Sermon - Faith in the Fire: "Kingdom Wisdom " Series

Sermon Outline
Focus: God uses trials not to destroy our faith, but to develop mature, surrendered, Kingdom people.

I. Trials develop our faith (James 1:2-3)
          Trials reveal what we are truly trusting in.
          Pressure exposes foundations.
          God often meets us in the fire, not around it.
          Can you say, “Even when I do not understand, I will trust the character of God.”
          The fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego (Daniel 3)

II. Trials produce maturity and dependence (James 1:4-5)
         God is more committed to our maturity than our comfort.
         Trials deepen dependence on God.
         Wisdom is seeing life through the rule and reign of Jesus.
         Perseverance is not formed in comfort, but hardship (Romans 5:3-5; 2          Corinthians 12:9-10)

III. Trials reveal surrendered faith (James 1:6-8)
         Trials expose divided loyalties.
         Faith learns to trust God even when circumstances are uncertain.
         Kingdom people anchor their lives fully in Christ.

IV. When trials come:
         Don’t interpret hardship as abandonment.
         Ask: “God, what are You producing in me?”
         Ask God daily for wisdom.
         Keep praying, obeying, and trusting.
         Anchor your life fully in Christ.

V. Kingdom people are not people who never face trials. They are people who              discover that even in the fire, Jesus is faithful.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Particularly in America, we spend a lot of our time trying to avoid pain. Right? Like if we're starting to hurt physically, we medicate against it, we pray against it, we plan against it, we insure against it, right? We we worry against it, and yet here's the reality of our existence. The pain still comes.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Weekly Sermon Podcast. We're so glad that you've joined us, and we're honored to be part of your spiritual journey. Today, Pastor Jarrett starts a new sermon series entitled Kingdom Wisdom, using the Book of James, written by the half-brother of Jesus. Today's message is titled Faith in the Fire. All of us face trials in this life, but God uses trials not to destroy our faith, but to develop mature, surrendered kingdom people. And now, here's Pastor Jared. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

It is a joy to be with you. This morning we are kicking off a new series of messages just to kind of get us through the first uh bit of the summer months. Uh it's on the book of James. I like what Pastor Robbie said at 8:30. It's this is the how-to book of the Bible. Uh not that the why isn't important, uh, but this is kind of the how-to book of the Bible. Uh this really, we're calling this series Kingdom Wisdom. And it really fits under the umbrella of the overarching theme for the collective year of 2026. Uh the goal, if I can remind you, Church Lakes, is that we are looking to be able to cultivate kingdom mindsets. What does that mean? We want to look at life through the lens of the rule and reign of Jesus Christ. And when we can do that well, we become more effective kingdom builders in all of our circles of influence, whether it be our home, workplace, school, community, even to the ends of the earth. Uh, you know, my prayer for the uh mission team who's heading down to Henderson Settlement, Kentucky, this morning I pray that they would see the work they're called to do through the lens of the rule and reign of Jesus Christ, that they know that they're going down there as ambassadors of the kingdom of God to make known the mysteries of this gospel that we we proclaim uh day in and day out. And so uh today we are kicking off again this this book, uh this series on the book of James, uh, Kingdom Wisdom. And the reason we want to talk about wisdom is because we are a culture, we are in the midst of a world that is drowning in information, is it not? And yet sorely lacking in wisdom. We have more podcasts and opinions and influencers and self-help content than any other generation in history. And yet we are people who are more anxious, divided, angry, confused, and spiritually exhausted than any generation in history. Why? Because information does not necessarily equate to transformation. And that's why the book of James matters so much. Uh James, this book is an intensely practical book. The author, who is James, the half-brother of Jesus, listen, is not so much interested in a faith that lives only in your head. The question James is asking of all of us is, does your faith show up in real life? Friend, does your faith show up in real life? Does it show up in the way you react in any given moment? Does it show up in the way you embrace and endure suffering? Does it show up in your relationships with the people you love and also maybe the strangers you meet on the streak, uh, the street? Does your faith show up in the way you make your decisions each and every day? Because hear me, real faith never stays theoretical. It never sits in an ivory tower. James shows us that kingdom wisdom is not simply worldly success with religious language attached to it. Kingdom wisdom is learning again to see life through the lens of the rule and the reign of Jesus Christ, King Jesus. So throughout this series, we're gonna discover, I think, something important, and here is what it is. Mature faith, friends, is not proven in comfort. Mature faith, not proven in comfort. It is proven, it is revealed in everyday obedience, regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable that obedience may be. Today we're gonna begin this series with the message called faith in the fire. And the reason we're starting there is because that's where James begins his letter to the early church. And the reason he begins in the fire is because mature faith, um, one of the primary ways that God matures our faith is really through the fire. It's through the trials and the adversities of our existences. Listen to James. This is James, the half-brother of Jesus, writing to the early church. He says, James, a servant or slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. The dispersion is just simply the scattering of all of God's people around the world. And so, even though James is writing this letter to them two thousand years ago, it is also written for us, the people of God that are scattered all around the world. And he gives this greeting. Greetings. