Trials

We started this series Wise up! last week with one of the most powerful messages I’ve ever heard on suffering and trials and how God meets you in those desperate times.

I’ve been listening to the closing song, Goodness of God, all week. It’s been a remarkable week of reflection and remembering God’s goodness.

Well, I’m excited today to follow that message by focusing on James 1:1-8.

Before we get there I want us to learn a little bit about the context of the book of James — about where it was written in history, about the author, about the time period in which it was written, about the original intent of the author, and about the audience to whom the author was writing.

In the case of who wrote this book, there’s some debate over which James wrote it.

In verse 1 we know it’s James, but there’s a lot of discussion among scholars about which James it was.

Most scholars have settled on the half-brother of Jesus as the likely writer.

That James was the early leader of the Jerusalem church. He’s mentioned several times in the Book of Acts.

He humbly describes himself at the very start of this letter as simply

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then he addresses the letter —

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. (James 1:1)

Most likely this was a symbolic statement, referring to various congregations of Christians who were scattered far and wide throughout the Roman world.

And while they weren’t necessarily of Jewish origin, the content of this letter seems to indicate an understanding of the Old Testament and of Judaism.

In Acts 11:19 there’s a reference that pertains to this.

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. (Acts 11:19)

You see, James was probably writing to those who had once been a part of the church that he pastored in Jerusalem and who now were scattered all around.

He’s sending them kind of a pastoral letter.

Fourteen times in the letter, James calls the people ‘my brethren’ or ‘my brothers and sisters.’

That underscores the very strong pastoral tone, as well as the numerous
difficult challenges he gives them.

He clearly knows these people, and he’s going to really dig in and challenge them.

This letter is almost like a collection of sermon notes.

Last week I sat down and took a few minutes to read through the Book of James all at once. I want to encourage you to do that.

It doesn’t take very long, but this would be a very helpful thing to do as we’re in this study because too often when we come to Scripture, and particularly to a letter, we forget that it wasn’t originally written in chapters and verses. We forget it’s a whole letter.

And when you read it that way, you realize that the progression of thought in this letter isn’t all that clear.

James seems to jump from topic to topic, and he doesn’t always connect the dots.

I think James may have possibly had ADD… in the first year A.D.

It’s almost as though he longs to communicate so much to his readers and he says, “Oh, and one more thing; Oh, and don’t forget this; and I’ve just got to tell you one more thing before I go.”

We often try to organize a book like this into an outline, and that’s a helpful thing to do.

And although we think every idea is absolutely connected to the one before it, that’s not really the spirit of this letter.

It’s more like the wisdom literature. It’s like the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament.

James would have been very familiar with wisdom literature — it feels sometimes like a new topic just comes out of the blue.

However, one overarching theme does come through — James wants his readers to become fully mature Christians. He wants them to reach their full potential as they seek to become more and more like Christ.

All of his challenges are simply aimed at growing us up and making us wise.

One last bit of background that I think is helpful is knowing when this book was written.

It was most likely quite an early date, somewhere around A.D. 45-47.

And here’s how scholars put that puzzle together.

First of all, they look at the writings of Paul and whether or not this letter has connection to the teachings of Paul that have been circulated.

They also look at the events that surrounded the writing of the letter.

The Jerusalem Council meeting was a very significant meeting that explored the huge controversy that existed between Jewish and Gentile Christians concerning ritual law.

That meeting is not referred to by James in this letter.

Scholars think that as the pastor of the Jerusalem church, James would have definitely referred to it.

That meeting took place in A.D. 48 or 49, so scholars believe this letter preceded the Jerusalem Council meeting.

Another thing that’s important about the audience is that the people James addressed in this original situation were very poor.

They were people who were affected by a lot of social tension.

A famine raged through the land right about that time, and Christians probably would have suffered more than the average people because of persecution during a famine.

So when we read some of the passages in this letter, it’s really important to know that most of these people were quite poor.

Alright, let me read James 1:2-8. This is the heart of what we’re going to talk about today.

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, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:2-8)

James starts this letter with one of the most counterintuitive statements in all of Scripture.

In fact, sometimes I’ve heard Christians almost use it like a joke. — “Count it all joy.”

