Sermon Trtanscript

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Well, good morning to you.  Last week we began a brand new study from the book of James.  And I hope you brought your Bible with you again this morning and you’re ready to dive into James 1:2-12.  The title of this morning’s message, Overcoming the Trials of Life.  And last week, as we began this series, we learned that the book of James was written by none other than the Lord’s brother or, technically, his half-brother, however you want to look at that.  His name is James.  And there came a time in James’s life, though, when he no longer called Jesus brother, but he called him Lord and Christ.  Twice he mentions the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of James.  We said it wasn’t always easy for James to believe, and it wasn’t.  There was a time when his brothers and he did not believe in their brother Jesus.  But there came a time when James came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We also learned that James is a practical theologian.  The book of James, friends, is not the deep end of theology like the book of Romans or Ephesians or Galatians.  James is a pragmatist.  He’s all about shoe-leather Christianity.  From James we learn how to put our faith into action, don’t we?  He’s writing to believers.  He’s writing to Christians.  And he wants to know, how is your faith working for you?

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Now, in chapter 1 we said that James’s theme is a persevering faith, and it is.  He dives right into, we might say, the deep end of life.  And he answers a number of questions like, does your faith work for you when you face the trials and the difficulties of life?  Does your faith hold up like a strong tower, or does it fold up like a cheap accordion when the pressures of life and the trials of life come upon you?  How do we overcome the trials of life?  This is James’s question in chapter 1 verses 2-12.  And he gives us a simple and very practical but profound solution and answer to those questions.

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The first thing he tells us, beginning in verse 2, is simply to expect trials.  Do you see that beginning in verse 2?  He says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.”  Circle the word “when” there.  James doesn’t say, “Consider it all joy, my brothers, if you encounter various trials.”  He says “when you encounter various trials.”  Don’t ever believe or lead somebody else to believe that when you become a Christian, that when you become a follower of Jesus Christ, your troubles will just fly away like a flock of seagulls out into the vast blue ocean.  You know from practical experience life doesn’t work that way and the Christian life doesn’t work that way.  James says, “Consider it all joy…,” and we’ll come back to phrase, but do that, “…when you encounter various trials.”  And we need to remember that James is writing to a group of people who are right in the midst of a trial.  They’re right in the midst of the crucible of life.  These people have been scattered by persecution.  They’re living in a place that is not their home.  They are far away from home, not of their own choosing.  And they might have been surprised by the fiery ordeal that they’re going through, but James was not.  Nor is the apostle Peter.  I love the words of the apostle Peter in I Peter 4:12.  He says, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you.”  Now, I know some Christians who, because they’re Christians, they find it rather strange that difficult times and hard times come their way.  They really thought that if they became a Christian, maybe God would, sort of, inoculate them or insulate them from them.  But both James and Peter both concur, not if trials come, but when trials come…and think of it this way.  We are either in a trial, we are coming out of a trial, or we are waiting for one to come right around the corner and knock us between the eyes and, perhaps, even to our knees.  That’s just the hard reality of life, isn’t it?  Jesus said to his disciples, “In this world you have tribulation.”  In other words, you’re gonna have troubles.  You’re gonna have trials and difficulties in this world.  But then Jesus added, “Take courage, because I have overcome the world.”

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Now, James tells us in verse 2 that trials, the trials of life, are various.  They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and in a variety of forms.  So let’s expand on that idea a little bit.  Trials can be physical.  They can be emotional.  They can be financial, relational, and spiritual in nature.  They may arrive in your email.  “Boom”, there it is, a trial that you didn’t expect.  Or it may come in an overnight package on your front doorstep, something that you weren’t even thinking about yesterday.  They take place in your business, in your church, in your home.  They may come at any time of the year, spring, summer, winter, or fall, and in any season of life.  As a young adult, as a teenager, as a middle-aged person, as a senior adult, trials come.  Trials can come suddenly and be over just as quickly.  Have you ever experienced one like that?  Maybe something hits you this week on Wednesday, by Thursday it was all resolved, but Wednesday was a pretty rough day for you.  But trials can also linger for years in the form of an illness, an unresolved legal matter, a broken marriage or a painful period of unemployment.  I thought this week, maybe the trials you’re facing or I’m facing, they could be simply the result of living in a fallen world where all of creation groans.  I love that phrase from the early chapters of the book of Romans.  I think of the natural disasters we’ve been reading about, the cyclone that hit Myanmar and the earthquake that devastated the people of China.  None of those people expected it, did they?  In fact, here’s a picture of a group of folks from China.  They aren’t considering it all joy, are they?  In fact, it’s an excruciating time for them.  They didn’t anticipate this, but tens of thousands of people died.  I saw this photo this week, and the headline was, “Death Toll May Reach 50,000 People”.  It wasn’t anybody’s fault.  And they’re trying to put their lives back together.

