got a little bit wrong, but such a wonderful message. And ultimately, God is our stabilizing force, the Holy Spirit. But that needs to seep into our soul, seep into our minds and our thought processes. Well, with that said, let's talk about our study tonight. exploring the Bible, and in particular, we are exploring the book of James, as I've already mentioned. And tonight, it's James chapter one and verse 12. So, as we get into verse 12, he's gonna talk about trials. Now, if you're reading it, and you're reading it in the New King James, like I'm going to put on screen, you might be a little confused, but we'll unconfuse that in a moment. Let's again talk about the major themes that we find in the book of James. Testing and trials, troubles, tribulations, adversity, problems. There's many synonyms we could use. We just run up against things that challenge us, that defeat us if we are not careful. He covered that in verses two and four of the first chapter. I referred to that already. And then in verses five to eight in chapter one, we looked at the topic of wisdom and the fact that wisdom is available to us whenever we need it for understanding life and how we should live and what we should do to please the Lord. And then last week, we talked about poverty and wealth in verses nine to 11. These three themes pop up from time to time as you move through the book of James. And each time they do come back to the forefront, James will give you additional information or expand the topic, or he'll drill down in it in some fashion. So that's what happens when we come to verse 12. He goes back to what he's already mentioned in chapter one, verses two to four, and he's going to add two more purposes, two more results of trials or problems that are beneficial. And so it kind of titled the lessons you'll see on your sheet, The Benefit of Suffering. Here's verses two to four. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. That's the word that means endurance. the ability to persevere when things are going wrong and persevere in a sense of serving God and not giving up on Him. Well, let patience or perseverance have its complete or perfect work that you may be complete, meaning mature, lacking nothing. Now, when you drop down to verse 12, it reads, blessed is the bad who endures temptation. That's the new King James translation here. It is the exact same word found in verse two that says trials or is translated trials. It's very obvious in verse two, he's talking about problems of any kind. So we need to understand in verse 12, he's talking about problems of any kind as well. And the best translation here would be trials, just like in verse two. Now, the confusion for the translators originally was the next verse, which we'll get to next week, which does talk about temptation. The problem is, in the Greek language, they use the same word to refer to trials and temptations. It came out of Greek culture, and I'm not exactly a Christian culture, so it's not unusual sometimes they might just consider it all the same. But James is communicating in Greek, and he has to use that word. But here, contextually, in verse two, we know it's just trials, and the same is true in verse 12, and when we get to chapter one, verse 13, next week, we'll see very clearly from the context, he's moved on to the second meaning of the word, which is temptation. By the way, if I get sick, that's a trial. If I sin, it's because of temptation. But I put myself into a trial, right? And I've got to deal with. So, trial is the broader, Description. Temptation is the more specific thing that you'll deal with beginning in verse 13. So, the question is, why should we be faithful when we are suffering? Remember James said in the earlier verses there, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. And he talked about patience, perseverance, and the fact that it would bring maturity. So one of the benefits of experiencing trials, if you handle it right, is growing in the Lord, becoming more mature in Christ, becoming more Christ-like. There's two more benefits that he gives us in verse 12 that go along with this. The first one is this, we are blessed. Now that is, That is such a general term, we really got to wrap our minds around this. What does it mean to be blessed? We are blessed. Blessed, he says, in verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation, or as we understand, endures trials. It would be true of temptation too if that's the type of trial we put ourself into because of the wrong response. Blessed is the man who endures temptation. Now in the scriptures, the word blessed indicates or refers to an inner happiness or an inner sense that all is well and all is right with us, especially between us and God. And it comes from recognizing our eternal state or condition. For example, Psalm 1.1, what's it say? Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. You go to the Beatitudes, Matthew chapter five, verses three to 12. