The Genuine Article (Part 2 of 2)

There are many people who come and go throughout our lives. Occasionally, we find a true friend, someone who stands the test, who endures the bad times as well as the good. Faith can be like that, too.

It is fleeting for some, but enduring for others. And today on Truth for Life, we'll learn how to determine if our faith is genuine. Alistair Begg is teaching from James 1, verses 9 through 11. What does faith look like? How do we know whether our faith is the real thing? And the answer that James gives, at least in part, is that genuine faith is to be discovered in the warp and woof of life, in the day-by-day opening and closing, if you like, in the facing up to the challenges and the trials that come our way.

What does it mean, then, to stand the test? You'll notice that the verse goes on, because when he has stood the test, the word is dokimos in Greek. It's a well-used word. It's the word that you find, for example, when Paul writes to Timothy as a young man, a verse that was given to me on a Bible when I left Scotland at the age of fifteen and left my Bible class behind, and the leaders gave me a Bible as a gift to take away down to England. And in the front of the Bible they wrote, 2 Timothy 2.15, Study to show yourself approved unto God. That word there, approved, is the word dokimos. It means approved after testing. And that is the word that he uses here.

When he has stood the test, when he is the one who has the seal of God's approval on his life, because he is a persevering believer. But without the trials, there's no test, and without the test, there's no graduation. You don't get a seal of approval without going through the test.

Some of us want to graduate without taking the courses. In fact, you can do that, I believe, in America. I see it all over the place. I think for a certain sum of money, I could give you a list of credentials that would make your head spin.

I see it all the time. You get a PhD from here and a master's of something from there and everything else. You just send the money, and it all comes to you. I can't imagine what you would do with it. How embarrassing would it be when the person said, And what was your thesis in?

And you have to say, Well, the… the… the person said, That's good, good, yes. It'd be worthless, wouldn't it? Just be silly, a qualification without any study, without any test. So it would be silly to think that maturity and completeness in the Christian life would be a maturity and completeness that was conferred upon us without taking the courses and without going through the examinations. God is purposeful in what he does in the lives of his children.

That's what James is saying. How long does this test take? When I looked at this, at first I thought, you know, when he has stood the test—this is a moment in time—and then I looked, and I said, No, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. When do you receive the crown of life? In eternity. When does eternity come? Just after you finish with time. When will you be finished with time at the end of your life?

How long is this test going to last? The whole of life. See, basically, if we're honest, the whole of our lives is just one gigantic series of tests.

There's something reassuring about that, though, isn't there? Because it gives us an opportunity to think seriously and realistically about the things that we and other people are going through when we're tempted to regard them as intruders rather than, as James says, welcoming them as friends. The Christian life is a real-time experience all the time every day. You don't go in a simulator to find out how to deal with your children. You don't go in a simulator to deal with the sudden loss of a loved one.

You don't go in a simulator to be prepared for whatever it might be that comes your way and hits you like a ton of lead. And what James makes so obviously clear is that the experience of joy and trial is an experience that is a simultaneous experience. It is not, as we've said before, that in the absence of trial is the discovery of joy, but rather that a joy that is an unfathomable joy may be discovered on account of the trial. I've quoted this verse to you before from the hymn, but it is a useful verse, isn't it? It's the hymn that begins, My God, I thank you, who has made the earth so bright and all of the wonderful things in the earth. And then the hymn writer says, I thank you too—or, I thank you—let's say two, it might be more—I thank you too that all my joy is touched with pain, that shadows fall on brightest hours and thorns remain, so that earth's bliss may be my guide and not my chain. You see, the blisses and the encouragements of our earthly journey may chain us to a constant fixation with wanting more and more and more of that affirmation, that good time, that safe time.

And God, in his heavenly wisdom, brings into our experience pain in the reality of joy, in order that we might become more like his Son. Andrew Murray wrote in his journals of his experience of dealing with trials, and I want just to mention these four things to you. I'm going to say them in their long form to begin with. Don't try and write them down.

And if you do want them, I'll give them to you in their abbreviated form as soon as I give you the long version, all right? This is Andrew Murray, and our question is, How do you persevere under trial? What does it mean to persevere under trial?

Andrew Murray said, In my experience of trial, I will say this. One, God brought me here. It is by his will that I am in this tough spot, and in that fact I will trust. Number two, God will keep me here in his love and give me the grace to behave as his child. Number three, God will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons he intends for me to learn.

