James 1:1-8
On a talk show on WSB Radio a
few years ago a man called in who was on the verge of suicide. He
recounted some of the reasons why he was at this point. David, that was
his name, told how his brother died in Viet Nam. This caused a big upset
in his family. And David ran away from home. He was just 13 at the time.
Later he got married. They had a child. Then his wife got sick or was
injured -- he didn't say the cause of her being in the hospital but it
must have been a serious illness or injury because she died. David said
he had prayed that God would spare his wife, especially with a baby to
look after, but God didn't spare the wife and mother. Apparently he was
bitter about that. He had searched for answers and escape from the pain
of his losses, trying joining a commune and trying drugs, but nothing
seemed to work. Now he was ready to call it quits. He was going to
commit suicide. The talk show host kept him on the air, telling him not
to blame God. When he hung up people began to call in giving advice and
offering to pray for the man, wanting to get in touch with him to help
him.
James would have an answer for him. The Word of the Lord from James
would serve a purpose if the man would listen. It might be the Word that
would convert him.
I. James
Is Saying That The Christian Life Consists Of Many Trials
A.
This may seem strange and even
inappropriate to
many
people. After all, if you are a Christian you are a child of God, and if
you are God's child you are promised blessings and protection and
mercy...all the good things from the hand of God. Why should we have to
be subjected to trials? Trials are not any fun. In fact trials are
downright unpleasant, even painful. This man David who called from
Virginia was really hurting. He was on the verge of suicide. So he
thought he must not be in God's favor. He was even angry with God. He
felt that God had refused to hear his prayers. He believed that God had
put on him more than he could bear. Life was dealing him a bad hand. He
wanted to end it all. He was not in any mood to hear James tell him
Consider it all joy, my brethren,
when you encounter various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your
faith produces endurance.
But it just might be that this teaching would bring him out of his
unbelief and anger. He may be begging for someone to tell him something
that will remove his perplexity and confusion and bitterness. His call
to WSB was really a cry for help, a cry for understanding, a cry for
relief from his misery and pain. He may just be ready for an encounter
with Christ that would then change his life and put him on the right
track.
Many people come to Christ out of the pain of some bad experience: A
broken heart or a broken marriage, a narrow escape from death, a loss
because of the death of a loved one; or just a deep sense of loneliness
and emptiness. Perhaps in every conversion experience there is a measure
of soul pain. Something may have brought you or me to a painful
awareness that our life was lacking something, something that made us
despondent or desperate or disenchanted enough with life the way it has
been to want to seek a solution in Jesus Christ. If you think back on
your own encounter with Jesus Christ you will remember that you had come
to realize that you weren't making out very well without Him.
Unless you have come to that place and really believe that life without
Christ is not life at all then I question whether you have really met
the Christ of the Bible. He says of Himself, I am the way the truth
and the life. He invites those who are weary and heavy laden to come
to him for rest and a peace that only he can give.
Until you have Jesus Christ you have not entered true life at all. You
only have an existence for a brief time in a world filled with dangers,
perils, grief, sin and misery that finally ends in a death experience
with no hope beyond the grave for anything better. It is only the
Christian who has fully trusted in Christ and who is living a life of
faith in Him that has a life of hope and faith and peace with God, who
has an eternal destiny assured to him by his Creator, Savior God.
B. However, unfortunately, the Christian does not immediately upon
conversion experience the perfect bliss and joy of heaven. He is yet in
a world that is far from being the heaven he is promised later. And he
learns, sooner or later, that his life is a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage in
which there are seemingly endless tests and trials. He finds out that
just because he is a Christian he is not immune from trials and
tribulations. On the contrary, he seems sometimes to have it much
harder than the non-Christian. Jeremiah voices the perplexity of many
when he asks God about that in Jeremiah 12:1
Righteous are You, O LORD, that I
would plead my case with You; Indeed I would discuss matters of
justice with You: Why has the way of the wicked prospered?
