One of my favorite songs or mantras that I often repeated when I was a young man was: “Why me?” “Why does this always happen to me?” Every time there was a problem … any time something threw off my day or my plans … I would launch into an endless chorus of “Why Me?” One day I was singing the “Why Me?” blues pretty hard when a friend of mine cut me off, looked me square in the eyes, and demanded: “Why NOT you?” Why not me, indeed?
Last week we looked at the Biblical perspective on trials and hardship. This week we’re going to delved into the question of “why” we have to undergo hardships and trials. Next week we’ll look at how we should respond to hardship and trials … and we’ll finish up this series by examining God’s purposes for hardship and trials.
The “why” question hits the hardest, hurts the most, and lingers the longest. Before we jump into this, we need to ask ourselves a question: Am I willing not only to hear God’s answers to the question ‘Why me,’ but embrace them? Take a moment to pray. Tell God that nothing is off limits … that anything He wants to show you from His Word is fine with you … no matter how difficult it is to hear. If you are not willing, tell Him that too. You might want to say, “God, it’s too hard and I’m not sure I want to hear what you have to say … but I can’t go on like I have been, LORD, so I’m willing for you to make me willing. If you choose not to change my circumstances, please change me.” [Pause.]
Please take out your “Owner’s Manual” and turn to James 1. The Book of James was addressed to a people and a church who were experiencing a great deal of pain and persecution. James’ letter deals with the practical aspects of living out the Christian life. If we have a faith that works, it will be seen in how we face our trials (chapter 1), how we treat people (chapter 2), how we talk (chapter 3), how we deal with sin in our lives (chapter 4), and how we pray (chapter 5). It is interesting to note that the very first topic that James tackles in his letter is the question of trials.
I think that we can nominate James 1:2 as one of the most outrageous statements in the entire Bible. “My brother and sister, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy” … [slowly] “whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy.” Out of 54 commands in the Book of James, there must be a reason why the author starts out his letter with this one. Let’s find out why, shall we?
As you no doubt remember from last week’s sermon, the word “trial” means to test something by putting pressure on it. The word that James uses for “consider” in verse 2 of today’s scripture reading literally means “to press your mind down on something.” It means that you put pressure on your options as well as your problems to “test” which ones will stand and which ones will fall. The tense of the Greek word that James uses conveys a sense of urgency. We weigh our worries … we calculate our trials … we test them … we put pressure on them … we evaluate them … so that we can put our trials and our problems into perspective. Small trials and weak problems crumble easily and quickly under the pressure of our scrutiny. We don’t need to worry about them as much as the ones that refuse to crack and crumble under the pressure of our scrutiny and “consideration.” Those are the ones that nag us and frighten us, and keep us awake at night, amen?
“Our values determine our evaluations,” says pastor and author Warren Wiersbe. If we place a high value on “comfort,” for example, and the pressures of life start to crush our sense of comfort, we worry … we get upset … we scramble around and we try to figure out ways to reduce or eliminate the pressure that’s crushing our comfort or our security. “If we value the material and physical more than the spiritual,” says Wiersbe, “we will not be able to ‘count it all joy!’ If we live for the present and forget about the future, [our] trials will make us bitter, not better.”
“If we live for the present and forget about the future, [our] trials make us bitter, not better.” What does Wiersbe mean by that? What does James mean when he says that we should “count it all joy” when we find ourselves in the midst of trials and tribulation? What does the Apostle Peter mean when he says that we should rejoice when we “participate in the sufferings of Christ” (1st Peter 4:13). We rejoice and we count it all joy because we know that in the midst of our trials and tribulations that God will carry us through to the other side. We have joy in anticipation of the joy that we will once again experience as a result of trusting God when it feels like the whole world is coming down around our shoulders.
Whatever you are facing today … right here … right now … whether it’s a situation with your health or problems with money or a prodigal child … whether it appears that your marriage is headed for the rocks or you’re sinking in a sea of depression and despair … as wild and as impossible as it may seem, you have an opportunity to shine for Christ. Instead of just making it … instead of just hanging on … we can grow and thrive in the midst of our troubles. The hope … the ambition … of a true Christian is all about displaying the superiority of the life lived in God. Instead of whining, we worship … praising and thanking God for the work that He is doing in our lives. We pray and give thanks for the strength that He gives us to make it through each and every day. Our joy doesn’t come from our suffering … it comes from knowing that somehow God will turn our mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11)… give us a garland instead of ashes … a mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit (Isaiah 61:3) … and will one day cloth us with joy again (Psalm 30:11).