This is a statement our culture would loudly refute.

James urges us to choose a joyful response when we encounter various trials and tribulations.

I would say there are few periods in history where we would find it harder to embrace that idea than the one we live in today.

We are a society that is consumed with a passion for comfort.

Some of us would admit to the fact that in our homes we have mattresses with individual temperature controls for each side of the mattress, so that spouses don’t have to argue about how warm the bed will be.

Some of you will leave this building push a button to remote start your car so it will be just the right temperature when you get to it.

Some cars are so luxurious and comfortable, they have:

A beverage holder with temperature controls.
Seats that massage your body.
A backseat refrigerator.

The only things missing from today’s cars are running water and a bathroom.

We are desperately seeking comfort any way we can find it.

That’s why James’ words hit us so hard.

Consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds.

Now the Greek word translated ‘trial’ has two basic meanings in the New Testament.

One is the ‘enticement to sin’ and the other is ‘external afflictions, particularly persecution.’

In this verse, James is indicating the second meaning.

Trials can take many forms.

Some trials are common to all people: things like illness or financial distress, loss of any kind, depression.

And then there are some adversities that might include some kind of persecution for your faith.

Verses 3 and 4 offer us the why. Why should we count it all joy?

James says that without it, we simply can’t grow up to maturity. James says the testing of our faith leads to perseverance, which ultimately leads to maturity.

Peter writes a passage very similar to this in 1 Peter 1:6-7.

He writes:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

So when we suffer and we’re tested in the fires of adversity, we’re strengthened.

This is not a new concept; this is essentially what Kevin taught us last week. We just don’t like it very much. I don’t like it very much.

James tells us that if we learn to be steadfast and to respond with fortitude and endurance, we’re going to grow stronger in our faith.

And we can’t develop that kind of staying power if life is always comfortable.

Henry Cloud wrote this:

Fixing a marriage, a company, one’s own performance, an addiction or depression, a failure, a relationship, even a physical injury are all possible and done successfully every day by people of character.

But these people have oriented themselves to a basic reality that there is no gain without pain. In the end, the shortcut is always the longest route, and people of character know this and it has become part of their make-up. It is the way they think and the way they are.

Before we continue, I want each of us to identify a time in our lives when we faced a very specific trial of some kind.

For some of you, giving an answer is easy, because you’re in a trial right now.

But others of you might need to look back a little bit and think of a period in your life when you felt tested by adversity.

And then ask yourself whether growth was a result of that. Are you any stronger today than you were back then?

Are you a little more like Jesus in some way because of enduring through that trial?

If you’re in the middle of adversity right now, it may not yet be clear to you how God will
use it to form you.

I want you to hear what Kevin said last week about how God has and is forming him because of the trial their family is going through.

Video: clip from Kevin’s message 10:51 — 15:06

Some people would go through what Landon went through this past year and walk away from God.

Many of you have experienced or are experiencing a similar level of pain, maybe not physically, but mentally, emotionally, relationally, financially.

The point, though, is not to compare our levels of pain, but to look at them from the perspective of growth.

Can you see where you can become more like Jesus in some way because of enduring through trials?

Our perspective has to be grounded in the goodness of God!

James tells us in verse 5 to ask God for wisdom.

I love the description of how God gives to us: generously to all without finding fault.

That word translated ‘generously’ is from a root which means ‘single.’

The idea there is that God is focused; he’s single-minded on his intent to give. He’s unwavering. He wants to give wisdom.

And unlike humans, God doesn’t hold back today just because he gave us wisdom yesterday or the day before. He’s not keeping track.

His generosity is unending; it’s available every day.

How critical do you think it is for you and me when we’re going through adversity to be rooted in an accurate picture of God’s essential nature — that he is truly for us and that he is a loving Father?

It’s absolutely critical, and it’s what’s in doubt for us many times when we’re in trials.

Look at James 1:17. We’re reminded that:

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)

The God who is unchanging is the source of everything that is good.

When I was talking to Kevin a couple weeks ago, he said a phrase that stuck with me all week. He was talking about lying under the tree he mentioned last week and noticing how beautiful it was — just an ordinary moment of life — and it revealed to him “the breathtaking goodness of God.”