And number four, God in his good time can, if he chooses, bring me out again how and when he knows. So says Murray, Let me say—and here's his summary— One, I am here by God's appointment. Two, I am in his keeping. Three, I am under his training.

Four, I am here for his time. Here by his appointment, here in his keeping, under his training, and here for his time. No wonder the Puritans said that providence is a soft pillow. We are not tossed about on the sea of chance. We are not being manipulated by blind, deterministic forces. Under God we are being trained in the school of his providence.

And what Murray puts so articulately there, Andrae Crouch, in a different genre, puts so poetically and so lyrically and so melodically, when in that wonderful song of his Through It All, remember, he says, And so I thank him for the mountains, and I thank him for the valleys, and I thank him for the things he's brought me through. Because if I never had a problem, I'd never know that God could solve them. I'd never know what faith in him could do. Through it all, through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus, persevering under trial. Fourthly, what then is this crown of life? What is this crown of life?

Because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. Now crowns appear in the Bible as symbols of a number of things—of joy, crowned with joy, of royalty, of victory—the victor's crown in the whole athletic metaphor—and also as a symbol of honor and of dignity. But in actual fact, the notion that is conveyed here in this phrase and by the grammar is that the crown that consists of life, that he will receive the crown that consists of life. Derek Prime puts it this way, the crown is a picture of eternal life that God promises to his people—a picture of the eternal life that God promises to his people.

The idea of God being present at the finishing line, welcoming us over the finishing line, and crowning us with honor and with blessing and with a life that is truly life. When Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, he urges him to take hold of eternal life to which he's been called—I think Phillips paraphrases it—"take hold of the life that is truly life." And the fifth question, and the final question, is who are those who love God? Because this crown of life has been promised by God to those who love him. To those who love him. If you're tempted to think here somehow or another that our love wins or our love earns this crown, then you're thinking immediately wrongly. Neither our faith nor our love wins or earns anything.

It is all on account of God's grace and his goodness. Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9, remember, he says, Eye has not seen nor ear heard, Neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him. Who love him. So the question is, who are those who love God? And the answer is, those who love God are those who have responded to God's amazing love towards them in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. First John, the apostle of love, 1 John 4.19, he says succinctly, We love because he first loved us. And the person who loves God is the person who has been made aware of God's amazing love in Jesus—a love that is an initiative-taking love, a love which is the love that calls us out, a love which comes and seeks us when we're not seeking him. Those who love God are those who have responded to God's love in this way, and they are those who at the same time express their love for God in a life of purposeful obedience. Still in 1 John, now in chapter 5, John says quite straightforwardly, This is love for God to obey his commands. This is love for God to obey his commands. Jesus said it, didn't he? If you love me, you will keep my commands. You see, the idea that love for God is an introduction to do whatever we want, again, we can't get to from the Bible.

No husband or wife worth their salt is prepared to make a lifelong commitment to an individual who says, I love you, but I want to do what I want anytime I want with anyone I want, saying that there's not a chance of that happening, because that would not be love. The crown of life is given to those who love God. The love of God in the children's hymn is very wonderful. Jesus' love is very wonderful.

So high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it, so wide you can't get round it. The hymn writer, at a more adult level, says, O love, O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee, I give you back the life I owe, That in your ocean depths its flow May richer fuller be. Let's end here, because this is of absolute crucial importance. It causes each of us, individually, to ask ourselves the question, Do I love God?

Do I love God? You say, well, that's a very simple question. It's a very simple question. But it is a complex question too, isn't it? Because we've already said that the answer to the question lies in the fact that the person who loves God is the person who has discovered that they're not roaming the universe looking for God, as if somehow or another mice went looking for cats, or as if Adam and Eve went looking for God in the garden, but they are individuals who realized that when they were perfectly content in their garden or in their lifestyle or in their vacation home or in their successful career, that God came looking for them and loving them in Jesus. And that it was the discovery of God's amazing love that broke their heart, showed them their sin, turned them over to God, and their life is now lived in response to God's amazing goodness in the obedience that marks the relationship.

Do you love God? I mean, that's the question, isn't it? That was the question that Tevye asked Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, wasn't it? You say, what?

Well, I know it's a long time ago, but if you remember that, you can go and listen to it later on, tomorrow or whatever. It's a wonderful section, isn't it, where he says that he's given Perchick permission to marry Hodel, the daughter, and Golder says, but Perchick's a nothing. He's got no money.

He's useless. And you remember, Tevye says, Oh, yes, but he's a good boy, and I like him. And what's more, Hodel loves him. And it's a new world, Golda, love. And then he says to her, Do you love me? And she says, What are you talking about? You have indigestion? Why don't you go and lie down for a while, Tevye?

