Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:04] Thank you so much for your very kind welcome. Denise and I love coming to this church. You are welcoming, you're kind, you're warm. We enjoy worshiping with you every opportunity we have to be with you. So thank you for having us back again.
[00:00:20] I'm going to ask you to turn in your copy of the Scriptures to James chapter one. James chapter one I'm going to be reading verses one through 12 and then we will see what God wants to teach us from James 1:1 12.
[00:00:35] Just full disclosure, you'll see the words on the screen. My translation is a little bit different this morning and you'll see a word here and there that might be different, but I think you'll still be able to follow along without any difficulty. James 1:1.
[00:00:57] James A Bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus christ to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad. Greetings.
[00:01:08] Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
[00:01:27] But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
[00:01:36] But he must ask in faith, without doubting.
[00:01:40] For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
[00:01:46] For that person ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double minded man unstable in all his ways.
[00:01:58] Now the brother or sister of humble circumstances is to glory in the high position, but the rich person is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.
[00:02:13] For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers, the grass and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed.
[00:02:23] So also the rich person in the midst of his pursuits will die out.
[00:02:29] Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
[00:02:43] This is the word of God, so receive it and hear it and obey it for as long as God gives you life.
[00:02:55] Job the Patriarch and that man of suffering said in Job 5 and verse 7 man is appointed to trouble even as sparks fly upward.
[00:03:11] When I first read that, I had to stop for a moment and think, what's he talking about? Man is appointed for trouble even as sparks fly upward.
[00:03:20] Now think about that and imagine yourself sitting in the patio back of your house. There's a fire pit a little bit in front of that, and the fire is starting to die out. Someone goes over and takes a log, picks the log up and throws it on the fire pit. And you'll know what will happen at that point. The sparks start to go in all different directions, but most of the sparks will fly upward, just as Job said.
[00:03:46] Or if you were to go up to Mackinaw island, while you're up there, you may tour some different places, and you may come across a blacksmith shop.
[00:03:57] And the blacksmith will be preparing some different things to put shoes on the horses. And in the process, he'll put a piece of metal into a fire, and that metal will start to be red hot. He'll pull it off, put it on the anvil, and he'll hit it with his hammer.
[00:04:14] And the sparks begin to go in all different directions. But most of the sparks will fly upward, just as Job said, that's the way life works. I don't know the physical laws of all of those things, but Job said, man is appointed for trouble even as sparks fly upward. In other words, he's saying, you need to expect that you're going to experience trouble in life.
[00:04:38] And most of us could check that off and say, that's true.
[00:04:42] We experience trouble in life. But most of us never signed up for trouble.
[00:04:50] In fact, we don't like trouble.
[00:04:52] We do everything we can to avoid it. That's why you have car insurance and life insurance and health insurance and all these other things, to try to keep the trouble at bay as much as possible.
[00:05:03] And yet trouble comes.
[00:05:06] So the question comes back to us. What should we do in the midst of our troubles, in the midst of our trials?
[00:05:16] Here's an even better question.
[00:05:18] What is it that God wants us to do whenever we face trials and troubles in the course of the living out of our days? That's what this text is all about.
[00:05:30] We're gonna try to answer that question in terms of what God wants us to do, how he wants us to respond, how he wants us to see things.
[00:05:37] But to do that, I want you to notice something. All of my thoughts you can hang on these three things. You can hang it on the fact that we're going to do a passage overview. Basically, we're gonna try to see what is the writer doing.
[00:05:50] And then after we look at that, we're gonna draw a conclusion, what I call a principle, a transforming truth, something you can take with you into the rest of your life. And then on the other side of that, we're gonna try to say, how do we go about practicing this Principle that we've discovered, passage, overview, principle, and then practices. That's where we're going.
[00:06:11] So let's take a look at what the writer James is doing in this passage. I want you to notice that he is telling us about the author of this passage. And then he's gonna tell us something about the audience. Then he's gonna tell us an aim that he has in writing all of this.
[00:06:30] You'll see who the author is in verse one. Notice he says James. Then he goes on to say some things about him. Bible scholars understand this James to be James, the what we would call the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:06:46] Remember, Jesus was born of a virgin. We'll be celebrating that and talking about that over the next several Sundays.
