Have you ever asked someone how they are doing and had them answer something like this: “Well, under the circumstances, I’m doing pretty well.”? When I hear someone say something like that I’m reminded of something that I heard many years ago. This quote from Rick Warren really captures the essence of the words of James that we’ll be looking at this morning:
Circumstances are like a mattress: you get on top, you rest easy. You get underneath, you suffocate!
While I’m not sure we always “rest easy” as we encounter difficult circumstances in our lives, God certainly does not want us to suffocate under the trials of life.
We mentioned last week that the main purpose James wrote his letter was to help immature Christ followers mature in their walk with Jesus. And as we’ll see this morning, one of the marks of a mature Christ follower is that he or she is able to find joy in the midst of trials.
Go ahead and take your Bibles and turn to James chapter 1 and follow along as I read beginning in verse 2:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
(James 1:2-12 ESV)
Let’s begin with a couple of general observations about this passage and then we’ll get into some of the specifics of how to put it into practice in our lives.
General observations:
1. Experiencing trials is the norm for every Christ follower
One of the first things we notice in verse 2 is the little four letter word “when”. It’s instructive that James chose to use that word rather than another one he could have chosen – “if”.
Many times our first reaction when we face trials in our lives is to ask, “Why me God?” But maybe what really ought to be asking is, “Why not me, God?”
In using the word “when” perhaps James was thinking of the many times that Jesus had warned His followers that they should expect to face trials and tribulations in this world. And James’ fellow disciple, Peter, certainly understood this principle when he wrote these words:
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
(1 Peter 4:12 ESV)
As Christ followers, we shouldn’t be surprised when we face trials. They are a normal part of living life in the kingdom of God.
2. God uses trials to manifest the genuineness of our faith
We need to begin by looking at the word that both James and Peter use for “trials”
“pierasmos” =
“testing”
When we get to verse 13 next week, we’ll find that when James uses the same Greek word there, it is translated “temptation”. That is because the word in Greek has neither a negative nor positive connotation. So the context has to determine the proper translation.
In the passage we’re looking at this morning, the testing is being applied for the purpose of demonstrating the good in the object being tested. Peter comments further on this idea:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
(1 Peter 1:6-7 ESV)
According to both James and Peter, the reason that God either allows or brings trials into our lives is so that we can demonstrate the genuineness of our faith.
This is similar to the way a metallurgist tests the genuineness of a metal like gold. When heated to a very high temperature, any other metals which might be present become separated from the gold. The purpose of such a testing is to prove the genuineness of the gold.
As a pastor, I’ve learned over the years that the way people respond to trials is the best test of the genuineness of their faith. When I see people like Don and Shirley Williams or Harold and Thelma Grimm or Gene and Sonya Melzer and many others here in this body and how they have responded to some very difficult trials in their lives, I’m encouraged by just how genuine and deep their faith must be.
On the other hand, I’ve unfortunately watched those who claim to be followers of Jesus completely fall apart when they have to deal with adversity in their lives. And the only conclusion I can make, based on what I find in the Scriptures, especially in this passage, is that there isn’t a genuine, mature faith present in those lives.
3. Experiencing joy in our trials is a matter of our mind, not our emotions
James begins this passage with a command – “count”. That command to “count it all joy” is the main theme of this passage and the remainder of the passage then explains further how we are to do that.
The verb that James uses in that command actually has several different potential meanings. Its primary meaning is “to consider”, but it can also mean “to lead”. The word is actually derived from an accounting term that means “to add up all the figures and come to a conclusion.”
When we put all those ideas together, we find that James is commanding his readers, and us, to make a deliberate and careful judgment after considering all the facts, rather than making a quick decision based on emotions.
When James commands us to consider it all joy when we face trials, he is not saying that we need to be masochists who enjoy the trials themselves or suggesting that we seek out or needlessly rush into trials. Like me, most of you probably know some people who are like that – those who love to “play the martyr”. They actually seem to enjoy being in difficult circumstances so that they can call attention to their plight and seek out the sympathy of others.
James understands that the trials themselves are certainly not a source of joy. But we can have joy in the midst of our trials by making a careful consideration of our circumstances and knowing that God is using our trials to prove the genuineness of our faith. My joy in my trials comes from knowing that God is using the process for my ultimate good.
With those thoughts in mind, we are now ready to move on to discovering how to put this passage into practice in our everyday lives.
HOW TO “COUNT IT ALL JOY”
1. Take a long-term view of my trials
As we have discussed many times before spiritual maturity is a process, not a destination. And it is a process that takes time and effort. There is no such thing as instant spiritual maturity.