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives generously to all, and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Consider a pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, I thank you so much for this morning. This chance to gather in this space just simply to worship you, to collectively turn our focus upward and worship you. God, I thank you for your life-giving word, for the holy scriptures, for the chance to hear them proclaimed. And now, Lord, the tasks you've given me to reflect on that life-giving word, I just ask in the midst of these moments that you bless the words of my lips, the meditation of all our hearts, that they be of profit to us and acceptable to you, for you indeed are our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Tell me that this is a fair statement. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid pain. Is that a fair statement? Particularly in America, we spend a lot of our time trying to avoid pain. Right? Like if we're starting to hurt physically, we medicate against it. We pray against it, we plan against it, we insure against it, right? We we worry against it, and yet here's the reality of our existence. The pain still comes, the trials still come, the uh suffering still comes, a diagnosis maybe, a betrayal, financial pressure, a child wandering from the faith, anxiety, grief. Friends, here's a reality. It's not good news, but it's the reality. None of us escape the fire. None of us do. And one of the most dangerous lies that the devil tries to get the people of God to believe is that if life is hard, that must be got mean God is distant. Friends, that is a lie from the belly of hell itself. Again, the lie. If life is hard, that must mean God is distant. Why we know that is a lie from the belly of hell itself is because James starts his letter off with this shocking truth. He says, Listen, sometimes the fire in life is not evidence that God is absent. The fire is evidence that God is actually working in your life. James again starts out after the greeting saying, consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds. He didn't say if you face trials of various kinds, but rather when you face those trials. Listen, trials are part of our existence in a broken world. But for the believer, please hear this: trials are never meaningless. Your pain is never wasted, suffering has a deeper purpose. Why? Because God does some of his deepest work in us while we're in the midst of the fire. Do you know how diamonds are formed? Some of you probably know this. Diamonds are formed under intense pressure and heat deep beneath the surface of the earth. Like what starts out as ordinary carbon, after the intensity and the heat that is pressed upon it, it becomes something strong and refined. Again, all because of the pressure. Hear me, without the pressure, ladies, hear me. Without the pressure, there is no diamond. And spiritually speaking, God is often using the pressures of our lives in the same way. Trials are meant to produce things in us that comfort never could. So what are trials meant to produce in us? The first thing is trials are not meant to destroy us. Please hear this. They're not meant to destroy us, they're meant to develop us. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of various kinds. James goes on to say, For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Okay, that word testing, it's a word in the Greek that they use for refining metals. Take gold, for an example. How did the impurities on a piece of gold get exposed? When you put it in the fire, right? It's refined in the fire. The heat exposes the impurities, so the impurities can then melt away. These impurities you could not see otherwise if there was no fire on the gold. Again, in the same way, trials expose our impurities. And when I speak of impurities here, I mean they expose what we're truly trusting in for our help, our salvation. Listen, comfort can hide weaknesses. Success can disguise self-reliance, but pressure, who? Pressure reveals foundations. Friends, you really don't know what your life is built on until everything in your life starts to shake. Like the devil wants suffering to weaken your faith. However, God wants suffering to deepen your faith. The devil wants trials to make you a cynical human being. No, God wants trials to make you steadfast. That word steadfastness, it means endurance. It means remaining under the weight of whatever's pressing you without quitting on God. Listen, anybody can praise God when life is good. But can you still praise God in the storm? Can you give God a hard-fought hallelujah? Listen, mature faith says, even if I don't understand what I'm going through right now, I will trust in the never-changing character of my God. Some of us say Jesus is all I need, but we do not discover if that statement is true until what? Lesser supports in our lives strip away. And Jesus then is all we have. Man, some of you are struggling right now to understand what you're walking through and why you're walking through what you're walking through. Listen, God is not going to waste your pain. What you're doing in regards to this moment of suffering, if that is you, is not something you're just called to endure and then grow in your faith on the other end of it. Romans 8 28 tells us that God can use all things, good, bad, yes, and even ugly, for our good and in accordance to his purposes. