Didn’t See That Coming | I Choose Joy! | Jeremy DeWeerdt

So today we're in a brand new series called Didn't See That Coming, A Skeptic's Guide to Living Like Jesus. We're gonna focus on a book of the Bible that is found in the New Testament. The book's name is James. It was originally a letter. And the author of the book, it's named James, James was the one that wrote it, all right? And it's full of all kinds of powerful wisdom keys and truths to learn how to live a life of strong faith in Jesus. Now, before we dive in the book, if you'll allow me to take a little bit of time here, I wanna introduce you to the author who lived over 2,000 years ago. Let's learn a little bit about his story before we study his truths that he's sharing, right? James, otherwise known as James the Just, that's a name that we've given him, was the half-brother of Jesus. Now, you heard me right, the half-brother of Jesus. And some of you might say, well, how does that work? I didn't realize that Jesus had siblings. Well, let's go back to the Christmas story for a moment. Many of you know the Christmas story that Mary became pregnant, but yet she was a virgin. We call this the Immaculate Conception, all right? Well, after Mary gave birth to Jesus, Mary and Joseph had other children.

They had other children. In fact, actually, the Bible names four of Jesus's half-brothers, and then it says that there were also sisters, plural. We don't know their names. So really, Jesus's family was a pretty big family. Now, at the age of 12, Jesus went to the temple and Mary and Joseph accompanied him there, and that is the last time that we hear Joseph mentioned in Jesus's story. In fact, many people believe, many Bible historians believe, that Joseph tragically passed away somehow, and that later on, as Jesus is growing up and he becomes an adult, we only hear of Mary. We never hear of Joseph. So we believe that he possibly died. Something very important happened at the cross, and I'm gonna talk about the cross here for a moment, and we're gonna lead this back to James's story, but as Jesus is dying on the cross, something happens that most people don't see. So there was a disciple named John who was at the foot of the cross, as well as Mary, the mother of Jesus, is also at the foot of the cross, watching Jesus be crucified. So Mary and then one disciple, John, are at the foot of the cross, and something powerful happens.

It's mentioned in John 19. This is what John said happened. Said this, when Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, John, in other words, he's speaking third person here, he said to her, Jesus said, dear woman, here's your son. And he said to the disciple, meaning John, here is your mother. And from then on, this disciple took her into his home. Say, what's going on here? Well, most people miss this, but in Jesus's day, the eldest son was responsible of taking care of his mother if mother's husband or father passed away. In a sense where the son's father passed away or the mom's husband passed away, the eldest son was responsible for taking care of the mother. So in this case, Jesus is taking care of Mary. But we notice here that there is zero mention of any of Jesus's siblings or any other family members being at the cross where Jesus is dying. So Jesus is dying. There's no other siblings there. And so in that moment, Jesus looks at one of his disciples, John, and says, hey, John, I am now assigning you responsibility of my mother after I pass away. And John says, I will do it.

And even later on in that verse, it says that John took Mary into his home to take care of her. And so this shows the dysfunction of Jesus's family. Y'all tracking with me? No siblings are there. None of them are caring that their older brother is being crucified. None of them are caring for mom. And so Jesus has to assign responsibility to one of his disciples. In fact, many of those siblings, if not all of them, we believe, distance themselves from the family. probably because of Jesus, because Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. And this probably created great friction within Jesus's family. In fact, in the book of Mark, it says this in chapter three, verse 21. It says, when Jesus's family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, he is out of his mind. Like his siblings were like, he's crazy. Jesus is out of his mind, he thinks he's God. Like he's crazy. Later on, it even says in John chapter seven, verse five, for even his own brothers did not believe him. In other words, Jesus is saying, I am the Son of God, I'm the Messiah.