I’m really glad for all the technological advances that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Just think about it. Just a generation ago, no parents knew until the birth if they were going to have a boy or a girl – they had to wait until the whole process of childbirth was complete to see the result. Today, thanks to the sonogram, parents find out the sex of their child very early in the pregnancy. As a child, if I wanted a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast or a bowl of rice with my dinner, it took 30 minutes to cook. Now I pop it in the microwave for a minute or two. Even preparing sermons without the benefit of the internet, Bible software and word processing programs took much longer than it does today.
But the “microwave mentality” that results has unfortunately carried over into our idea of what it takes to come to spiritual maturity. We want instant spiritual maturity. Or at least we want to be able to complete a 6 week or 12 week “discipleship class” at which point we’re declared to now be a “mature disciple”.
So when a trial comes into our lives, our first reaction is to ask God to take it away or to do everything in our power to somehow extricate ourselves from that difficulty as quickly as possible. But James counters that kind of thinking when he writes that the testing of our faith is designed to produce steadfastness. That’s actually a very good translation of the underlying Greek word.
“hupomone” =
“hupo” (under) + “meno” (remain, abide) =
“to remain under”
Steadfastness is not merely patience, a word which in English conveys passivity. Nor is it resignation or a “grin and bear it” attitude. Rather it is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us. It accepts the blows of life but transforms them into stepping stones to spiritual maturity. We can see that clearly later in James’ letter when he uses it to describe Job:
Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
(James 5:11 ESV)
Think about Job. He was unwilling to just give up his faith and resign himself to wallowing in his misery even when Mrs. Job encouraged him to “curse God and die.” Even though Job certainly didn’t understand fully the purpose of his trials, he took a long-term view of his situation and held fast to his faith. And guess what happened? Job matured greatly in his faith. So when he emerged from his trial, Job was able to speak these words:
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
(Job 42:5 ESV)
Job’s relationship with God was taken to a whole new level because he was willing to be steadfast and take a long-term view of what he was going through.
James really emphasizes this point in verses 9-11. At first glance those verses seem to be kind of out of place in this section that deals with trials. But I think the point James is making there is that there is more to life than just this brief time we spend here on earth. The material things of this life are going to pass away, but the spiritual maturity that we develop through our trials will have eternal benefits.
2. Submit to what God is doing in my life
In verse 4, we come to the second command in this passage when James writes:
And let steadfastness have its full effect…
The implication is that even though God desires to use the trials in our lives for the purpose of helping us to mature, we can hinder that process by not submitting to what God desires to do in our lives.
James goes on to describe what God wants to accomplish in our lives through these trials:
…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
We looked at the word “perfect” sometime back when we saw how Jesus used that same word in the Sermon on the Mount:
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matthew 5:48 ESV)
We’re going to find that James makes frequent allusions to the Sermon on the Mount throughout his letter, so when he uses the word “perfect” here there is little doubt he is using it in the same sense that Jesus used it.
This is the Greek word “telios”, which is an adjective that literally means “having” reached its end”. It describes something that is “complete, fully equipped or mature”.
James uses the technique of Hebrew parallelism here by combing that word with two other words or phrases that serve to amplify the meaning of “perfect” - “complete” and “lacking in nothing” both serve to further emphasize that God desires to use the trials in our lives to help us mature spiritually. Obviously James is not suggesting that we can arrive at a state of sinless perfection or attain full spiritual maturity. But he is saying that God wants to use the trials in our lives to make us more like Jesus and to equip us for the purposes for which God created us.
You’ll notice that the heating is working much better in the auditorium this week since we had it repaired this week. Now I’m no expert on heating and cooling systems, but I do know that this is the second time that we’ve had a unit malfunctioning here at the church because of a problem with the wiring and electronics. In both cases, the electric current wasn’t able to get to where it needed to go because of a “short circuit” in the system where due to problems with the wiring or an electronic component the electric current literally took a short cut and never got to where it should have gone.
That’s exactly what many of us tend to do when trials come in our lives. We want to take a short cut rather than to allow God to use that trial to help us mature.
I’m not suggesting this morning that submitting to God in our trials means that we don’t pray and ask God to remove the difficulty. After all, Paul asked God to remove the “thorn in his flesh” three times. But he also stopped praying that prayer when God told him “My grace is sufficient for you…” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
It also doesn’t mean that we don’t’ take prudent steps to remedy the situation. The example of Nehemiah is instructive here. Because of the outside opposition to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, he prayed to God for protection, but he also took the prudent step of posting a guard. So if my trial is that I lost my job, submitting to God doesn’t mean that I sit around watching TV and playing video games in between praying about my situation. I need to also take the prudent steps of preparing a resume and actually looking for a job.
So how do I distinguish between doing what is prudent and short circuiting what God is trying to accomplish in my life? That’s where the next step comes in.