The breathtaking goodness of God.

How aware are we that the God we serve is fundamentally forever and ever, always and
completely, breathtakingly good?

And part of his goodness is related to the fact that he chooses to discipline us in order to grow us up.

He offers to give us wisdom over time that brings perspective to our trials.

We may not always understand it completely, but over time he gives us some perspective and some wisdom.

In the book How People Grow, Henry Cloud and John Townsend tell the story of a
young mom whose name is Kara.

Kara went to Dr Townsend’s office one day with an issue.

She was terribly unorganized with her life.

She said she was bad with money.
She said she was late for everything.
Her house was a complete mess.
No tasks ever got checked off her endless to-do list.

Kara said at one time she had been tested for ADHD, and the results were negative.

She said she completely and often makes resolutions and prays real hard and makes
commitments to God, but nothing changes, nothing lasts for long.

So Dr. Townsend asked Kara, “If you told your toddler to try really hard to make dinner, what would happen?”

She said, “Well, he would fail.”

“Right. Why?”

“Well, because he doesn’t have the ability.”

“So how does he get the ability,” Dr. Townsend asked.

“I suppose,” said Kara, “he has to work on it for a long period of time.”

And she paused and she said, “Are you saying that’s what I have to do?”

Dr. Townsend responded, “In a way. I believe you don’t have the ability yet to be self-
disciplined. It’s not inside you. So when self-discipline is found wanting, we need other
disciplines from outside of us so that we can take it in and develop it.”

Now it’s quite telling that when Kara was recalling her own childhood, she realized that her parents did everything for her.

She never learned how to handle money, or how to schedule, or how to clean a room.

Her parents didn’t teach her any of those disciplines. So Kara, with the help of Dr. Townsend and accountability provided by her husband and her friends, began a
deliberate training period for discipline.

It took some time, but it eventually produced results.

Any parent in this room, no matter how old your children may be, knows that part of loving our children is introducing discipline to their lives.

Even we fallen human beings realize that character doesn’t get built without expectation and training.

There’s a beautiful passage from the book of Hebrews on discipline.

Hebrews 12:7-11

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!

They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

Let’s just be honest here. Our usual response to trials is not joy.

Many of us first go into denial. We think surely this can’t be happening.

Or maybe we choose to blame others or blame God. We put a lot of energy into painting ourselves as victims.

Others of us choose escape. This can take all kinds of forms. It doesn’t necessarily have to be some kind of addiction to drugs or alcohol.

We can escape through a screen.
We can escape through sleep.
We can escape through all kinds of boredom.

But none of those responses serve us well because we don’t practice the discipline of steadfast endurance.

We also tend to question God and his fundamental character. Sometimes we’re tempted to see God as some kind of sadist who delights in our pain and inflicts it haphazardly just to see what we’ll do.

But this thinking is way off track. It doesn’t fit the role of a loving heavenly Father. God is not a sadist.

Look at these words from Lamentations 3:33:

For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to any human being.

Now it’s absolutely true that we will not always understand our trials.

You’re not going to leave this teaching with a clear understanding of why we go through trials and what each trial means. We’re not going to know that in this life.

There’s some suffering in this world that is more about evil choices made by others or simply the consequences of sin in this world.

We can still grow from that kind of suffering, but it may or may not have originated in a plan for God to teach us.

When I think of all that Landon has gone through, I ask questions all of us tend to ask in severe times of trial, wondering what in the world this 15-year-old boy could have done to deserve this.

Why doesn’t God bring healing?
Why doesn’t he answer the prayers persistently offered on his behalf?

And the truth — what I want you to hear me say real clearly — is that I don’t know.

I find that it’s not really all that productive for me to try to discern why I’m in a certain kind of trial or why my friends or family members are going through some kind of adversity.

I don’t think we’re going to get these answers all cleared up in this life.

And I admit I don’t know what all we’re going to get to do when we get to heaven, but I have a few questions to ask. And you may, too.

While on this earth, our job is primarily to keep running the race and to choose to trust in God’s goodness, even when things are dark and confusing.

And I choose to believe that the trials God does send my way in order to grow me up are rooted in his limitless love for me.