And then his mother, Mary, is also saying, yes, Jesus is the Son of God, he is the Messiah. And all the other siblings are like, nope. All the other siblings are not believing that. Let me just, let's bring this into like our life for a minute. For those of you that have siblings, what would it be like if you had a brother who says, I'm God, all the time? Some of you are like, I do have that brother. But if you had a brother who was like, I'm God, I'm the Messiah, and then even to compound it even more, your mom is like, he's right, he is God. An angel told me. How would that go over in your family, right? Family friction is the worst. The fact that Jesus is dying on the cross, and Mary is there alone, and no one else from Jesus's family is there, is incredibly revealing of the friction and the dysfunction in that family. Jesus asked his disciple John, take care of my mom, because basically he's insinuating the rest of my family is estranged. James, the half-brother of Jesus, is not buying this whole story that his half-brother is the Messiah. James has abandoned his mom, has distanced himself, we believe, from Jesus, and probably is a little bitter

over how his family has been blown apart. Think about this. James's blood father, Joseph, is most likely dead. And probably his friends, James's friends, are all probably looking at him and being like, yeah, how's your brother? You know, God the Messiah? I mean, you know, how's that going? Did you drink in the Kool-Aid too? You believe he's God? And James is probably coming underneath a lot of ridicule and pressure. And maybe even some of his friends are going, and how's your mom? You know, the one that got pregnant and she's a virgin? That happens all the time. Oh, the one that the angel talked to? See, James is probably receiving all kinds of ridicule and pressure, and even has all of these doubts personally, and he's just like, I'm out. My family is crazy. Then something amazing takes place. Jesus dies on the cross, and three days later, we celebrate this on Easter, three days later, he comes back to life again. And once he comes back to life, this happens. It's mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It says, after that, Jesus appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters,

in other words, brothers and sisters in Christ, followers of Jesus, at the same time. Then he appeared to who? James. And then after James, to all the rest of the apostles. In other words, Jesus comes back to life. There are over 500 people that are eyewitnesses that Jesus is back to life, but before he even visits the disciples, he pays a visit to his half-brother, James. Isn't this interesting? The brother who didn't believe. The brother who had most likely abandoned the family. The brother who was a skeptic, and the one who rejected Jesus's teachings. That moment, mentioned in 1 Corinthians, changed James's life forever. All of a sudden, James was like, wow, he's alive. And most likely, he's like, everything that I grew up with, with my older half-brother telling me that he's the Messiah and all of the ridicule, he was right. He is God. He came back to life again. James believes. You could almost say that James gets saved. Jesus ascends to heaven, and James, history counts. becomes a radical, not nominal, a radical follower of his half-brother, Jesus.

He becomes a radical follower of Jesus. In fact, he goes on to lead the church in Jerusalem. And if you were here last week, I talked about the church in Jerusalem that around 50 to 55 AD was running over 20,000 people in the city of Jerusalem. James was its pastor. James became the pastor and led that church. This is the guy who was estranged, a skeptic, did not believe, and now all of a sudden God got a hold of his heart and he realized that Jesus really was the son of God and he was radical about it. He was bold. He was like, it is all true. In fact, if James were here this morning talking to us city first, he would stand up here and he'd say, I didn't see that coming. Which is why the tagline of this sermon series is a skeptic's guide to living like Jesus. What are we gonna learn from James in the next month? A lot, a lot. In fact, let me just say a couple of thoughts about this story. First of all, number one is this, the loudest doubters can become the boldest disciples. Do you know there are doubters that you have most likely in your life, in your place of employment, in your school, they are loud about not believing in God, right?

They're loud. It might even be a relative, a son or a daughter, a mom or dad, a sibling, and they are loud about it. Well, I wanna give you some hope today. The loudest doubters can become the boldest disciples. The greatest skeptics can become the greatest witnesses. Your questions do not rattle Jesus if you're a doubter here today. In fact, questions and questioning minds can become consecrated hearts. Second thing is this, healthy doubt can become the foundation of unshakable faith. Healthy doubt can. We all have doubts. In fact, I would say this, faith cannot exist without doubt. Think about it. What is faith? Well, you can't have faith unless there's doubt. And some of us today even have some doubt. We have some doubts about things. For some of us, it's big doubts. For some of us, it's small doubts. I don't know, but maybe we should listen to one of the greatest doubters of Jesus's time, his half-brother James. Maybe we should listen to him and hear what he has to say about faith because this guy literally did a 180. It was truly, he became a new person to the point where history recounts