In his book, “When Life is Hard,” author James MacDonald says that “joy is a supernatural delight in the Person” … with a capital ‘P’ … “purposes, and people of God” (2010. Chicago: Moody Press, p. 13). Supernatural joy comes from knowing that you and I are part of something bigger than what’s going on in our lives right now, amen? And this kind of joy can only be experienced by Christians because only a Christian understands and believes what James means when he says that we should consider it nothing but joy when we face trials of any kind (James 1:2). For most of the world, life is an endless series of ups and downs, a constant battle where we sometimes get the alligator and sometimes the alligator gets us … and our trials and tribulations have no rhyme or reason in the end.
“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy” (James 1:2). In the King James version, verse 2 reads: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it. You go through life just minding your own business and bam! You find yourself stumbling and falling into a sea of trouble, amen? No matter what translation you use, verse 2 doesn’t say “if” you face trials of any kind or fall into them … it says “when.” In the Greek, “diverse” trials or “trials of any kind” is the same phrase used to describe Joseph’s coat of many colors in Hebrew. The suggestion is that our trials come in many different hues and shades and colors. Some suffering is tough. Some trials are difficult, others devastating. Each “coat” of “diverse” troubles is custom designed to fit God’s plans and purposes for our lives. We should never wish that we have someone else’s problems because God is using that individual’s situations to accomplish His purposes for that person’s life. He has one set of purpose and plans that are uniquely tailored to you.
Let’s look at verse 3. “Because you know that the testing of our faith produces endurance and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” The Greek word that James uses for “produces” may also be translated as “develops” in your Bible. In either case, the word that James uses is in the present tense. It means that what God has started in you, what God is doing in you right now, He will keep doing in you until, as James suggests, we become “mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:3). As long as we are growing, as long as we are lacking, God will continue to test us and put pressure on us and refine us so that we will “come forth as gold” as Job puts it (Job 23:10). Pastor and well-know preacher Erwin Lutzer put it this way: “God often puts us in situations that are too much for us so that we will learn that no situation is too much for Him.” Do you know what God’s number one purpose is for you and for me? It’s to make us more like Jesus and He uses the junk in our lives to get us there, amen?
There are some benefits that can come from our situations. An old dog fell into a farmer’s well. After considering the situation, the farmer decided that neither the dog nor the well were worth saving so he decided to fill in the well and bury the dog at the same time. Every time that a shovel full of dirt landed on the dog’s back, it shook it off. As the well began to fill with dirt, the dog would stand on top of it and continue to shake off the next shovel full of dirt. Eventually the well became full of dirt and the dog was able to jump out of the well and bite the farmer. Just kidding about the dog biting the farmer part. The point is that God used a situation that was meant to bury the dog to help her get out of her impossible situation.
Like the Apostle Paul, James makes the claim that our trials produce endurance or perseverance. The word that James uses also suggests “patience.” The word that He uses is actually two words combined into one. The two words are “remain” and “under.” The testing of our faith is to increase our ability to “remain under.” Remain under what? Remember what the Greek word for “testing” means … “to put under pressure.” I know you remember that from last week, amen? In other words, God puts “pressure” on our faith as a way of increasing our ability to “remain under” the pressure. The more God tests us, the more pressure He puts on us … the more “endurance” … the more “perseverance,” the more “patience” we have to handle the tests and pressures of life in the future. When the going gets tough, the tough do what? [Get going.] But that’s not how most people react, amen? Our first reaction is to try and get out from under the pressure. We either give up and let our problems bury us or we run around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get out from our problems by making them go away, amen? God wants us to rely on Him and to trust Him.