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Now, some trials, let’s just face it, some trials could be the result of your sin or my sin.  Or it could be the result of somebody else’s sin, and we’re, sort of, in the wake of their trial.  But just like the people to whom James was writing, you may be in a place this morning that you didn’t expect to be in.  You are right in the crucible.  You are in what Peter called “the fiery trial”, “the fiery ordeal”, what James called “a various trial”.  And you may be tempted to think God has abandoned you, but be careful with that.  Don’t think God has abandoned you.  In fact, He may be closer than you ever thought possible, because He has a purpose in those trials.  James tells us to expect it.  It’s just the common experience of life- for believers, for unbelievers, for followers of Jesus Christ, for those who might curse His name- that we live in a fallen world and we are to expect trials.  Don’t be surprised by them.

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But, secondly, he tells us to choose joy.  Did you see that again in verse 2?  He says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.”  Now, the first time I ever read that…let’s just be honest here, a real moment…first time perhaps you ever read that, you thought, James, you gotta be crazy.  How could you put the word “joy” and “trials” in the same sentence?  You know, are you even, you know, circling the same planet that we’re on here this morning, James?  Why would you even suggest that we could experience joy?  I mean, for the most part, when we experience trials, what results is sadness, not gladness.  Right?  I mean, that picture from China this week, those folks don’t smiles on their faces.  They’re not experiencing joy, are they?  I mean, rightly so, they’re devastated.  They’re experiencing great, great sadness as well.  But James tells us not to find joy because we experience a trial or for the trial, but to find joy…actually, to choose joy.  Because joy is an attitude, isn’t it?  To choose joy right there in the midst of our trials.  

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And he gives us some reasons why we can make that attitudinal adjustment and that attitudinal choice right there in the midst of our trials.  And the reality is because God is up to something good in your life.  Let me say that again.  You can choose joy because…not because, you know, you enjoy the experience, but because you know that, through the trial, God is up to something good in your life.  Read on there in verse 3.  He says, “Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  See, one of the things we have to realize as believers in Jesus Christ is that God is far more interested in the development of our character than He is in keeping us in our comfort zone.  And so He allows tests and trials to come into our life.  Now, God tests us to bring out the best in us.  Satan tempts us to bring out the worst in us.  Don’t confuse trials and temptations.  We’ll talk about the temptations of life next week and how to win the war within.  But this week we’re talking about the tests, how to overcome the trials of life.  God tests us to bring out the best in us.  And He may look into us and see a character deficiency.  James says, “Let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect…,” that word “perfect” means mature, “…and complete, lacking in nothing.”  In other words, so that there is no deficiency in you or in me.  God may see a character deficiency in us, and so He either sends or allows us to go through a difficult time, a painful trial, a fiery ordeal.  And those trials do two things for us.  They make us stronger- that’s the word “endurance” here- and they also mature us.

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You see, God is up to something good in your life and in my life.  I don’t know what kind of trial you are currently in or the one you just came out of or the one that’s awaiting you right around the corner, but just know that God is aware of it and He hasn’t abandoned you.  It isn’t an indication that He doesn’t love you anymore.  It might not even be an indication-although it’s important to examine ourselves during that time- but it might not be an indication that you have sinned or offended God in some way.  He’s not a capricious God with His children.  But He allows the painful, fiery ordeals of life into our life to produce in us endurance.  I love the Greek word here.  It means “to bear up” under any situation and to not escape it.  James wants to know whether your faith will hold up like a strong tower or fold up like a cheap accordion when the trials and pressures of life come.  And God may have allowed that test, allowed that trial, simply to build within you endurance.  Just like a long distance runner needs endurance to make it to the end of the race, so we as believers in Jesus Christ, we need that hupomone, that endurance, that ability to bear up under any situation.  Not to fold up, but to hold up when the trials of life come.