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who are persecuted. Blessed, blessed, blessed. Those are the Beatitudes. It's all the same word as James uses here. But James is not simply making a wish or indicating his desire that we would be blessed. He's stating something that's true. If you endure trials, you're blessed. If you don't endure them, meaning that you falter in your responsibilities as a Christian to serve the Lord and to glorify him and so on, you're not gonna be blessed in that, obviously. So he's talking about if a man, whoever he is, endures. That's the same word you find earlier in verse two, verse three, translated patience. Same word, translated a little differently here. Blessed is the man who endures or remains faithful when trials come. Remains faithful when he's suffering. It's really kind of hard to think of anybody but ourselves when we're suffering. But we always have to think of God. We always have to think of the Lord. And what does he require of us? He requires the same thing of us when we are suffering as he does when everything's well. We have the same responsibilities given to us in the word of God. So what does it mean to be blessed? Well, it means here that James is stating that if you're a believer, if you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you're blessed. That's your state. You may or may not realize it at any particular moment. but you already have an eternal inheritance. We mentioned this last week. You already have eternal life. Eternal life doesn't start after we die. Eternal life starts the moment the Holy Spirit enters into our soul and regenerates us and gives us life. So we are blessed and he's just simply stating that to us. And that's the mindset then that we always have to carry with us. Now, whereas in verse two, He said, count it all joy. This word blessed in verse 12 is the same word translated joy in verse two. That inner sense of well-being, that inner sense that all is right between ourselves and God. So when we come to understanding what it means to be blessed, the first thing is here in verse 12, James is talking about joy that is realized. We don't just count it joy. He says when you fall into various trials, count it joy, consider it joy, but you're not finding that joy in your heart and soul. But there comes a point as you endure trials and God is faithful and you are faithful and you progress and you mature, it'll become something you realize more every day and realize more so even when the other trials come with this day and the days to come. So he's talking about realize joy versus just consider joy. Most of the time we are doing well if we can just consider it joy, right? Because our response to trials as human beings is, I want to get out of this mess. I want God to take it away. God, please do this. Please solve this. Please heal me, whatever it is. So we're trying to run from the trial. But God, if he's allowed that trial, not that God has sent it to punish you or anything, but you walk into it as a person in this corrupt world and this evil world we're in. So on, God will, he can step in, answer prayer, heal, do whatever he wants to do. He doesn't always do those things because he knows there's value in us experiencing them. So it's realized joy versus considered joy. It's also a state of joy versus a circumstantial thing. We ought to be able as believers to come to a point where we can rejoice in our status as God's children, whether things are good or things are bad in our life. And when we do not rejoice, when we do not understand all that we possess in Christ, we don't have that stabilizer when the trials come. And then we don't stay faithful. I wish I would have kept a list of all the people in my 40 years of pastoral work that walked out on God and quit coming to church because something bad happened to him. But there's also an equal long list, probably a longer one of Christians who didn't do that. They are the ones that are blessed. So why be faithful when we are suffering? We are blessed. Now, secondly, We will be rewarded. We will be rewarded. I wish I had a better word than the word rewarded. I mean, you know, every credit card these days wants to give you rewards if you use their card more than somebody else's. Every grocery store you go in has, you know, discounts you can earn. It's a very common thing in our society. We understand what a reward is, and it almost seems like it's, minimalizing what God's gonna do here, but I just don't have a better word for it. It's an eternal reward. It's an eternal blessing. So let's look at it in the text. Blessed is a man who endures temptation, who remains faithful, endures trials, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. So what is a crown of life? Well, it's a promised reward. A promised reward. Because it says, blessed is the man who endures temptation trials, for when he has been approved, he will receive. It's a promise. It's a promised reward. It's an earned reward as well. When he has been approved, it says. His actions, his faithfulness, his thought life, his, and I say his, his, his, you know, because James talks about the blessed is the man, but it's used in the sense of all mankind here. You're not just talking about men, obviously, men and women. God's gonna approve or disapprove of our life, and that's gonna determine whether or not we receive this reward. And then finally it's a specific reward called, named the crown of life. The crown of life. So it is promised, earned, it's specific. Now let me go back to earn for just a minute because we are not talking here about salvation. Salvation is a gift. You do not earn salvation. Ephesians 2, 8, by grace are you saved through faith. We all probably know that verse by heart. Let's talk about it for a minute. The grace means unmerited favor. That's what God did when he sent Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus chose to do, the second person that God had, when he came and died on the cross. We didn't deserve His taking our punishment, but He did that. That's grace. By His grace, the foundation for our salvation, or the possibility, I should say, of our foundation was laid, as you would lay a foundation by grace, but it comes to you through faith. We have to choose whether or not to accept what's been