[00:06:55] But James, or excuse me, Jesus was born of a virgin. And then Mary, married to Joseph, also had other children. James was one of those children.
[00:07:07] You may also remember that in the living out of his earthly ministry, Jesus family came to him on one occasion and wanted to take him away because they thought he was delusional. He was out of his mind.
[00:07:21] But Jesus continued on in his ministry. But apparently James changed his view of Jesus. So that's why he calls himself a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:07:36] So the author of this book is the half brother of Jesus. His name is James. And now he doesn't call himself a half brother, doesn't even make reference to that family, but he calls himself one who is owned by God the Father and owned by Jesus, and will do anything that the Lord Jesus wants him to do. That's what a bondservant is. That's who the author of this book is all about. Now, this passage also has an audience.
[00:08:04] We don't know a great deal about the audience other than what is said. In the second part of verse one, you'll notice it says to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad.
[00:08:16] So he's probably talking about those Jewish believers in Jerusalem that following the resurrection ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, were dispersed into different parts of the world. Most of them were Jewish. There were some Gentiles that came to faith as well. But they were dispersed away. They were facing trouble everywhere they went.
[00:08:38] In fact, we could even say of that audience that they had a worldview.
[00:08:42] Here was their worldview. And you pick this up as you read through the rest of the letter. Their worldview was trials are terrible.
[00:08:52] We could agree, right?
[00:08:54] Not only that, they would begin to say, wisdom is waning. We don't know what to do in the midst of These trials, another worldview that this audience had was wealth. Would be wonderful.
[00:09:05] If I could just have more wealth, that would get me out of all of these trials, all of these troubles.
[00:09:10] So trials are terrible. Wisdom is waning. Wealth would be wonderful. That's the audience. That's the way they're thinking, and that's why James is writing to them.
[00:09:20] Now, there's something else I want you to see that this passage not only has an author and an audience, it also has an aim. And we pick it up by a word that James repeats throughout the letter. You'll see it first of all in verse two, he says, consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, there's the word trials, troubles, difficulties in life.
[00:09:45] He says something similar in verse two, excuse me, verse three, where he says, knowing that the testing of your faith, that word testing is part of that same root, it could also be said in terms of knowing the trying of your faith. So he's writing to people who are under trials, writing to people who are being tested in their faith. And then drop down to verse 12, and you'll notice in verse 12, he says, blessed is the man who perseveres under trial.
[00:10:16] So James has been talking about and talking to people who are experiencing difficulty trials in their lives, and he wants them to do something about it.
[00:10:28] Now, the verbs that James uses throughout these first 12 verses give us a hint as to the principle that he wants us to walk away with.
[00:10:39] Here's the principle. If you remember anything, if you write down anything in your note page, this is the one thing you want to write down. Here it is.
[00:10:48] When trials come, see those trials as God's good gifts. Let me repeat that. When trials come, see those trials as good, good gifts from God.
[00:11:06] Now, that might shock you a little bit and you're ready to step back and say, I don't believe that they're not good gifts in my life. I see them as terrible things. But James is saying, let those trials enter into your life. See them as God's good gifts. Now, you could ask at this point, why, Harry, would you say that they are good gifts that God allows to come into our lives?
[00:11:30] I wanna say something very, very quickly and you can check this out on your own a little bit later. Nowhere in this passage, nowhere in the book, does it say that God sends the trials, but God allows the trials. And then in allowing those trials, he can come along and he can actually use them for our benefit. He never sends them. He's not punishing us, but he Allows the trials to come into a fallen world amongst fallen people so that we can gain certain things in life.
[00:12:01] There are four things I want you to see that we can gain. And we can see that trials are a good gift. Here's the first one. We see it in verses two through four.
[00:12:10] And he's basically telling us that trials are God's good gifts to develop spiritual muscle.
[00:12:21] I wouldn't be surprised. There are a number of people in this congregation this morning that members at a health club, a gym might be a planet Fitness, might be an la Fitness might be anything. And if you went to one of those gyms for the first time, you walk in the front door, and here's what you see. You see machines scattered throughout the building.
[00:12:43] There are machines for building biceps. There are machines for strengthening your legs. There are machines for building up your body in a lot of different ways. They are designed, when you use them to build features, physical muscles.