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When I think of the trials of life and the endurance that God wants to build into our lives and the maturity, the way He wants to perfect us and shape us, my mind goes back to my high school football days.  I played a little bit of high school football.  And I remember during the summer months going through the fiery ordeal, so to speak.  I mean, our coaches put us through a strength and conditioning regimen that sometimes felt like a painful trial.  We lifted weights.  We ran sprints until our sides were about to split open.  We ran long distances until our lungs puffed up like balloons and were about to explode.  We did this five days a week for two months during the summer.  And then we entered into the month of august and had three-a-day practices in the high heat and humidity.  And the coaches over and over and over again would put us through this strength and conditioning regimen.  They would put us through this painful, fiery trial to remind us that we needed to be in better condition than our opponent and to be better prepared, so that when we came to the fourth quarter of the game we were in a winning position.  How do we endure during times like that?  And, by the way, the perseverance we need to endure today’s trial comes from the strength we gain from yesterday’s trial.  Let me say that again.  The perseverance we need to endure today’s trial came from the strength we gained from yesterday’s trial and so on and so on and so on.  God is about building up our character and our maturity.  And He will allow those painful trials to come into our life to shape us and mold us after the image of Christ.

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But how do we choose joy in the midst of that?  Well, one way is just to follow the example of Jesus.  Turn back to the book of Hebrews chapter 12, the book just before the book of James.  Hebrews 12:2, “Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith,” now, listen to this, “who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  How do you choose joy in the midst of your trials?  You keep your eye on the prizes.  Jesus made it into the end zone.  
And so can you and so can I if we fix our eyes on Him, who, for the joy set before Him, endured that cross, despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father.

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Now, James goes on.  And he tell us not only to expect trials- it’s part of the common experience in life- and to choose joy- because God is up to something good in our life- but, thirdly, he tells us…he kind of shifts gears here for a little bit, but he tells us to ask for wisdom.  Let’s read on, verse 5.  “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways.”  Why does James go from this notion of trials and choosing joy suddenly to talking about wisdom?  Well, first of all, James is New Testament wisdom literature.  It’s kind of the Proverbs of the New Testament.  It also has a relationship to the Sermon on the Mount.  You get the sense as you read through the book of James that James sort of is expanded commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.  Wisdom is not knowledge.  You can get a lot of knowledge and not be wise.  Wisdom is skill for living.  It’s the ability to take, in the Christian life, the truth that we know and put it into practice, to put it into action.  And why does James say, when you’re in the midst of a trial, when you’re in the midst of a difficulty, why does he say ask God for wisdom?  Simple answer is because we don’t always know how to profit from the trials we experience.  Let me say that again.  We don’t always know how to profit, how to benefit, from the trials of life.  And so James tells us to ask for wisdom for that skillful living that God would give to us.

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And he wants us to know three things.  First of all, you’ve got to ask.  Later in the book of James, chapter 4, he says, “You have not because you ask not.”  Now, James is a practical theologian, isn’t he?  He’s just real simple.  You don’t have something from God because you don’t ask Him.  In this case, you’ve got to ask for wisdom.  Second thing you need to know is that God will dispense His wisdom generously.  He’s not stingy.  He won’t hold back.  He’ll do it without reproach.  He’s not gonna tell you that was a stupid question or, you idiot, don’t you get it out there.  No.  He gives His wisdom generously and without reproach.  And then, thirdly, James says if we’re gonna ask for this wisdom, if we’re gonna ask God to download His wisdom so we can understand what we’re going through from His perspective, so that we can profit and benefit from our trials, then we’re going to have to do it in faith.

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Now, what does faith mean in the book of James?  It means putting into practice, Christian, the truth that you know.  God, if He is going to download His wisdom, His skill for living, into your life, He expects us by faith to put it into action, to put it into practice.  And James uses the first of many illustrations from nature.  He loves these kinds of illustrations.  He says the person who asks in faith but later doubts is sort of like the surf of the sea.  You know, there’s nothing more wonderful than the calm, peaceful experience of an ocean or a lake that doesn’t have a ripple in it, okay.  The picture of, just, serenity and faith and belief and no doubt.  But you know what happens when the storm kicks up, that perfect storm that comes along in your life.  (0:19:00.1) And suddenly, you move from faith to fear.  You move from confidence to a season of doubt, like the waves of the sea that spit up and froth up.  And one day your emotions are up, the next day your emotions are down.  And you’re just all over the map.  One day you have great confidence that God is going to move into your situation and make a difference and you will profit from this.  And the very next day you wake up and say, “I’m not so sure.”  One day you come into church and you hear a nugget of truth.  And you walk out the door and, with great confidence, you want to put it into practice.  You wake up on Monday morning.  “I’m not so sure this morning.”  And James says don’t let that person, who is up one day and down the next, full of faith and full of fear the next, don’t let him expect that he’ll receive anything from the Lord, because he is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways.

