Faith With No Filter: Faith That Gets Tested

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Thanks for joining us for this week's Real Life Church Podcast. We'd love to know if God is using this ministry to bless you in some way. And if you'd like to share your story or get connected at Real Life Church, you can visit us online at livereallife.com.

**Jason** (0:17)
Come on, give the Lord one more hand clap, everybody, before we hop in the Word today.
Whoo, I'm excited about this series. We're launching a brand new series today called Faith With No Filter. Hey, give our worship team a good hand clap. Didn't Alyssa preach right there? She preached. Did a good job this morning. Chris wants to jump around on the guitar. I'm telling you, man, just feel free. Just rock it out, bro. I was dancing. I mean, come on, somebody. But we're gonna talk about the Book of James this month, and today we're gonna talk about faith that's tested, faith that gets tested. You know, how many know we live in a filtered life? We have a filtered world that we live in. Everybody wants to filter. Have you ever seen people that post pictures and maybe this was you? So please forgive me before I start. Okay, you post a picture online of what you really look like, and then you're filtered self. Have you ever done that? Anybody seen the pictures of where somebody puts a filter over the real? And you look and you're like, you need a filter, amen. Anyway, I'm kidding. It's a joke.
And so you see it and you're like, man, the filter actually kind of improves the outside appearance, but that's not really who you are, right? And so we live in that type of world. We filter pictures. We filter our posts. We filter stories. We filter our struggles. We live in this filtered world where we're constantly filtering things. And we filter things like we'll never, how many, I would ask how many of you fought on your way to church this morning, but I don't want too many hands raised. Anyway, nobody posts the fight, right? Nobody posts the fight, right? We don't post those types of things, because our Instagrams and our Facebooks and our Snapchats and our Twi, it's not even called Twitter anymore, whatever it's called, X, all the stuff. All those things are just highlight reels, right? Nobody, you're not fighting with your wife, and you're like, hey, can we just keep fighting and take a selfie? Like, nobody does that, right? Nobody does that. And it's because we filter. It's all about filter. Nobody puts pictures of anxiety at work or doubts that you have. Like, nobody does those types of things. Why? Because we know how to show people the version of us we want them to see.
We live in an earth today where we have learned how to present a version of ourselves that we want people to see, but that's not really who we are. And James is a great book. He's gonna take us on a journey.
And the reason, I love this whole concept from the Book of James, is he talks about faith and faith in James, and it's the central subject of the book. And really, filtered faith, here's what you have to understand this morning, is filtered faith cannot survive unfiltered trials. That you're gonna face trials that are unfiltered. I mean, no trials are real, they're raw, they're right in front of you. And if, for many years, you've filtered your faith, what do I mean by filtered your faith? You've done church well. Come on, you've raised your hands well. You've attended a small group well. But you're not grounded in your faith. You've learned how to put your best foot forward, and you've learned how to present Christianity through your behavior and your words, but somewhere, your heart is not at the faith level, your faith in your heart actually connects to the way you're behaving. And so, what James is communicating is you're going to face raw, unfiltered trials in your life. And he tells us, he's communicating it's a real faith, that life is real. Come on, Real Life Church, it's real. Life is real. And it's not a polished faith that James is talking about. James is not talking about a pretend faith or a filtered faith. He's talking about a faith that gets tested. That in this life and in this world, in James 1, we're gonna read 18 verses here in a minute. But in James chapter 1, he's really focusing on our faith being tested. That our faith is the firm persuasion that we believe what God said he would do, he would do. And when life gets tested, here's what you have to understand, something gets revealed.