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel 3. I can't talk about our faith being forged into fire without talking about the guys who literally went in a fire because of their faith. So as the history of Israel goes at this time, um, because of their disobedience to the living God, God kind of turned his back on them and allowed them to be uh destroyed in a sense and taken, carted off into exile into the land of Babylon. And while the the remnant of Israel was left in Babylon, uh King Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king over Babylon, uh erected this enormous statue in reverence to his false God. And he said to all the people in his kingdom, he said, You will bow to this idol. You will bow and pay reverence to this idol. And all of them bowed and paid reverence to this idol, except three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said, No, we're not gonna do that. We serve the living God, and that's who we serve on good days and on bad days. And Nebuchadnezzar says, if you don't bow before my idol, my God, then I'm going to throw you into a fiery furnace. And they still said, No, we're not gonna do it. And so what does Nebuchadnezzar do? He throws them into a fiery furnace. The scriptures say he was so mad that he heated that furnace up seven times hotter than it's ever been heated up. The guards who were throwing them into the fiery furnace actually died because of the heat exposure from this furnace. And Nebuchadnezzar is watching these three men get thrown into this fiery furnace, and something amazing happens. The amazing thing isn't that God saved them from the furnace. You'd think he would, right? They showed a foolproof faith even in the midst of adversity. They were gonna trust in the living God, even in the face of something that would destroy them and kill them. You think God would say, All right, you've proven your faithfulness to me, I'm gonna save you from this fire. He doesn't do that. They get thrown into the fire. Here's the amazing thing: God joined him in it. Nebuchadnezzar, watching them in the fiery furnace, jumped off his throne and says, Did not we just put three men into that fire? Why then do I see a fourth? So in the biblical narrative in the Old Testament, just as an aside, that's called a Christophany. Every time there's an appearance of the second person of the Trinity of Christ within the Old Testament, it's like a teaser getting us ready for what's to come in the gospels. It's called a Christophany. And so God shows up in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The fire was meant to destroy them, right? No, it was, but what it became was the place where God displayed for those three men his faithfulness. And friends, maybe that's the reason why God allows fires into our lives. Because there are things that we can only learn about God while in the midst of the fire. Right? Like, for instance, you learn that God is faithful when everything else feels uncertain. You learn that God is actually near when you feel so alone. You learn that He is enough when all the lesser supports begin to fall away. That's what trials do. They expose counterfeit foundations and they deepen authentic faith in the living God. Here's the second thing about trials. Trials produce in us maturity in a more full dependence on the living God. Look how James goes in this next verse. He says, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be made perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. That word perfect in the Greek doesn't necessarily mean sinlessness, but what it does mean is to be made mature, to be made whole, to be fully formed. And James is telling us that God uses trials to grow us spiritually from one degree of glory into the next. And honestly, can we be honest for a second? That's difficult for us to hear in our American context because most of us would rather have relief from pain than maturity, wouldn't we? Is that fair? Just as an aside, take health, for example, physical health. Instead of exercising and eating right, what do a lot of people in America do now? Oh, Zemek, right? Let's lose the weight by putting a sticking ourselves with a needle instead of actually doing the work to make us healthy. Spiritually speaking, we do the same thing. We often want relief more than maturity. We want God to remove the pressure immediately. God, if the fire gets turned up, turn it down, dial it down, fix the problem, heal the hurt, change the situation. Not tomorrow, not next week, not in a month, change it now. But again, hear me, friends. God often does something deeper than we can see in the moment. Do you realize that God is more committed to your holiness than your comfort? Do you realize God is more interested in your transformation than in your convenience? And again, this is a hard lesson for us to know in America. We are in a culture that has conditioned us to be addicted to immediate relief. Like we avoid silence, don't we? You're already starting to make noise, aren't you? We avoid silence because it just makes us uneasy. We don't like to feel weak. We don't like to wait. We don't like to be uncomfortable. But spiritually mature people are not formed in ease. Please hear this. They are formed in surrender and in seasons of suffering. And when the fire gets turned up. Look at Romans chapter 5. The Apostle Paul starts out this chapter talking about how we boast in sharing in the glory of God. And then he pivots and he says, but we also boast in our affliction. Why? Because affliction produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. Friends, we only get the hope through affliction. That's what Paul's saying. There are certain things that God can only produce in us through