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Let me illustrate it this way.  Suppose you we restarting a business.  And you’re not much experienced in business, but you really felt like this was something you needed to do, to start this (0:20:00.1) small business.  And as you were getting started, you thought to yourself, wouldn’t it be great if I could spend one hour, just an hour, with one of the smartest business men on the planet, Warren Buffett.  And if I could just spend an hour with Warren Buffett and he would download his years of business and financial experience and I could just, you know, take notes and learn from him, I would be a much better business person and my business would have great opportunity, you know, to get off the ground.  And you figure, hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask.  And so you call up Mr. Buffett in his office, and, to your amazement, he agrees to meet with you.  He says, “Sure, come on by my office.  I’ll schedule an hour.”  And so you come on by as quickly as you can.  And there you are with Warren Buffett, one of the smartest financiers and business people on the planet.  And he’s downloading all of his years of experience and wisdom, business and financial.  And you’re writing as fast you can.  Your hand is cramping up, but you’re taking down every bit of information you can from Warren Buffett.  And, to your surprise, at the end of the hour he says, “Listen, I’ll be your coach for the next year free of charge.  I won’t even charge you anything.  You call me anytime you’d like, anytime you feel like you get yourself in a pickle or a bind, you just ring.  In fact, I’ll put your cell phone in my cell phone, so that when you call me your name will pop up on my caller ID.  And I’ll take your call.  Twelve months, free of charge.  You call me when you want, day or night.”  You’re like, “Wow, that’s incredible.”  You thank Mr. Buffett.  You go on your way, and you think, boy, I have got all the wisdom I need to put my business into practice.  I am on the road to success.  The next day you wake up.  And the first thing you do, well, you get up early in the morning ‘cause the early bird catches the worm, right?  And you start to implement your business.  You take out your notes.  You read through everything Warren Buffett said to you.  But then you begin to have some second thoughts.  You begin to think that, well, maybe he doesn’t fully understand the kind of business that I’m in.  You get a phone call from a friend who tells you something about Mr. Buffett that will cast doubt upon what you thought about him.  And you decide to take the notes that you took and set them aside.  The notes that you used to, kind of, rewrite your business plan with Mr. Buffett.  You set that aside, and you pick up your old business plan.  And you put it into practice.  You implement your business that way.  And about six months later your business….well, it’s going, but it’s not going all that well.  You’re thinking that success is right around the corner.  And you think, well, maybe I ought to give my friend Mr. Buffett a call.  And so you dial his number.  Your name appears on his caller ID on the other end.  And, to your surprise, he answers the phone.  He says, “Hi, John, how you doing?  How’s the business going?”  And you say to Mr. Buffett, “Well, I had some second thoughts about what you told me.  And I picked up my old business plan.  And I began to implement it.  And things are going okay.  I think success is right around the corner and…”  Suddenly, you’re amazed by the silence on the other end of the phone.  And Mr. Buffett breaks the silence by repeating everything that he said you to in a small digested form.  He repeats everything he said to you.  And he says, “Let me know how it goes.”  Now, let me ask you a question.  Do you think the next time you call Mr. Buffett, that he will be ask quick to answer your phone call if you didn’t do the first time what he told you to do?  

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Let’s go back and read James chapter 1:4.  “But let him ask in faith…”  What is faith in the book of James?  It’s putting into practice…putting your faith into action, putting into practice the things that you know to be true from the Word of God.  “Let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  You know what the problem is for most of us, even as we go through the trials of life?  We are trafficking in so much unapplied truth…let me say that again.  We are trafficking in applied truth, and we wonder why God doesn’t show up the way we need Him to show up.  Because we’re not taking the truth that we know, that He told us back when to put into practice, and we’re wondering why we’re not connecting with Him.  James says expect trials.  He says choose joy in the midst of the trials, but ask for wisdom, ask for that skill for living, ask for help from God.  But when you ask and He downloads His truth into your life, you better put it into practice that day as a step of faith and not doubt.  And don’t be like the surf and the sand of the sea.

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And, finally, how do we overcome the trials of life?  Well, James tells us now to maintain some perspective.  He goes on in verse 9 and he says, “But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; and let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.  For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.”  Why does James now move to this discussion of the rich and the poor?  Well, because, first of all, the trials of life, he wants to say to us, sort of erase the superficial differences that we may have erected in our minds between rich or poor or maybe some racial difference or whatever.  He uses rich and poor here.  The poor person may be tempted to think that when he experiences the trials of life, that, you know, God isn’t on his side.  That, you know, he just can’t get a break and God isn’t for him.  And James wants the poor person to remember that trials remind the poor that they are rich in the Lord.  He says, “Let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position.”  Those trials that touch rich and poor, believer and unbeliever alike, that are equal opportunity employers, remind the poor person that, even though I may not have much in this material world and whatever trial I just went through- even what I have got taken away from me- but I am to glory in my high position with God.  I am rich in Jesus Christ.  That’s the perspective James wants the poor person to have.