done for us and to believe on Him and to accept Him as our Savior. We don't, there's nothing there that's earned. Jesus did all the work. His grace supplied all that was need for us to have eternal life. Our step of faith is just to access, believe, accept what he did for us. And we, that is, in fact, the word faith in Ephesians 2.8 is the same word believe in John 3.16, the Greek, just translated differently. Salvation comes when a person realizes their condition as being lost and under condemnation and understands that Jesus Christ died for them and has taken their punishment, provided they put their faith in Him. There's nothing earned there. So this is not talking about salvation here when it talks about the crown of life. Unfortunately, a lot of Bible commentators tried to make the crown of life into eternal life. That's not what it's talking about, because James is talking about people here that already have eternal life, who as believers experience trials and difficulties, and by remaining faithful in their work, their service, their obligations to God, they then earn recognition, which will be given to them by the Lord. Because God is a just God. He will not overlook unconfessed sin. I mean, not unconfessed sin, but he will not overlook sin that's not repented of. The same way for a believer who must confess our sin to have that relational aspect of our relationship. position in Christ restored, he wouldn't overlook that either. We would not have that restored relationship without confession. So I said it right both ways, but we're talking here about those that do not know him. Unless they repent, meaning change their mind, which encompasses faith, believing in him and accepting him and his person into our life, we won't have the benefit. God is just. but He does not force Himself on us. He provides for us, and we have to make a decision. And He does that because He loves us. You go back to John 3, 16. The justice there was provided by the death of Christ on the cross. There had to be death. The wages of sin is death. But it's also just, God being a just God, will always recognize and reward and bless those who serve him. Now, not always are we gonna experience that in this life, although we are blessed, we're not only experiencing to the extent we will eternally, and he will recognize every good thing that we do in behalf of him in eternity. It has nothing to do with our salvation, but it does have to do with what we, do with our life, our works for Him, and so on. So that being the case, let's talk about the crowns. In 1 Corinthians 9.25, it mentions the incorruptible crown. In 1 Thessalonians 2.19, it mentions the crown of rejoicing. In 2 Timothy 4.8, it mentions the crown of righteousness. In James 1.12, right here where we're at, it mentions the crown of life. in 1 Peter 5, 4, the crown of glory. And I'm not going to even attempt to explain all those. I just want you to see the scope of it. The crown here is a Greek word, stephanos, which refers to a crown that was put on the Greek athlete's head after they won an athletic event. They didn't get this gold medal. They got a little wreath of vegetation put on their head. So it didn't have much value, but it was a symbol that they were you know, recognized and people understood their accomplishment and all knew that they had earned that. That's the word used here by James. Some says, well, James wouldn't use that word because the Jews, they weren't in favor of the, you know, ancient Olympics and all that stuff. And that's true, but they would not have been unfamiliar with it either. There are evidently in history, find out that some of the Romans actually staged some games in Jerusalem. And so they would have been familiar with it. And this is the same term that Paul uses. There's a different Greek word that refers to the crown a king wears, crown of authority. This is a crown of accomplishment. Think of it this way. I am assuming we've all graduated, at least from high school. maybe some of you college or beyond. Who do they give the diplomas to? Everybody that completes high school. Obviously, if you don't complete high school, you've got to stay a little longer or else you quit school. You never get a diploma. That's up to you. But everybody that finishes school gets a diploma. In that sense, of my illustration here, all Christians who place their faith in Jesus Christ, they get the title deed to heaven. But as in a graduation ceremony, some of those students who walk across that platform and receive that so-called sheepskin, they get special honors. They have something on their graduation, certificate, diploma that's marked honors or high honors. In some cases, it's cum laude or whatever the other laudes are, I can't remember. But some graduation service, they wear cords, they wear these things that honor certain achievements. And everybody graduates, but not everybody receives the same honors. All believers that place their faith in Jesus Christ graduate from this world into eternity and to heaven and all that God has prepared for us. And yet some will have special honors. The crown of life is one of those. Now, you say, won't the people who do not receive any of these crowns be disappointed? No, they're gonna be like Jesus Christ. They're gonna be just like Jesus Christ. And they're gonna rejoice because they're going to know the judgment is right. And they're going to be happy for those who didn't receive them. But here's the other side of this. I think most of us never conceive of ourselves as going to have a crown. Now, by the way, in Revelation 4, the 420 elders take off their crowns and throw them at