Jeremiah was given to understand that the Lord marks a
difference between the wicked and the righteous. The righteous are tried
and come forth as pure gold, while the wicked are suddenly brought
to destruction. God is not unjust to permit the wicked to prosper for a
time. He sees that their day is coming and a just recompense shall
be their portion.
In the latter chapters of the book of Jeremiah the calamity and
doom of godless nations is prophesied and
Jeremiah is no longer in any doubt as to the ultimate justice of God
concerning those who may for a time
prosper and seem to have it all going their way without the afflictions
and tribulations of the righteous.
The salvation process involves a personal faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That faith is tempered and refined and strengthened throughout
the life of every believer until it at last culminates in a personal
meeting with the Savior that is to last throughout all eternity. Trials
play an important part in the salvation process. Without trials faith
would never develop and mature. James explains that to us in verses 3
and 4…knowing that the testing
of your faith produces endurance. 4And let endurance have its perfect
result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
The trials that come develop in us that dogged and determined
persistence that keeps us keeping on in the face of trials and
difficulty. We speak in the Reformed faith of the perseverance of the
saints. We understand that that involves us in not giving in to those
negative thoughts that come to us when we are involved in the trial. We
don't listen to Satan's whispers when he says, Aha, so you are a
Christian, are you? Then why has all this befallen you? Why is God
letting this happen to you? God must be a mean and cruel God to let this
terrible thing happen to you.
Has Satan ever come to you and made such suggestions during a period of
great trial in your life? You would be a rare individual indeed if he
has not tempted you to doubt God during some ordeal that has come upon
you. But that's precisely what James is counseling us to resist. We are
to endure such trials and trust in Christ during the bad times as well
as the good. If all things in your life and mine always went well and we
never had any problems it would be a very simple matter to be a
Christian. Indeed, some evangelists have been known to make promises
that God will never stop blessing and prospering you once you become a
Christian. And that is true if you will accept the teaching of James
that even trials are blessings sent to deepen your faith. But if you
don't have a theology that believes that by his Providence God allows
trials and that he even permits Satan to have a go at us as he did with
Job, then you are not really prepared to face the trials and tests that
will inevitably come your way in the Christian life.
C. We might
compare the trials of the Christian life to the training program to
develop the athlete's skills and strength. Take the weight lifter as an
example. He has to work out on a regular basis. He has to learn how to
lift those weights and he must increase the weight to get to his full
strength. It may take many months of painful weight lifting to get to
the desired strength and skill to enter a weight lifting contest.
Indeed, in any pursuit there must be a strict regimen if you hope to
succeed. In any sport -- tennis, golf, baseball, football, running,
swimming, you name it; there must be this absolute dedication to be
counted a good athlete, to win prizes. And in the life of faith it is no
different. Only the successful runner wins the prize. In our case it is
faith that we are talking about: faith in a personal, loving, faithful
God, a God who never will do anything that will be to our ultimate hurt
but only to our ultimate good. Even the bad that is permitted to befall
us is intended for our good. But do you really believe that when it
seems that the bottom has suddenly dropped out of your life? When you
lose your job, when a loved one dies, or a disaster strikes that seems
to unravel your life. Do you ask, has God abandoned me? Has God forsaken
me? Where is my God during this disaster?
Unlike the athlete in a training program the Christian does not know in
what form his trials will come. Indeed, the trials often come suddenly
without warning and we do not have a blueprint for how to cope with
them. We are just suddenly thrust into a situation that may have no
rhyme or reason and which is outside of our control...like David who
called WSB Radio whose brother was killed in Viet Nam and his family
seemed to go to pieces because of it. He and his family had absolutely
no control over the situation and it was beyond his power to do anything
but just accept it all. So he runs away. Does that mean he flunked the
test? Not necessarily. God simply may have been bringing him to the end
of his own strength and resources so that he would turn to God for
comfort and help in his time of need. It may have taken the death of his
brother, the death of his wife and other things before he is ready to
give up on all else but God. In any case, suicide is never a solution.
That would not solve his problem or relieve his pain.
If he is already a Christian he may have to endure a whole series of
tests in order to come to a settled and mature faith.