[00:12:57] James is teaching us that trials do the same thing.
[00:13:01] They build spiritual muscle. And you're saying, harry, why should I believe that? How is that the case? Notice what he says. I want you to notice in this passage that there is in verses two through four, a command, and then there is a cause, and then the cause leads to a conclusion. Let's look at the command, verse 2.
[00:13:22] He says, consider it all joy.
[00:13:25] It's interesting that that word has the idea of stepping back and pondering something you've done, that maybe something's troubling you, and you kind of step back from the project that's in front of you and you consider, what are you gonna do next? He says, consider it all joy.
[00:13:43] Now it's interesting that James uses the word joy and not the word happiness. There's a difference between those two.
[00:13:52] Happiness has the idea of everything around me. All of my experiences are wonderful.
[00:13:58] You probably had some happy times this past week. It's because the experiences you were experiencing were good.
[00:14:06] Joy's a little bit different.
[00:14:08] Joy is an inward sense of calm and contentment, knowing that God is in control.
[00:14:17] That's what joy is all about. So he says, consider it all joy, my brothers, whenever you experience, and here's the phrase, trials of various kinds.
[00:14:30] Some of you may have a translation that says multifaceted trials or multicolored trials.
[00:14:37] Imagine yourself going to your local Sherwin Williams store.
[00:14:42] You and your spouse have decided you're gonna paint the bathroom. And you walk in and the clerk says, well, how can I help you today? You say, listen, we're painting our bathroom. We would like some Blue paint.
[00:14:53] And the author says, blue paint. Okay, what kind of blue paint? What shade of blue? And you say, blue paint.
[00:15:01] He said, no, come over here. And he shows you this display in which there are 372 shades of blue.
[00:15:10] You've been there. You know what that's all about.
[00:15:13] And that's the way it is with James. James says there isn't just one trial because this person can experience one trial and this person another trial, and this one another trial, and this. They're all different.
[00:15:24] He says, consider it all joy with an inner sense of contentment whenever you experience trials of different kinds. And then he goes to the cause. He tells us why. Look at verse three.
[00:15:37] Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. It's a participle, but it's translated as a causal statement. Knowing that or because you know now, at this point in time, the readers didn't know initially that that was the case. But he's telling that as if it's a confidence. He's saying, you're going to know that these trials will do something. And he says, the testing of your faith will produce endurance, persistence over the long haul. That's what endurance is all about.
[00:16:12] And you'll notice also that he gives a conclusion, verse 4, and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
[00:16:25] Now, when he uses that term, perfect, he's not talking about being without sin.
[00:16:31] What he's talking about is that in your everyday life, you will be given the complete things that you need so that you can go through those trials. Because what God is doing, he's giving you a good gift in the midst of these trials to build spiritual muscle.
[00:16:50] So how do we respond to that?
[00:16:53] Here's how we normally respond.
[00:16:55] We normally respond, this is terrible. I don't deserve this. This shouldn't happen to me. I'm a better person than this God. If you really love me, you wouldn't allow me to. No, we need to stop.
[00:17:06] We need to step back and consider and say, lord, I know you're up to something. I'm not sure what it is at this point, but I wanna thank you that you're allowing me to experience this trial so that I can become spiritually healthy.
[00:17:24] I'll have strength for the long haul.
[00:17:27] So when trials come, see your trials as good gifts from God. And they're good gifts because they build spiritual muscle. Here's the second thing.
[00:17:38] James is also telling us in verses 5 through 7, or actually it's verses 5 through 8, that trials are Good gifts from God. Because what they're doing is, is they are also prompting us to pray.
[00:17:57] In the early days of television, one of the things that would happen is that a producer would get the stage ready. The host or the actors on the stage would be preparing in their garments, whatever it might be. And then there would be a series of people along the front of the stage, and they would be holding up cards.
[00:18:15] The cards were cue cards. And the cue card was designed to prompt the person on the stage to say something or to do something.
[00:18:25] James says, you, trials are like cue cards, and God is not causing the trial, but he's allowing the trial so that it can be held up, and it will prompt you to pray. Now, how do we know that?
[00:18:40] We know that because you will notice in this passage there is a context. The context is followed by a command, and then the.
