Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

We encounter various trials in life. These trials can refer to traditional hardships like getting sick, suffering financial difficulties, and relationship problems, or it can be the kind of trail where things are so good you forget about God. Whatever the case, we face trials, and whether good or bad in our eyes, God creates these trials. 

So it’s safe to say, God creates everything we encounter. It takes a lot of work for God to keep changing what we encounter. He has to move people, objects, and events. Only the omnipotent and omniscient God can do this. So whatever we are facing right now, believe without a doubt God has created that situation. It might be hard to believe if you’re facing one of the greatest challenges of your life, but it is God’s love, and He has a purpose for changing up the situations we encounter. It’s not because He wants to see us suffer. It’s not because He enjoys torturing us. He gives us various trials because He wants to firm up our faith. Our faith might be solid in this situation but waver in another. For this reason, God gives us various trials to toughen our faith. 

He gives us various trials because the best way to strengthen our faith is to continue our faith regardless of what we encounter. Take a look at your faith! Is your faith the same when things are good and bad? Is your faith a steady boat moving forward through calm and stormy waters? When we encounter various trials, we must be consistent. Whether we perceive our situation to be good or bad, our faith has got to stay the same. This is why God keeps changing our situations in life. He wants us to polish and perfect our faith, so it is immovable regardless of the events we encounter. 

When we try to do something consistently, we discover many things. We find out who or what impedes our attempts to be consistent. We find out about ourselves, our weaknesses, and our temptations. Try doing something consistently, and you’ll learn a lot about yourself! God gives us various trials so we can use our conscience, look only to God, keep His commands, and live according to His will consistently, regardless of the trials we encounter. With each trial, we must continue without fail to entrust everything to God, depend on God, look to God, and obey God. 

God gives us various trials because, in the end, He wants us to be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” We have an Old Self and a New Self living inside of us. When we meet new and challenging trials, our Old Self is in agony. We complain and lose heart. But our New Self springs to life. It’s a chance to grow. It’s a chance to finally rid ourselves of a sin dragging us down for years. Maybe you’ve been unable to shake off the lure of money, power, and ambition. Perhaps you’ve repeatedly been trying to stop a particular sin, but you just can’t get over the hump. God gives us trials so that our New Self can get stronger and overcome these sins. So we must consider various trials a joy. Rejoice! 

We must consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds because it produces perseverance. It makes us consistent in our faith. It makes us faithful in good times and bad. When we look to God, entrust everything to Him, and obey His commands in every situation we meet, we are complete, not lacking anything. That’s where we want to be. Are you faced with an insurmountable challenge? Take a look at your New Self because that Self is overjoyed because it has a chance to grow and get rid of a nagging sin that has been holding you back for years! 

Click for Korean Sermon https://soundcloud.com/yhpaik/1984-8-16-full