Chase Radford
Mar 20, 2024
Full message notes here: https://estd.craft.me/Lp4roa44RVHj5Q
James 1:2–4 (ESV): Testing of Your Faith
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (endurance; perseverance). 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
“…when life goes into meltdown, when our feet are swept out from under us with the perplexing surprises of life, we do not throw in the towel. We return afresh to God. That moment of life implosion, taken to Christ, is where we will finally get traction and power in our Christian lives. Our agony is where God himself lives.” - Dane Ortlund
James 5:10-11
10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
"If we endure all things patiently and with gladness, thinking on the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, and bearing all for the love of Him: herein is perfect joy." - Francis of Assisi
“Ability, strength, and success feel safe. But they are deadly dangerous, creating conceit. Inability, weakness, and failure feel dangerous. But they are safe ground, creating humility. Beyond this, our lowly weakness physically, psychologically, intellectually, educationally, and even spiritually is precisely the catalyst for divine power. Power for what? For calm, for growth, for joy, for communion with God, for evangelistic unction, for our preaching to sing. In short, for fruitfulness in the Christian life. Jesus himself taught, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (John 12:24).” - Dane Ortlund
Romans 8:37–39 (ESV)
37 ...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.