[00:18:48] The command is followed by a contrast or a caution.
[00:18:53] Look at verse five. It says, but if any of you. And he goes on to say something rather strange. If any of you lacks wisdom, it's almost as if he's changing subjects at this point.
[00:19:04] But he's not when he uses that connective. But he's going back to verses two through four, and he's talking about trials again. So he said, but whenever you face trials, here's what you need to do.
[00:19:16] If any of you lacks wisdom, here's the command, let him ask of the Lord. Let him ask God for wisdom.
[00:19:27] Now, wisdom is not the same as knowledge. There's a difference between those two. Here's an example of knowledge.
[00:19:35] A person goes off to the technical college and they decide they want to be an auto mechanic. And so they learn all sorts of things. Maybe they go for a couple of years.
[00:19:44] At the end of their learning, they even buy a toolbox, one of these big red toolbox. And there are several drawers. And inside the toolbox are hundreds of tools.
[00:19:56] In fact, the graduate can tell you the name of every one of those tools, but that does not guarantee he or she will know how to use those tools.
[00:20:07] With the passing of time, that person will develop wisdom so that they know not only the name of the tool, but how to use this tool in various situations, various complications with that vehicle.
[00:20:20] James is saying much the same thing. What you need to do is not only realize you're in a context of trials, but in that context you need to ask God. And when you notice what he says about God, who gives generously, gives generously to anyone who asks, isn't that amazing that if you said to the Lord, Lord, I don't know what to do. This trial seems overwhelming to me. I'm not sure what I should do. I feel uncomfortable.
[00:20:49] But if you ask him, tell me what to do, give me wisdom for this situation.
[00:20:54] God will give generously because that's the kind of God we have.
[00:21:00] But there is one caution.
[00:21:04] We see it beginning in verse six. But he or she must ask in faith, without any doubting. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea.
[00:21:15] And he goes on to say that that person is like this wave that comes into the shore.
[00:21:21] And then it goes back out, comes in again, goes back out.
[00:21:26] James says, you don't want your life to be like the surf, like a wave of the sea.
[00:21:31] You believe this at one point, then you believe something else.
[00:21:34] James refers to it as doubting. It's being in two minds. At one point, I believe God, I trust him. The next point, I don't believe him.
[00:21:44] James says, if that's the way you come to God and you ask him, don't expect anything.
[00:21:50] What you should do is to see this trial as a cue card prompting you to pray.
[00:22:01] So what are we going to do?
[00:22:03] Could I suggest to you that instead of asking why?
[00:22:07] Why's not gonna get you anywhere, Step back and say, lord, will you give me wisdom?
[00:22:14] Would you give me skill in knowing how to navigate, how to manage this?
[00:22:19] Trusting him that he is a generous, he is a good God, he will give you what you need. So when trials come, see them as good gifts from God.
[00:22:32] They build spiritual muscle.
[00:22:34] They're cue cards that prompt us to pray.
[00:22:38] Here's the third thing.
[00:22:40] The third thing is that we see that God is also using trials as good gifts to readjust our identity.
[00:22:52] Back in the 60s and 70s, when the space race started, a lot of people were glued to their televisions because they wanted to see what was happening. And so we did that for several years. And if you tuned in to one of those launches, one of the things you would hear along the way, especially when we're going to the moon, someone from mission Control would say something like this. In T minus 60 seconds, the astronauts are going to make a mid course adjustment. What they were saying is, the capsule's a little bit off course and we're going to do something to bring it back on course.
[00:23:30] James is saying something like that in verses 9 through 11.
[00:23:37] He's basically saying that there comes a point in life where we forget who we are.
[00:23:43] There's a context to this passage. Then there is a command of this passage, and Then he's telling us basically what we need to do, how we need to think.
[00:23:54] Would you notice that the context again is one of trials? But he says, now, the brother or sister of humble circumstances.
[00:24:01] Do you remember I defined the audience at the beginning of this message by saying they said something like they believe something like, trials are terrible, wisdom is waning. And then they would go on and they'd say something, boy, wealth would be wonderful because wealth will deliver us from everything.
[00:24:17] James says, not so fast, not so fast. That's not true.
