How to Endure Trials

 Sermon Outline: James 1:1-18 by Pastor John Filkey 

TITLE: HOW TO ENDURE TRIALS

MAIN POINTS:

• The Purpose Of Trials
• The Problem With Our Unchecked Desires
• Long For The Good And The Perfect

Main Idea: When we keep the goodness of God and his promises in focus we will avoid disaster and deepen our faith.

Kids’ Words: Goodness, Promises, Faith, Trials

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE: James 1:1–18

HOW TO ENDURE TRIALS

• The Purpose of Trials

The first Purpose Of Trials from James 1:2-4

The second Purpose of Trials is to know this from James 1:5–8

The third Purpose of Trials from James 1:12

QUOTE: True faith can’t be destroyed by a trial, it endures, it perseveres right through the trial. That’s the nature of true faith. So, God bringing trials into our life is not destroying our faith, He’s displaying/revealing it.

• The Problem With Our Unchecked Desires

QUOTE: Outside trials often lead to inside temptations!

• Long For The Good And The Perfect

1. A joyous attitude
2. An understanding mind
3. A submissive will

QUOTE: From Joni Eareckson Tada’s book, When God Weeps:

Suffering is used to increase our awareness of the sustaining power of God to whom we owe our sustenance.

Suffering allows the life of Christ to be manifest in our mortal flesh, and allows us to share in His suffering.

Suffering bankrupts us, drains us of all human resources, and makes us dependent on God.

Suffering imparts the mind of Christ, who was willing to strip Himself and become a servant and bow to the needs of others.

Suffering teaches us that God is more concerned with character than comfort.

Suffering teaches us that the greatest good of the Christian life is not the absence of pain, but the presence of spiritual maturity, or perfection.

Suffering teaches us obedience and self-control when it comes in a chastening form.

Suffering is a voluntary way to demonstrate the love of God by personal self-sacrifice.

Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces an eternal reward.

Suffering binds Christians together in a common purpose.

Suffering produces discernment; it produces knowledge, understanding, and allows us to share what we’ve learned and understood with others.

Through suffering God is able to obtain our broken and contrite spirit, which He desires.

Suffering causes us to discipline our minds by making us focus our hope on the grace to be revealed at the revelation of Jesus Christ.