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But trials also remind the rich, he says, not to trust in their riches, but in the Lord.  And James uses another illustration from nature here.  He says, “Let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like the flowering grass he will pass away.  For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed.”  He’s talking about the brevity of life and how riches will sprout wings, Proverbs says, wings like an eagle and fly off to the sky.  Here today and gone tomorrow are the riches of this life, the wealth of this life.  And when the rich go through the trials life, when they see their retirement portfolios plummet, when they see their stock investments go south, when they see their real estate investments go this way, it’s a reminder to the rich when they face the financial trials of life, don’t put your trust in those things.  You put your trust in the Lord.  Maybe that’s the reason the trial has come in the first place.  Maybe God’s seen some kind of character deficiency in you or in me, and He says, “I need to send a financial trial to that rich person so he realigns his perspective and his faith and he trusts in Me and not in his riches.”  This is a temporal realignment of our perspective, isn’t it?  Or a realignment of our temporal perspective, let me put it that way.  

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But James goes on further in verse 12 to realign our eternal perspective.  And he says in verse 12, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial.”  There’s that word “endurance” again.  He perseveres under trial.  He doesn’t fold up; he holds up when the trials of life come.  “For once he has been approved,” he says, “he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”  You see, whatever trial you are facing, whatever difficult, whatever pressure has come upon you, God is up to something good in your life, in this life certainly.  He is shaping your character.  He is molding you.  He’s not so concerned about your comfort zone.  He wants to disturb your comfort zone in order to shape and mold your character after the image of His son.  He’s up to something good in your life, in this life.  But He’s up to something good with regard to eternal life as well.  This crown of life that James mentions here is one of five crowns mentioned in the New Testament, five special rewards that God will hand out to believers in Jesus Christ for a variety of reasons, one of which is you persevered in the midst of trial.  You didn’t fold up like a cheap accordion.  You held up.  Your faith was strong.  You matured.  You got stronger.  You endured.  And there’s the crown of life that awaits that person.  

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James is realigning our temporal perspective, rich/poor, but he’s also realigning our eternal perspective.  And this is ultimately the perspective that we need to have, isn’t it?  When we go through the trials of life, this is just a rehearsal for things to come, isn’t it?  I mean, the years that we spend on this planet…what does the scripture say…70, maybe 80 years is the experience on this life.  It’s just a dot.  It’s just a flicker of time in something we call eternity.  And I know right now it doesn’t seem short.  It doesn’t seem easy.  But, you know, the apostle Paul…one more scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter 4.  The apostle Paul has an interesting way of realigning our perspective as well.  He says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”  Any of you facing a physical trial?  Then listen to this, verse 17.  “For momentary, light affliction…”  I know it doesn’t feel momentary and it doesn’t feel light at the time.  But understand Paul’s perspective. “…momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”  That’s the perspective he wants for us.

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How do you overcome the trials of life?  James is a practical theologian.  You’ve got to expect them.  Don’t be surprised.  You have a choice in the attitude you can have.  Choose joy, ‘cause God is up to something good in your life.  Ask for that wisdom, but ask in faith.  When God downloads it, be prepared to put it into practice.  And then maintain a perspective.  Realign your temporal perspective, realign your eternal perspective, and you’ll be well on your way to overcoming the trials of life.  Let’s pray together.

 0:32:56.1

Father, thank You so much for Your Word and thank You for the precious time in Your house this morning with Your people, even as we gathered around Your table.  And we think of Jesus, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross.  He went through the fiery ordeal, through the painful trial.  He despised the shame it brought upon Him.  And He stepped into the end zone.  He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Father, I pray for anybody here this morning, my brothers and sisters in Christ who are going through a painful time, an ordeal that they didn’t choose that is challenging them and pressing them up against the wall, testing their faith.  And right about the time, Father, they say, “I’ve had enough,” You’re saying, “One more lap of faith, one more lap of faith.”  Father, give them the strength to endure this morning, to ask in faith, ready to receive Your wisdom, skill for living, to know what to do, how to profit from all of this, and the willingness to put it into practice.  Father, these are simple truths, but this is the deep end of life where so many of us are living today.  And I pray for anyone here today who may not know the Lord Jesus Christ that today would be a day of salvation.  That maybe the painful ordeal, the fiery trial they are going through, is meant to lead them to Christ, to lead them to the cross this morning.  Would You have Your way with every one of us in this room during this time?  We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

0:35:10.3