If there was another option, if there was a better way for me to mature, then surely God would have chosen that option.

In the book Trusting God Even When Life Hurts, Jerry Bridges sums up the theme of this whole passage in James this way. He says:

“We can be sure that the development of a beautiful Christ-like character will not occur in our lives without adversity.”

It’s not the adversity considered in itself that’s to be the ground of our joy — I think that’s important.

It’s not that we’re saying we’re so joyful about these circumstances; rather it’s the expectation of the results, the development of our character, that should cause us to rejoice in adversity.

We’re to look beyond our adversity to what God is doing in our lives and rejoice in the certainty that he is at work in us to cause us to grow.

We find a hopeful promise if we skip down to verse 12.

Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him (James 1:12).

This crown of life could be called the lovers’ crown.

One writer said if we don’t have the love of God in our hearts, trials will cause us to become bitter and critical and we will lose the crown.

It won’t be given to all believers, but to those who are faithful unto death.

You and I are being challenged to take a long-term view with an eye on the eternal prize.

And that is so hard to do in our society, in our culture.

All we think about is today and what we’re experiencing right now.

We’re reminded of Paul’s words to the Romans where he assured them:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Many years ago my wife and I took a group of high School students to Kenya on a mission trip.

This was my first exposure to extreme poverty in a developing part of the world.

We visited a garbage dump where countless numbers of people lived in homes made of sticks and tarps and garbage bags.

Food was scarce. There seemed to be no life there. And in some ways, no hope.

In high heat with the sun just relentlessly beating down, there was no shade anywhere, not a single tree or bird or sign of life.

We visited with a woman named Lucy, the matriarch of this garbage dump community.

She lived in the dump and cared for that community for 30 years. Day after day in unspeakable conditions, for over 30 years.

But I will always remember the twinkle in this woman’s eyes. This woman was joyful. Her eyes were shining. When she talked about Jesus and she talked about the people that she got to serve, there was joy. And I have never forgotten that.

When I go through any kind of trial, I realize that it’s nothing even close to the sacrifices made by that woman and so many other saints around the world and in history.

If she can choose to be joyful and have an eternal perspective on her suffering, then maybe with God’s help, I can, too.

And in heaven someday, I think her crown of life is going to be so huge. I can’t wait to see her wearing it. I wonder if she’ll be able to hold it up because it’s going to be so big and so beautiful.

James wants us to understand that in spite of what our culture tells us, our lives are not fundamentally about comfort. It’s about you and me becoming more and more like Jesus.

That’s the goal. That’s God’s intent.

And I want to offer some very practical counsel for you as we close today — what we can do when we encounter various trials or if you’re in one right now.

First of all, discern what your general response seems to be to the trial.

Do you tend to go to a place of denial? Is that what you tend to do?

Or do you tend to blame? Are you spending a lot of energy showing yourself as a victim or blaming God for it?

And some of that’s understandable. At first we may have anger… but we need to move past that.

Or do you tend to escape? Maybe that’s what you tend to do.

Or are you choosing steadfast endurance?

I also think we need to take a look at our view of God during the trial and ask these kinds of questions:

Am I choosing to trust in the fundamental goodness of God?
Do I believe God is for me and wants to form Christ in me?
Can I keep trusting even though I don’t fully understand?
I can keep asking for wisdom, keep trying to get perspective — but will I choose to trust?
And will I choose to be joyful knowing that the end result is growth, my growth?

This is really graduate level stuff. This is where our faith gets tested the most. This is where you and I find out what we really believe and what we’re building our foundation on.

I know some of us are going through something so difficult right now that listening to this has been hard because your trial is right here; you’re in it now and maybe you don’t understand and you can’t figure it out.

And in those times, if you’re like me, you need to know down to your toes that the God of all creation, the sovereign One, the One who’s so big and glorious and who we exalt in worship…

You need to know that God knows how many hairs are on your head and knows the tears that you’ve cried or the ones that you can’t get out.

You need to know he listens to you and knows every detail of your life.

So let’s talk to him right now about our trials and our confusion and our pain and then the worship team will lead us in a closing song.

Song: Goodness of God