he was willing to die for Jesus and eventually he did. He was martyred because of his faith in Jesus. What takes a person from a skeptic to a martyr? What takes somebody that far from one side of the spectrum to the other side of the spectrum? Well, I wanna encourage all of you during these weeks to read the book of James. It's a very short book. And we actually put together a reading plan and we're making this add water and stir. We're making it so easy. In fact, there is a QR code right now on the lower third of the screen. If you take your smartphone and go ahead and link to it, we will email you every day a portion to read. Or if you say, you know what, I'd rather use an app, go to our City First app, and every day there will be a portion to read and we will make it through the book of James altogether. It's a very, very short book, but it is full, full of wisdom keys from a skeptic who is now a passionate follower of Jesus. And it will be extremely beneficial for your soul, I promise you. So let's dive into this letter. We call it a book now, but originally it was a letter. This letter was written to Jewish Christians in the known world at that time that had been scattered because of persecution all over the Roman Empire.

So this is how James starts out, okay? This is again, half brother of Jesus. He's now saved. He is pastor over like the Jerusalem church. You know, his life has been changed by Jesus, all right? This is what he says, verse one of chapter one. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. In other words, the 12 tribes of Israel that have been scattered. He says, greetings, and then he goes on to say, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete and not lacking anything. This is the beginning of his letter. There's none, there's no like, hey, the weather's been kind of mild here in Jerusalem. or I hope all is well with you and yours or anything. He dives into the deep end. You know what this is telling us? If he is starting his letter, literally the second sentence in after he makes his greeting with the fact of considerate all joy when you face trials, it means this, the recipients of his letter were under great persecution. He's diving right in.

In fact, this entire letter is being written to Christians that are being harassed, mistreated, discriminated against, and some of them even tortured for their faith. So he's not doing the niceties, he's diving right in. And he's trying to provide helpful answers for the dilemma and the confusion and the challenge that these believers are presently in. And he starts out considerate all joy when you face trials. When you face trials. He doesn't say, hey, run from the trial. He doesn't say, complain about the trial. He doesn't say, feel sorry for yourself about the trial. He says, considerate joy. Now, I'm gonna just be honest here for a moment. I think that seems a little unrealistic, James. Like some of you right now, you're going through a trial. It may be a big one, it might be a small one. It might be one that is creating a lot of confusion and heartache. It might be shaking you to the core. And here you are, you come to city first, and that pastor gets up there and says, hey, you should be joyful about this. And you're like, no way, right? You're like, I'm not gonna be joyful about this. Well, let me dive in a little bit to what James is really trying to say here. He's trying to help us reframe our perception of trials.

See, trials are from the enemy of our souls, yet they are used by the savior of our lives. Pressure can produce permanence of faith. In other words, James is not minimizing the trial or the pain. He's trying to help the believers of that day and us today in 2026, he's trying to help us reframe. In other words, he's saying this, trials are not random, they are refining. Trials are not random, they are refining. Now, I'm gonna warn you today, probably a lot of what I'm gonna say, you don't wanna amen. And I get it, because I don't either. No one's excited about trials. No one wants a trial. No one wants hardship. But what you're gonna see is, is that we experience it in this life. And so therefore, we might as well have purpose in the pain rather than just pain. In fact, Romans 8.28 puts it this way. It says, and we know that God causes everything. What's that word? Everything. You know what that word means in the Greek? Everything, everything, good, bad, and the ugly to work together for the good of those who love God. And are called according to his purpose for them. In other words, the Bible even says,

he will take our tears, he will take our pain, he'll take our frustration, and he will turn it around for good. But you know what the Bible doesn't say? The Bible doesn't say that we get to avoid the trial. The Bible doesn't say that we get to do an end route, a detour. No, it says that as we go through it, he'll turn it around for good. James is assuming trials are inevitable. He doesn't say if you face trials, he says when you face trials. Which means this, you and I, no matter how much we pray, no matter how holy we are, no matter how much we attend church, no matter how much we witness to our neighbor, no matter how much we show the love of Jesus to our world, we are gonna face some trials. We live in a hopelessly broken world. God is not the source of the trial, but he says he'll use it. And so we need to be realistic here. You know, when we come to Jesus, it's not like, oh Jesus, give us a life full of rainbows and unicorns. That's not realistic. We live in a world. world full of all kinds of challenges. And the Greek word here for face, when it says the face trials,