the feet of Jesus. So it's not for our glory, it's for his glory. He accomplished it through us and by the Holy Spirit, we didn't do it ourselves, but we at least participated in it and we're honored. Now, the crown of life, what is that specifically? Let's see if we can get a bead on that. and I'm getting ahead of myself on the slides. The crown of life is given for something specific, and I think I got my... You won't mind if I just jump around a little bit to get this right. There we go. He will receive the crown of life. Who? The person who endures trials. If you've went through something tough and difficult and mind-numbing and debilitating emotionally, and the lights came back on. For those of you who've been watching in the dark, welcome. Every one of us who have went through some health problem, some financial problem, some relational situation, some circumstance. And we have, I'm not saying we had wonderful attitudes and we just never got down, never got depressed. That's not what I'm talking about. But did you or did you not continue to serve the Lord? If you continue to, worship, obey, serve, do the things that you should do with all that heavy weight on your shoulders. That says there's a crown for that. I'll be the first to tell you, I don't understand a lot about these crowns. I just understand a little tidbit of it that he's revealed to us. And I'm not sure I understand all that he's revealed. But I do know this, when he says you'll do something, you'll do it. Have you suffered something? Have you went through something difficult? Have you emerged from it, hopefully went through it with faithfulness, without losing confidence in God or getting angry at God and walking away from God? Remember all that list of people I told you over the years I'd seen that walked away from, you know? But probably, I can't look at their hearts, probably most of them were saved, but they won't get the crown. You see? Now let's see if we can get back to where we were. I hope that's encouraging to you, by the way. I think it should be. And that's not only one of the crowns, and we don't have time for the rest of them tonight. When will we receive a crown? Now, on your sheet, I think it says, at the judgment seat, or Bema seat, and it gives you some references. 1 Corinthians 3, 12 to 15, and 2 Corinthians 5, 10 to 11. Now this is so misunderstood by many in Christian circles, and unfortunately many who teach the word. It talks about our works will be tried by fire. And that's a metaphor. It's just talking, it's giving us an example. It's saying if you build your house out of haywood and stubble and it catches on fire, it's going to burn up, right? If you build your house out of more durable things, gold, silver, precious stones, whatever, it's not going to be consumed. That's all it's saying. And it is simply saying that God's going to look at your life as a believer and say, is there anything there worth rewarding? And his eyes, his sight, his omniscience is going to be able to determine that instantly. And we'll either be rewarded or we will not be rewarded. Has nothing to do with our salvation at all. Now, when will that happen? Well, I gave you a little hint at the bottom where it says, see prophetic chart. Do any of you see a prophetic chart? You do now. And I have one for you to take home right here. Don't forget to get it. OK, well, right now we'll just look at what we got up here. Here we have the Old Testament times, this timeline here. the cross of Christ and the church age which we are in, the coming rapture of the church, followed by the tribulation period, seven years, the second coming of Christ to earth to set up his thousand year kingdom on the earth. Where does the judgment seat of Christ, by the way, the term Bema seat is Greek. That was the seat of the judges at the ancient Olympic games who sat on an elevated platform. And they didn't necessarily maybe judge who won, but they were the ones who determined who they should give the wreath to, the Stephanos crown to based on whoever was there to see who won. Where does this judgment seat of Christ or this Bema seat come in? Right here, somewhere, right after the rapture in heaven. Why? Revelation four, the four and 20 elders representative of church age saints are pictured in heaven by the prophet John in the book of Revelation taking off their crowns and throwing them at the feet of Christ. That's before anything is said about the tribulation in the book of Revelation. I think that's the best explanation we can come up with. The exact date, we don't have, by the way. We couldn't calculate it anyway, could we, Dawn? We had several thousand years trying to figure out the calendar, so I don't think we're gonna get that. Okay, so you can have one of these to put with your notes. With that said, I hope this is an encouragement. Think about it. Everything you suffer, think about this for a minute. Any suffering God allows to come into your life. I'm not Other than when we sin and we will not confess that sin and it goes on and on and God has to chasten us. He may send some suffering that wakes us up. Other than that, we just suffer because we are living in a fallen world. And people are going to mistreat us. Situations are going to happen to us. And we are in the process of dying. Wages of sin is death. Only the resurrection is gonna permanently cure that. So we're not there yet. So we've got a lot of opportunities to suffer. But any suffering God allows us, presents us with an opportunity for eternal blessing. That's a stabilizer, right? That's a walking stick when you're going over the rough terrain of life. Right?