In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at how God redeems our suffering for our good. In James 1, God calls Christians to find joy in suffering because He is redeeming what was intended to bring us harm and using it to lead us to something better. God is using suffering to expose where our faith is diluted by doubt and where it is rooted in false doctrine, in order to bring to completion the work that He began in our lives. Redemption is the miraculous process of restoring something to better than it was. God is using the hardship, trials and suffering in our lives to lead us to something better. God is refining and stabilizing our faith, solidifying our doctrine, and using Gospel-saturated community to redeem our suffering and lead us to full maturity in Christ.