What is up with you? She says, I'm your wife. He says, I know, but do you love me? And then she says, Do I love him? For twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought him, starved with him, twenty-five years my bed is his.

If that's not love, what is? And Tevye then says, Then you love me? And she says, I suppose I do. And he says, And I suppose I love you, too.

And then they sing together. It doesn't change a thing, but even so, after twenty-five years, it's nice to know. Isn't that what Jesus asked, Peter, when he made him breakfast? That was his question, Peter, do you love me? Three times.

One to match each denial. Made a hash of it, made a hash of it, made a hash of it. Do you love me? Yes. Do you love me?

Lord, you know. Do you love me? Yes. Okay.

Now you go out and feed my sheep. That's the question, you see. Do I love God?

Not an ocean of an existence of a higher being, not a concept of doing my best to placate a deity, but have I come to an awareness of the fact that God has gone to the extent of the gift of his only Son as an expression of his redeeming love so as to take me in my unloveliness and make me lovely on account of Jesus? That's the question. Do you remember when you got married?

I hope so. Came down the front of the church. The minister was there.

Your wife was there to be, your husband. And the minister addressed you and asked you those questions which were addressed to your will, not to your emotions. He didn't say, And how are you today?

How are you feeling about Susie today? Never asked that question. He said, Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife? I do. And do you take this man to be your wedded husband?

I do. And back up the aisle went a couple that arrived as individuals. To become a Christian is much like that. You stand, as it were, before God the Father, who looks down upon his Son, Jesus, and upon the sinner who stands with Jesus. And the Father asks Christ, Do you take this sinner? And Jesus says, I do.

And then he says to the sinner, And do you take this Savior? Now, if you ask me if I'm married, then I say, I don't know. Well, I think, yeah, there's a severe problem somewhere. You would agree with that, wouldn't you? You want a resounding yes from me that goes back to seventy-five, to Philadelphia.

And so does Sue. And that's what I want from her—no ifs, buts, and maybes. So my dear loved ones, do not sit out here Sunday by Sunday being confronted by the straightforward questions of God's Word, such as, Do you love me?

Have you bowed your will to Jesus Christ and satisfy yourself with a kind of, I don't know. It will not do. It will not do. It's a yes or a no. It's an in or a out. It's a single or a married.

It's a love or a hate. And I'm not self-selling you on anything. It would be one thing if I said, And if you love God—and let me tell you how it will be. No more turbulence, no more trials.

Let me explain to you how your profits will go up, and your mortgage will come down, and your health will be perfect, and what a bunch of absolute, trivial, trivial nonsense. No. But right where you are, because God knows your heart, you can cry out to Him today and say, Lord, I thank you for loving me in Jesus, for bearing my sins, and I want to love you too. That is Alistair Begg with a challenge that all of us need to consider. If we love God, we'll express our love in a life of purposeful obedience.

So do you love God? If you're uncertain about your answer to this important question, we want to invite you to visit the Learn More page on our website. You will find there a couple of short videos. One is Alistair explaining the message of the Gospel. The other video is an animated explanation of God's plan for our salvation.

It's called The Story. Just visit truthforlife.org slash learn more. The book of James certainly provides us with a lot of practical advice for everyday living. If you've been enjoying our current series, Faith That Works, did you know you can own all 40 sermons in this series from the book of James?

They come on a USB drive titled Faith That Works, and you can find it in the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash store. Here at Truth for Life, we are passionate about teaching the Bible every day in a way that is clear and relevant for daily living. Our prayer is that God will use these messages to convert unbelievers and to root and establish believers more deeply in their faith. So along with Alistair's messages, we recommend books to help you and your family learn more about Scripture. It's never too early to start sharing God's Word with your children, and that's why we're recommending a story book titled Bible Stories Every Child Should Know. This book contains an extensive collection of more than 120 Bible stories. The first story begins right in Genesis 1, and from there it moves through the storyline of the Bible all the way through to Revelation. These stories are a great way to introduce young children or grandchildren to God's people throughout history. The book lays a solid foundation on which your children can build as they grow older and begin reading the Bible on their own. Request your copy of Bible Stories Every Child Should Know. Along with a donation of any amount, you can simply tap on the image you see in the app or visit the website at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or if you'd prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lapine. Have you ever heard someone say, I'm being tempted? Well, join us tomorrow as we find out why temptation is not one of God's tools for testing our faith. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for nothing.