That's tough, you say. Yes. It is tough. But then who ever told you the
Christian life was a piece of cake? Didn't Christ tell you that in this
world you would have tribulations, that you would be persecuted, that
you would be hated, that you would suffer with him, that you would have
to forsake all that you have to be his disciple? That doesn't sound like
a piece of cake to me. He said a man should count the cost (See Luke
14:26-35).
Jesus says that to be Christian means self-denial, self-awareness of the
life-long obstacle course of the life of a disciple. There is no turning
back, no promise of a life of ease and luxury, just a pilgrimage that
involves facing all trials and tribulation with a constant faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ to see you through no matter what happens.
I think of soldiers during the wars we have fought
who were
taken captive and had to endure long periods of confinement. During the
recent Viet Nam war some of our men were subjected to absolutely
intolerable conditions and torture, yet many of them survived without
disowning their flag or their country. True soldiers, men of endurance
and courage! And shall we who name the name of Christ deny Him when the
going gets tough? No, we endure whatever hardship, whatever trial he
permits to come our way, knowing full well that he is the Captain of our
Salvation. He will never desert us but will eventually bring us out to
freedom and victory.
We
exercise our faith in both his sovereignty and his word of promise to us
to never leave us nor forsake us. He who Himself endured the mocking and
scourging and humiliation of his enemies, who hung on a cross and
suffered and bled and died in order that we might know the salvation of
God. He went before us in suffering and trials. We cannot go to him and
accuse him of indifference or loveless ness. No. He is the victorious
Savior who loves us at all times and who sends trials to refine and
perfect our faith. James says,
2 Consider it all joy, my
brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3knowing that the testing
of your faith produces endurance. 4And let endurance have its perfect
result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4
II. But
The Question Needs To Be Addressed -- How Can Anyone Possibly Be Joyful
In The Midst Of A Trial That Hurts?
A. After
all, you cannot deny your true feelings of pain and sorrow and suffering
during a fiery trial that is sent your way. We must be honest. God sees
our hearts. We don't enjoy the painful experiences of life, do we? Of
course not! You don't enjoy a broken leg, a wrecked automobile, a broken
heart. To say that you or I enjoy such a thing is absurd. I can't be
joyful while adversity is stalking me, while trouble is hounding my
steps. Was David joyful when Saul was hunting him like a partridge? Was
Hezekiah joyful when the Assyrians had Jerusalem surrounded and demanded
his surrender, was Joseph joyful when he was in the waterless pit his
brothers had thrown him into, or when he was languishing in Pharaoh's
prison because of the unjust charge of Potiphar's wife that he had tried
to force his attentions on her? Was Daniel joyful in the lion's den?
Certainly not! We must look for a basis for considering it all joy in
the midst of trials elsewhere than in the experience itself?
James is not advising us to enjoy the bad experience but to meditate
upon God's ultimate purpose and salvation program that is designed to
bring us out of all these trials into a final supreme happiness in an
eternity with him in heaven.
B.
The trials are evidences that we
are embarked on a
salvation
process that is designed to produce endurance and maturity. Only the
believer is being put through an apprenticeship of faith. Only the
believer is being prepared for eternity in heaven. The unbeliever has no
faith to be tested or refined or matured. He is not in the school of
faith at all. Therefore he is bypassed in such a redemptive program.
In Hebrews 12 the apostle explains the purpose of all our trials and
hardships in this life as believers. There is not a single Christian who
is immune from these things. All must partake of God's discipline, even
scourging. If we do not then we are not even Christians but illegitimate
children. God will not claim as his own those who are left out of this
program of trials, tribulations and chastisements.
But praise God, the evidence you are enrolled in the college of heaven
is the tests you have to take. And. graduation day is coming. It is the
prospect of graduation that keeps the student who may dislike the tests
of school pressing on to the finish. The joy James lays before us is the
joy in prospect of maturity and graduation into the very abode of God in
heaven. The apostle Paul says in Romans 8:18 --
For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that is to be revealed to us.
Only glory by and by, only glory by and by; every heart ache gone
forever, only glory by and by!
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The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
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gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word.