3. Ask God for wisdom
What’s the first thing that most of us pray for whenever we face a trial in our lives? Be honest. [Wait for answers]. That’s right – we usually ask God to remove us from the trial don’t we? But James shows that we need to pray something else – at least at first.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but verses 5-8 are regularly taken out of context and used as a general exhortation to pray for wisdom. But we can’t ignore the context where these verses are wrapped in the envelope that is dealing with how to approach the trials in our lives in order to become more mature. James is going to deal with wisdom in more general terms later in his letter, but here the command to ask for wisdom is directly related to how to handle our trials.
James begins verse 5 with the word “if”, which in English makes it seem like not everyone is lacking in wisdom. But in Greek this is known as a “first class condition”, a fancy term that merely means that James is assuming that his readers are lacking in wisdom. We would probably come closer to the actual meaning if we translated that word “since”.
In a sense, this is really the key to the entire process of counting it all joy. The only way we can really take a long term view of our trials is to see things from God’s perspective. And when we pray for wisdom, we are essentially asking God to allow us to see the trial from His perspective.
We can’t really submit to what God is doing in our lives without wisdom either. So certainly part of what we’re asking for when we pray for wisdom is for God to give us the strength to be steadfast in the trials so that God can accomplish what He wants to do in our lives.
Most of the time when trials come into our lives, the first thing we ask God is “Why?” “Why me, God?” And that typically then leads to us asking God to remove that difficulty from my life. But when we ask God for wisdom the questions we ask become “How?” and “What?” – “God, how do you want to use this trial to make me more like Jesus?” and “What do you want me to do in response to this trial?”
Once we pray like that, it may very well be that God leads us to ask Him to remove us from the situation or to take some actions to remove ourselves from that situation. Frankly, many of our trials come as a result of our own stupidity and sin and we do need to remove ourselves from that situation.
I’m dealing with someone right now who is experiencing a number of trials that can be directly attributed to rebelling against the clear teaching of Scripture in a certain area of life. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the first thing that person needs to do is to repent and to get out of that sinful lifestyle.
But often, God will deal with us like he did with Paul and his thorn in the flesh and reveal that he is not going to take away the trial. And then, he’ll give us the grace to remain steadfast through that trial so that He can do His work in our lives.
This principle means that most of us probably need to change the way we pray for ourselves and for others. Let me just illustrate with one area of trials that seems to be the most common – health issues. When someone gets hurt or ill, what’s the first thing that we usually pray? [Wait for answers.] That’s right. We pray for healing. For a long time that was certainly my first inclination. But due in great part to verse 5, I’ve really changed the way I pray over the years. My first prayer now is that God would give wisdom so that the person could grow in his or her relationship with Jesus through that trial. I pray that God would give them the wisdom to remain steadfast and to know how He wants them to respond so that He can do His work in their lives. It’s not until I’ve first prayed those things that I ask God for healing if that is His will.
Finally, when James deals with the way in which are to pray for wisdom, he reveals that if I want to consider it pure joy, I must…
4. Trust that God has my best interests at heart
According to verse 5, the reason that we are to pray for wisdom is that it is God’s nature to give generously and without reproach. When we pray for wisdom, God delights in answering that prayer because He wants what is best for us.
Whenever we experience trials in our lives, we immediately reach out to something or someone. In our Monday morning Bible study, I think it was Jeremy that likened that idea to the anchor of a boat. When the seas get rough, a boat needs an anchor so that it isn’t tossed to and fro by the wind and the waves. But if that anchor isn’t the right kind of anchor or it isn’t big enough, it’s not going to be effective.
When trials come a double-minded man often turns to God as an anchor, but the problem is that he doesn’t really trust that God alone is going to be adequate so he also latches onto other anchors as well – usually his own strength, resources and abilities. And the result is that he gets pulled in all different directions and never goes where God intended for him to go.
When we take things into our own hands when we face trials, what we’re really doing is telling God that we really don’t believe that he has our best interests at heart and that we don’t trust He is capable of producing good in our lives through those trials.
God is always a more than adequate anchor whenever we experience difficulties in our lives, but He will never force us to take hold of that anchor. He leaves that choice up to us.
James wraps up this section by pointing out that the man who remains steadfast under trials is blessed. Once again those words echo the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Matthew 5:10-12 ESV)
I can’t always control the circumstances in my life, but I can always control how I respond to them. The trials of life are indeed a lot like a mattress. If I follow the principles that James lays out for us here – if I “count it all joy” by taking a long-term view of my trials, by submitting to what God is doing in my life, by asking for wisdom and by trusting that God has my best interests at heart, then I can rest on top of those circumstances. But if I try to take things into my own hands and try to hang on to some anchor other than God, then I will certainly smother under those very same circumstances.