the Greek word that James uses carries the idea of unexpectedly being surrounded by hardship. In other words, trials ambush us. How many of you, you know, like even earlier here at this location, Derek got up here during the offering and he's like, ah, it didn't start, this year didn't start out the way I wanted. Well, that's the thing with trials, that's what happens, right? You have a hope of what life is gonna be like or this year or this month or whatever, and then reality sets in. And there are many kinds of trials. There's many kinds, there's financial pressure, right? There's relational strain, like a relationship started to blow up in your life, right? You're like, where'd this come from? Or a health crisis or cultural opposition or internal doubt or external harassment or whatever it is, all kinds of things can be a trial. And the word that James uses for trial here, it means this, proving or testing. So to put those Greek words together, when you unexpectedly are surrounded by a test, that's what it means. When you unexpectedly are all of a sudden surrounded by a proving season. Testing is not about God discovering something about you he doesn't already know. It's about God developing something in us

that we don't yet have. That's what it means. Like, he's not giving you a quiz through this financial hardship. He's not giving you a quiz through this health diagnosis. He's not giving you a quiz through this relational stress that you're experiencing. He's not trying to quiz you. What he's doing is he is allowing it because it is cultivating a faith that we have yet to possess. He's gonna bring purpose out of it. Now, I'm not saying God sent it. Don't hear that. The enemy creates these trials, but God is gonna use it. Pain with purpose rather than just pain. James sees trials as instruments of divine formation, not signs of a divine abandonment. In other words, what's the very first thing when we go through a trial, what's the very first thing that many times we think? God, where are you? Right? Like, you've abandoned me, you've forgotten about me. You're asleep at the wheel. I'm praying. Are you deaf? Hello? Hello?

Bueller? Bueller? Right? Some of you old school remember that. You know? That's what we think. James is saying, no, no, no. God has not abandoned you. He is using this unfortunate situation that he doesn't like either, that the enemy has put into your life or this hopelessly broken world has created or maybe even sometimes our wrong choices have created, and he's using it to form us. He's not destabilizing you. He's actually deepening you. You can ask anybody who is a little bit more mature in their faith, and if you were to ask them this question, what are the most powerful life lessons you've learned? And when did you learn them? I promise you, chances are, that they are not gonna tell you about easy times, they're gonna tell you about difficult times. Because the times that are easy and comfortable, they don't form us. We cruise right through those things. Instead, they're probably gonna talk about the times that wisdom was forged in hardship and that wisdom now guides them in life. My greatest learnings, ladies and gentlemen,

Jeremy DeWart, my greatest learnings were not learned in easy moments, but hard moments. And yours also. Pressure does not mean that God has left you. It may mean that God is just using it to shape you. Trials are not punitive, they are productive. And so, I am who I am today, not because of the good. things I've been through. It's the challenges that I've learned from, that I've been able to overcome with God's strength. It's the same with you. Second thing I think James would say is this, is that testing produces perseverance and perseverance produces maturity. All right, so James is connecting dots here. He's like trials lead to perseverance, that perseverance leads to maturity. We all wanna be mature, but how many of you know that the process of maturity is usually a street called responsibility and hardship and things like that. The testing of your faith, James says, produces perseverance. James is using metallurgical language here, metallurgical language. In fact, the next time that your coworker or your family member is testing you and driving you crazy, you look at them and you say, you are producing a metallurgical outcome in my life.

And they will look at you and say, what? And you say, you heard me. What is metallurgical? What does that mean? It is the science of the study of the properties of metal. So what is happening here is the word testing in this sentence that James is using, it is a word that basically refers to the refining of a precious metal. So when he says, let this testing produce perseverance, he's basically talking about like how metal is heated up and dross, the impurities come to the top and are removed and you're left with pure metal like gold. Gold out of the ground doesn't look like what's hanging on your neck right now. It comes out of the ground and it has to be heated up and purified and the impurities come to the top and they're removed and the heat separates what is weak so that what remains is strong. And this testing, what James, the reason why he's using that language of purification of metals in that word testing is this, is he's saying it produces perseverance. In other words, the test is removing the dross and the impurities of your faith. Faith that has never been proven, tested, has never been tested really, is not real faith. Perseverance is not passive. You will have to dig deep, find courage, be anchored in God's word, get that resilience in you,

