Sermon Cloud

We will experience trials.

1.  They are called “diverse temptations”,  verse 2  These temptations will take on a personal form. They may not be the same as others face and they will come in various forms.

2. They are called a “trying of our faith”,  verse 3 These trials will bring me to the point where my faith is tested. Will I trust (have faith in)  God and His ways?  Will I obey Him?  Will I give up?

3. We are instructed on what to do “when” these trials come, verse 2  They will come… at sometime, someway, someplace, somehow…

We are to count (the trials) all joy.

This response is not the natural response, or the world’s response.

1. Count:  to consider.  Literally: to lead before the mind.  It speaks of a mental evaluation of the truth about God and what my trial means in light of that truth.
2. “knowing this”,  verse 3.  I lead before my mind the knowledge of what God does with trials in a Believer’s life.  For example:

God is in control.  1 Corinthians 10:13

God “works” the trial in my life.  He makes me “perfect”; fully developed, not infantile.  He makes me “entire”; complete, all the parts present.  And He makes me “lacking nothing”; nothing is left out or left behind or left undone with His work.

We must “let” God do His work through the trial.  Verse 4,  “let”

If I don’t meet the trial the way God desires, then I will not receive the intended work.  God’s work in me, through the trial, is not a matter of the number of trials I experience or the severity of the trials, but “how” I respond to God and the trial.