pressure, when the heat is turned up. Perseverance is not formed in comfort. Dependence is not formed in self-sufficiency. Deep trust is not formed when life is easy. And so that's why James immediately says, so if you lack wisdom, ask God for it. Notice James doesn't say when you're going through the fire or when you're trying to endure suffering, he doesn't say pray for escape or pray for explanation. He says to ask for wisdom. Why? Because I think in the midst of suffering, friends, so often we might need more than just an explanation. What we need is perspective. We need kingdom wisdom. We need the ability to see life through the lens of the reign and rule of Jesus Christ. And so James moves on and says, you know, ask God for wisdom because it is a God who will give it to you generously. Not reluctantly, not impatiently, not irritated by your weakness. Do you know God is never annoyed with needy people? We get annoyed with needy people, don't we? We have two new foster kids in our home right now. Beautiful boys. Love these boys. But they are needy. I mean, it's 50,000 questions at your side every five minutes of every day. It's like needy. It gets a little annoying. I'm gonna be honest with you. Thank God I'm not God, right? Because God is never annoyed by needy people. Remember the persistent widow? That's how we're called to come to God with persistence, almost with annoyance. Listen, one of the greatest dangers in the Christian life is pretending we're self-sufficient. Friends, we're not. Because the trials of life have a way of stripping away that illusion. Doesn't it? Don't they? Because most of us think we're in control until something happens in our life, we realize, you know what, we're not in control. That diagnosis. That phone call. The broken relationship, the prodigal child, the loss of a job. And suddenly everything we trusted to hold our lives together starts to shake. But friends, sometimes God allows the weaker supports to collapse, so we learn to lean more fully onto him. Remember the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12? Paul goes into this autobiographical statement in his letter to the Corinthians, and he starts talking about this thorn in his flesh, this irritant in his life, this thing he'd wished would go away. We don't know what it is. It's left vague in the scriptures. People have surmised over the years what Paul was talking about. I think it's left vague intentionally because every single One of us have a thorn in our flesh, don't we? We have some irritant in our life that we wish would go away. I mean so Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 asked God three times to remove this thorn. And every time God gives him the same response no. Why? Because my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. Paul wanted relief. What God wanted was Paul to be more dependent on him. And eventually Paul gets there. How do we know? Because a few verses later he says, So I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness. Because when I am weak is when I am really strong. Why does he say that? It's because when he is weak, he has learned most fully to rely on a strong God for his help. That's why he can be strong in the midst of his weakness. Because the strength is not coming from the fragility of Paul. It is coming from the strength of an ever-present sovereign God. For Paul's weakness drove him into a deeper dependence on God. Here's the third thing about trials. Trials reveal whether our faith is fully surrendered to God or not. James goes on, verse 5. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, tossed and driven by the wind. Now let me be clear. James is not condemning honest struggle or honest question before God. We got a lot of the Bible where faithful people of God are asking the honest questions and having honest struggle before God. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. I mean we think about the people in the script. Moses doubted Elijah. What James is talking about here is divided allegiance, divided loyalty, double-mindedness. It's the type of people that want God in one hand, but also want to still cling to control in the other. And James says if you're living your life like that, it's going to create instability for you. Why? Again, because trials expose what we're really leaning on. And when we're living with this divided loyalty between God and our own control, what do we often lean on? Our own control. But here's the thing: when pressure comes, shallow foundations crack. When storms hit, counterfeit faith is exposed. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 7, the end of the Sermon on the Mount. We get to the parable, the wise and foolish builders, right? One built his house on the firm foundation of a rock. The teaching of Jesus is the teaching of Jesus. The other built his house on shifting sand. The storm came, only one house stood, the one that was built on rock, not the one built on sand. The point of the parable is this. The storm hit both the wise and foolish builder. The storm is not what was different about the story. The difference was the foundation underneath the home. Friends, trials reveal whether Jesus is truly our foundation, or whether he's nothing more than an addition to our lives. Because again, it's easy to say, I trust in God when life feels manageable, isn't it? But what about when faith gets tested? Kingdom, faith learns to say, even if I don't understand what's happening to me right now, what God is doing, I will still trust who God is. And that's exactly what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did, isn't it? I mean, even before Nebuchadnezzar throws them into the fire, they make this statement of faith. They say, Listen, our God whom we serve, by the way, he's the only living God. Our God whom we serve can save us from this fire. But even if he doesn't, we