that stick-to-itiveness, that I'm going to stand kind of thing. You see, here's the thing, then when you have this perseverance, you have the ability to not collapse under pressure. Yeah, one person was happy. The rest of us are like, can we talk about like no pressure, right? Craig Blomberg, a theologian, said it this way, that active perseverance under difficult circumstances with a forward-looking hope. In other words, when you're in the middle of the trial, you have an active perseverance in the middle of the circumstances, the trials, and you have a forward-looking hope. You know that someday, someday, that hope will be realized. You're not gonna be here forever. You and I, I know you don't want to hear this, but you and I, we cannot pray every hard thing out of our life. Can't do it. Because if God were to answer that prayer, you and I would never become mature. If we literally could just pray utopia into this life, and this side of eternity, then our faith wouldn't be faith. It would never be tested. It wouldn't become strong. Many years ago, you know, there's a story that really emphasizes this point.

You don't grow in comfort, but you and I grow in pressure. And way back when in this story, way back in like the caveman era of the 1980s, there was an experiment that took place outside of Tucson, Arizona by the University of Arizona where scientists and biologists got together and they created what was called Biosphere 2. Here's a picture of it. Biosphere 2 cost $150 million in that day to create Earth within an Earth. In other words, what they were doing is creating an ecosystem to study life within a controlled environment like it was airtight, none of the elements from the outside could get in and they did things like they planted vegetation and trees and things like that and brought in water and they tried to create an ecosystem that was self-sustaining. And the reason they were doing it is really they were trying to study whether we could do this on another planet. And everything was growing really, really well. Trees were growing, plants were growing, everything's great. And then all of a sudden overnight, the trees started to fall over. Like they'd come in the next day into the biosphere and boom, the tree would fall over. And they were like, what's going on? And so the scientists and the research discovered something, that in creating the biosphere in this controlled environment, they didn't take into account the benefit of wind when it comes to trees. Because wind pushing against a tree as it grows, creates perseverance, so its roots grow deeper. And what they had created was an environment where the trees didn't have deep roots, so couldn't support any weight. Hello. You see, many times, just being honest here, I pray prayers and you pray prayers that we

want God to create a biosphere. We want our lives to be a controlled environment. No wind, no snow, just a little bit of rain. And we say, God, we want all the hard things, and even the really especially hard things to leave our world. God, create an insulated environment in which I will live, that I will never have to experience the pressure, the trials, never have to experience the hardship. But you know what? If God answered those prayers, we would never become strong, because perseverance produces strength and maturity. And maturity does not come with age, but with wisdom gained through resilience. See, we have to have the storms if our roots of faith are going to grow deep. And as we close, with God, James would say this in modern day language, you can do hard things. It's kind of quiet in here today. I told you you wouldn't amen this a lot, because who wants to amen trials? But we all experience it. Some of us right now are going through it. And I want us to do this. I want you to look at the person next to you and say, with God, you can do hard things. And then turn to the other person and say, God's got this. Some of you today came to church looking for a sign. There's your sign. Oh, God, show me a sign. There's your sign. Somebody just looked at you and said, with God, you can do hard things, what you're going through. And God's got this. God's got this. See, James finishes this thought about trials, and he says this, let perseverance finish

its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. Finish its work. That infers or denotes that we can stop the work. We have to allow perseverance to finish. How do we stop the work? Well, we stop it by quitting instead of remaining. We stop it by complaining instead of trusting. We stop it by misinterpreting that these trials are somehow God's rejection of us. We can stop the process by refusing to submit to what God is trying to expose in our heart. We can stop it by trying to preserve in our own strength, like you're taking on the trial in your own strength. And we can shortcut this whole process of perseverance and maturity. I mean, like, for example, do you know anybody – don't look at anybody right now – do you know anybody who keeps on having hardship and they never learn? Right? Because they're short-cutting the process of perseverance. So if we stay the course... and we allow perseverance to finish its work, James says, we will be complete. Trials expose where our faith is fragmented, where it's weak. Now listen, we'll never be perfect and we're never gonna be sinless and we're never gonna do everything right, God knows that. And James, as he's saying be mature and complete, he's not saying that we're gonna be flawless or sinless. What he's saying here is this, that God uses these trials to make you whole, not fragmented. In other words, your thoughts, your reactions, your faith, your trust, your relationship with God are whole, they're not fragmented. You are no longer partially devoted, you're no longer occasionally trusting, and you're no longer situationally obedient. Instead, you have now become whole, not fragmented in your faith. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just pray right now that God you would help us, because all of us to some degree are in a trial. Some of the trials right now we're in for some of us, it's the trial of our life.