[00:24:21] What he's basically saying is the brother or sister of humble surrey. He's talking about Christians.
[00:24:28] Christians like you and many Christians around the world are people who do not have much in terms of this world's goods. He says, the person of humble circumstances is to glory. That's the command. Glory in his high position.
[00:24:47] Now we are prompted to ask the question, why is being in a humble circumstance as a Christian, not having much in terms of this world's good? Why is that a high position?
[00:24:58] It's because we are united with Jesus Christ.
[00:25:04] You hear the gospel around this place every week and the gospel will say something like this, that we're sinners, desperately in need of a savior. I'll tell you that again a little bit later. And you'll hear things like, we need to trust Jesus because God sent Jesus into the world as our perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. And when we trust him, we are given eternal life.
[00:25:27] But the gospel goes on even from there.
[00:25:30] Here's what else the gospel is that when you trust Jesus as your Savior, all of Christ's righteousness is your righteousness.
[00:25:40] His resurrection power is your resurrection power.
[00:25:45] The hope of Jesus becomes your hope. In fact, it goes on again and again and again.
[00:25:51] Everything that Jesus is becomes our possession as well, because we are united to Jesus. That's our high position.
[00:25:59] Now, notice that James gives a caution along the way or a contrast.
[00:26:05] We see it roundabout in verse 10.
[00:26:10] But the rich person is to glory in his humiliation.
[00:26:15] A word about the rich person.
[00:26:17] Every time you encounter the phrase rich person in the letter of James, it's never referred to as the rich brother or the rich sister, meaning Christians.
[00:26:29] In other words, he's talking about these rich people as people who were really unbelievers. They had the things of this world that we think we want and they're greedy to get those things.
[00:26:43] And James says they should glory, kind of speaking sarcastically in their low position.
[00:26:49] Why is that?
[00:26:51] James says, because they're like the grass of the field. And the flowers that are growing on the grass or around the grass.
[00:26:58] James says, what happens when the scorching heat comes, the grass begins to turn brown and the flowers begin to fade?
[00:27:09] My dear wife loves flowers.
[00:27:12] And early in the summer or late in the spring, she will plant, I'll help her plant some of the flowers around our house. And they're beautiful, and she nurtures them every single day.
[00:27:25] Now, somewhere around about late October, early November, something happened to those flowers.
[00:27:32] If you were to look at the flowers, the plants in front of our house, they look like rotten bananas that have been kind of thrown out there.
[00:27:41] It's because the weather has changed, that has taken life out of them. James says that's what happens to the rich, unbelieving individual. Nothing wrong with being rich. They're gonna be rich people in the kingdom of God.
[00:27:55] But he's saying, this rich, unbelieving person, they're gonna pass away. They're gonna pass away like the flower of the field on the grass of the field.
[00:28:05] So how do we respond to that?
[00:28:07] James is saying, instead of saying, I need more wealth, instead of wanting wealth, we need to repent of that.
[00:28:17] We need to say, lord Jesus, thank you for all of the riches that I have in you.
[00:28:27] So when trials come, see them as good gifts from God. They're good gifts because they build spiritual muscle. They're good gifts because they are like cue cards prompting us to pray. And they're good gifts that kind of redirect, refocus on our true identity. We are united with Jesus.
[00:28:53] One other thing that I want you to see in this passage, and we see it in verse 12, and that is God wants us to see our trials as good gifts that are like seeds that we plant to ultimately inherit blessing.
[00:29:09] Notice what he says in this passage. He gives us both a practice and then a promise.
[00:29:17] In verse 12, he says, Blessed is a man who. Here's the practice, who perseveres under trial.
[00:29:25] Blessed is that person favored by God, is that person. That's what blessed means, who perseveres under trial.
[00:29:34] So he's talking about the fact that even though the trial comes, they don't stop, they don't complain.
[00:29:40] Instead, they keep moving. They're moving ahead because they realize that they are bond servants of Jesus Christ. They are serving him.
[00:29:47] And when they do that, every time they persevere, it's like putting a seed into the ground.
[00:29:53] And then something happens. A promise is given. Do you see it there in the second half of verse 12? For once, he has been approved. In other Words. Once the trial is over, once that life comes to an end, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
[00:30:14] Now someone is gonna say, what in the world is the crown of life?