will not bow our knee. Friends, that's surrender faith. Their trust in God, hear me, was not dependent on God doing exactly what they wanted God to do for them. Is your trust in God dependent on what you want God to do for you? Listen, this is the kind of faith that trials produce in a person. A faith that does not collapse when circumstances change, a faith that remains anchored when emotions fluctuate, a faith that says, even here, even now, I trust King Jesus. Friend, do you trust King Jesus? When the heat is turned up, do you trust King Jesus? When all the lesser supports are falling away, do you trust King Jesus? Some of you walked in here today carrying heavy loads. You're in the midst of a trial. The heat has been turned off. You are feeling the fire, and the fire is not only burning you, it's exhausting you. In fact, what we see in the gospels is that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, stepped into your suffering. Friends, Jesus Christ, hear me willingly walked into the fire for you and for me. Rejected, mocked, beaten, nailed to a tree and crucified. Shed his blood, not because he deserved judgment, but because we did. It was that great exchange on the cross. Jesus took our sin, our guilt, our condemnation, and in return spilled his blood so we could have forgiveness and reconciliation back into the family of God. And then three days later, it was this resurrection that was his victory dance over sin, over the grave, and over death itself, which means, hear me, if you are in Christ today, guess what? Your pain does not get the final word. Suffering does not get the final word. Death, not even death, gets the final word. King Jesus does. And because he lives, you can trust him, church, even in the fire. You know, earlier we talked about how diamonds are formed, right? Diamonds are formed under intense pressure and heat deep beneath the surface of the earth. This ordinary carbon is subjected again to intense heat, to crushing pressure over a long time. And through that process, that ordinary carbon, which is so common in an afterthought, becomes refined and beautiful and strong. Friends, God often does his deepest work in us in the same way. Not because he enjoys our pain, not because he delights in our suffering, but because he loves us too much to leave us spiritually shallow. Please hear me today. Do not waste the fire. Do not think you're called just to endure the fire and then figure out how to give a testimony after you get through it. Do not waste the fire. Do not walk through the fire thinking the suffering has no purpose. Or do not walk through this fire thinking that you have to cling to lesser things for your salvation when the king of glory stands in front of you, ready to receive you. Man, some of you have been exhausted because you're trying to hold your life together in your own strength. And today, Jesus is calling you and me to surrender to him. Not halfway, not casually, but fully. I want to give you a chance to respond this morning. We're going to stand and sing in a moment. The altar rail will be open for you. And I think some of you, you know what it's like right now because you're in the middle of a fire. And I want to invite you to come and kneel before the living God. And you do that in a declaration for your own self, even, that you are no longer going to put trust in lesser things, but you are going to declare your trust in the living God. Come to this altar. We have an altar in this church that is always open and available to you. If you need strength, come. If you need surrender, come. If you need forgiveness, come. If you need healing, come. If your faith feels weak and fragile right now, come. Sometimes the greatest prayer you and I could ever pray is not with word, it's with movement. It's with standing up and kneeling in an act of reverence and submission and declaration before our living God. So let me pray. We're going to stand and sing. And the altar is available and open to you if you want to spend time in prayer with our Lord and Savior, King Jesus. The one who not is going to take you out of the fire, but who will join you in it and mold you and form you and make you into who He has called you and desires you to be. Will you pray with me? Lord Jesus, I want to thank you that you do not abandon us in the fire. No, God, that you are so willing to walk through the flames with us. So God, when our faith feels weak, will your presence hold us steady? When fear rises up within us, will you teach us by the power of your Holy Spirit to trust you more? When suffering comes, will you form in us deeper surrender, deeper dependence on you? Father God, we your people, I ask that you would refine us, that you would strengthen us, that you draw us close to your heart this day. And in turn, Lord, may our lives become a testimony that even in the fire our King is faithful. We surrender ourselves to you now. As a collective whole, we pray this all in Jesus' name and all of God's people's son.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Thank you for listening to the Church of the Lakes podcast with Pastor Jared Priestett. If today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ, we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also help others discover this podcast by leaving a five-star rating or review and sharing it with your friends, family, co-workers, and others in your circle of influence. We're also very grateful for your generosity, which helps make messages like this available to more people. If you feel led to give, please check the link in the description. And if you're in the Kent, Ohio area, we'd love to invite you to join us in person on Sunday and worship together. To learn more about Church of the Lakes, visit churchoftheakes.org or click the website link in the description. Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.