Feels like the testing of our life. God, I pray first of all you would be close, close to each person that's going through a trial. I pray Lord God that you would give them strength. May they realize they can't do it in their own strength, their striving is not gonna make this trial any better. Only by finding themselves fully devoted and trusting you will they be able to navigate this. Lord, I know that they're frustrated right now because they prayed prayers and it seems like the prayers didn't work. God, may they realize that you are working in the background, and most of all you're working in them. That that trial is producing perseverance, and their roots are growing deeper as the wind is blowing harder. Now Lord, as the fire is being turned up, the dross is being removed, that their faith is becoming pure like gold. And Lord, I pray that that perseverance would produce a maturity. That they would look back and say, I am now a person with a more solid faith, actually closer to Jesus because of what I've experienced. I don't want to go through it again, I don't want to go through the trial again, but I am glad for the fruit that God has brought through this trial, turning all things for good. With every head bowed and every eye closed with 30 seconds left, if you say I've never given my life to Jesus, and the trials of this life I'm going through them, and I'm trying to navigate them by myself, and I want to make Jesus the leader of my life, what does that mean? It means that he becomes Lord and Savior. You acknowledge that he now leads your life, and then secondly that he forgives your life, because all of us have made mistakes. All of us, the Bible says, have sinned. And if you say I want to have a clean sin record, I want heaven as my home someday, this is not joining the church, this is saying I want Jesus to be the leader of my life. If that's you, just raise your hand, I want to pray for you. Yeah, hands are up everywhere. Why don't we do this, whether you raise your hand or you didn't, let's all close this service with this prayer. And you could repeat it after me, and if you raise your hand, you need to know God is listening to your voice specifically. So let's pray this prayer. Heavenly Father, I come to you today, and I need you. I make Jesus the leader of my life. Forgive me of all my sin and all I've done wrong. I

believe that Jesus is saving me, and that he died for me. I want to live for him. Thank you for loving me with an unconditional love, and giving me a new life, and heaven as my home someday. In Jesus name, everybody said amen. Come on, let's give God a huge round of applause. Can we do that? Amazing message from Pastor Jeremy. I just want to really quickly speak to those individuals who prayed that prayer for the very first time. That is the best decision you could ever make, and we want to come alongside you as a church family and just resource you with a couple things. So the first thing we want to encourage you to do is to tell someone. Tell someone you made that decision. Maybe it's a friend, or a family member, or drop it in the chat. We want to celebrate with you, and then also we have a resource. that you can scan the QR code to view. It's called Just Getting Started. And some videos from Pastor Jeremy and Jen that kind of help answer the question, what now, what does this faith journey with Jesus look like? But we are so happy for you, so excited, and we're expecting for what God's gonna continue to do after you made that decision. And then another great next step is growth track. And this is discovering your divine purpose and the life that God has called you to live. You can get more connected here at City First, find out about dream teams and life groups and all the things. And so if you're interested in growth track, go to cityfirst.church forward slash growth track or scan the QR code for more information and to sign up, but it starts the first Sunday of every month. And so in a couple of weeks,

we'd love to have you jump in with growth track. You will not regret it. Yeah, and if you need prayer for anything, again, we encourage you to drop that in the chat or drop it in the comment section or visit the City First Church app to make sure that we can be praying for you. And then also like Pastor Jeremy said, we have that 21 day reading plan as we're reading through the book of James. So we highly encourage you to download the City First app or visit our website to stay up to date with that. It's gonna be a great time as we open God's word and learn from him. And then the best thing you can do is come back to church. Next week, it's baptism Sunday and we're continuing our series. It's gonna be amazing. We love you so much, church. We are praying for you and we will see you right back here next week. God bless.