[00:30:17] And Bible scholars are all over the place and what it means to have the crown of life.
[00:30:22] It seems to me he's talking about specifically for those people who persevere in very difficult positions.
[00:30:29] The crown of life is something that they give a reward that is granted to them, which ultimately they'll give back to Jesus, but a reward that is given to them. And it means experiencing life to the fullness.
[00:30:42] Can you imagine sometime in your future, when you step from this life into your eternal life, that what will happen? You will start to experience things that you cannot imagine.
[00:30:58] I don't know if this is possible, but you might. You might think, oh, my, why in the world was I so attracted to that car? Why was I so attracted to that house? Why was I so attracted to that bank account? Why was I.
[00:31:14] I have that. Which is far better.
[00:31:17] And that's what happens when we persevere. In the midst of our trials, we're actually planting seeds that ultimately will grow into spiritual blessings.
[00:31:26] And James says, for those who love him, that's important.
[00:31:32] Cause you'll persevere the more you love him.
[00:31:36] Someone has said that we are the product or byproduct of the things that we love.
[00:31:42] So if we love money, we're going to be pursuing more and more money. And in the process of pursuing more and more money, we forget the kids and we forget the marriage, and we forget the friendships.
[00:31:56] Or it might be the kind of thing that when we pursue pleasure in life, it becomes so important that we are consumed by those things, because that's what we love.
[00:32:07] But what would happen if we fell deeper and deeper in love with Jesus?
[00:32:14] Say, Harry, how would you do that?
[00:32:17] Every time you come to a place like this and you sing songs of praise to Jesus, you're falling in love with him. Every time you listen to the word of God and you take in the word of God, you're falling in love with Jesus. Every time you open your Bible in the morning before you go to work, you're falling in love with Jesus. Every time you share the truth with your children, you're falling in love with Jesus.
[00:32:37] And the more you fall in love with Jesus, the more you have a desire to persevere in this life.
[00:32:48] So when trials come, see your trials as good gifts from God. They really are good gifts because they build spiritual Muscle.
[00:33:00] They're like cue cards that prompt us to pray.
[00:33:05] And then they're the kind of thing that readjust, make a mid course correction with respect to our true identity.
[00:33:12] And then they help us to plant seeds so that we will persevere to inherit what God has for us.
[00:33:20] So could I wrap this up under the rubric of one word? Here's the word, see at the beginning in verse 2. Consider.
[00:33:30] Consider.
[00:33:31] To consider is to step back. To step back and to ponder things.
[00:33:37] So there are two kinds of people here that need to ponder this morning, that need to consider.
[00:33:42] Many of you have been coming to this church and are part of this church family and you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.
[00:33:52] If that's the case, could I ask you to ponder, to consider what your life has been like? And have you noticed that even though you've experienced trials in the past, God has brought you through them?
[00:34:07] Even if the trial is still going on, God is still using that trial in your life to minister to other people.
[00:34:15] That's the way God works. So ponder the fact that God has brought you through trials. He's gonna bring you through this trial, whatever it might be right now. And so you say, Lord Jesus, thank you. You, thank you that you're such a faithful savior, a wonderful Savior.
[00:34:30] The other type of person that's in this class, this congregation, is a person who has never come to a point where you have a personal relationship with Jesus.
[00:34:41] You have all kinds of things you've heard about him, maybe you've even come to this place before. But you've never come to a point where you have been willing to say, I admit that I'm a sinner, I've been a spiritual rebel against God.
[00:34:57] I deserve the justice of God in my life.
[00:35:01] But maybe you need to ponder the fact that God is offering you a gift this morning. The gift is the gift of salvation where realizing who you are and having a desire to repent of your old way of life, your spiritual rebellion, you come and, and you place your trust and your faith in Jesus. When you do that, he will forgive you of your sins and he will give you the hope of eternal life.
[00:35:29] So whatever group you're in, ponder. Ponder where you are. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey him in all things.
[00:35:39] Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
[00:35:44] Thank you Holy Spirit, for being here and desiring to work in and through us. Give us hearts more and more that listen to you.
[00:35:57] We pray all of this in Jesus name.
[00:36:00] Amen.