Why is it that so many people don’t “remain under” the trials that they face? Author James MacDonald surveyed 100 people to find out what they wanted to do instead of hanging in there. Top one hundred answers on the board … answer four is … “I want to complain.” We love to sing the “Why Me” blues and let the whole world know about our problems, don’t we? Complaining relieves some of the “pressure.” It feels like we’re “doing” something about our problem when in reality all we’re really doing is running around in circles, kidding ourselves while making everyone else around us miserable … and giving them something to complain about too, amen?
One hundred people surveyed, top four answers on the board. Answer number three is: “I want to lash out.” Man, misery loves company, amen? Unfortunately, we usually lash out at the people closest to us because they love us and will put up with our bad behavior at their expense, amen?
One hundred people surveyed, top four answers on the board. Answer number two is: “I want to bail out.” I can’t take this any more. This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t why I got married? This isn’t why I became a mom or a dad. I don’t want to put up with this … I shouldn’t have to put up with this … I’m not going to put with this. Sound familiar?
And the top answer on the board is: “Take me out.” Take me out of the game, coach. I’d rather be dead that have to go through this.
Testing produces endurance, perseverance. Testing changes us. It transforms us. It “refines” us. Endurance, says James, must have its full effect on us and in us so that we may be become mature and complete. Perseverance brings us to the “intended end” or the end that God intends for us, which is to be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. James MacDonald puts it this way: “If staying put was easy, if submitting to what God allows and giving up was simple … everyone would be doing it. The fact is, most Christians are going round and round with God about the very same things because they [would rather] change scenery or marriage or job or church … than [remain] under the trial and [let] God change them” (2010. When Life is Hard. Chicago: Moody Press).
If we endure … if we persevere … if we trust God and “remain under” the pressure we will become mature Christians … and a “mature” Christian is one who is “lacking in nothing.” If we shy away from trials … if we refuse to go through them … if we quit in the middle of them … we don’t mature, we don’t grow, and we are not complete to do the work that God has planned for us … plans to further His kingdom here on earth … plans that He has for other people of which we are to be a part. We may be going through something now so that God can use us to help someone else some where down the line. When we quit, when we run, when we refuse to “remain under” we not only short change God … we short change ourselves and possibly somebody else, amen?
In his book, “Wild at Heart,” author John Eldredge tells the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the 19th Century as a way of illustrating how “remaining under” can mature us and make it so that we are lacking in nothing. He lived before the days of professional trainers so he had to develop his own skills and train himself as best he could. He got a book that described the fundamentals of throwing a discus. The problem was that this ambitious and determined man had no discus to practice with … so he used a picture of one out of the book to make his own. There was one small problem. Real discuses are made out of wood with an iron band around the rim. He didn’t know that so he made his discus out of solid iron … which meant that it weighed four times more than the regulation discuses that they used in competition. Day after day this committed Scotsman trained with his heavy, home-made discus. He marked off the current world record distance and he practiced throwing and throwing and throwing until he could throw the discus as far as the record. When he arrived at his first track meet and was handed an official discus, it felt a light as a tea saucer. Needless to say, he set new records that remained unbroken for many, many years. “So that’s how you do it,” says Eldredge, “[you] train under a great burden” (2006. Wild at Heart. Nashville: HarperCollins Christian Pub., p. 29).
“If any of you are lacking wisdom,” says James, “ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you” (v. 5). Verse 5 is one of those verses that gets quoted a lot but, in the process, usually gets taken out of context. Up to now, James has been describing a process that will produce endurance. As we grow and mature in our faith, James says that we will naturally have questions. It’s normal to ask “why me?” … but as we prayed at the beginning of the sermon, we also have to be ready to hear the answer, amen? God will answer our questions generously and ungrudgingly and He’ll do so by giving us … wisdom. The word that James uses for “wisdom” describes the ability to judge correctly and then to use that information to act correctly. “Generously” and “graciously” are both in the present tense … which means that God will continuously keep giving you wisdom generously and graciously from the moment that you ask Him for it. Awesome, right?
God wants to take you from where you are to where He wants you to be and will give you the tools and the wisdom that you will need to get from where you are to where He wants you to be. Wisdom gives us endurance, perseverance, the ability to “remain under” … and God gives us this wisdom because he wants us to become mature and complete, lacking nothing, amen? There is one stipulation, however … well, actually two. First, you have ask for it. Don’t be afraid to ask. He wants you to become mature. He wants you to be complete. He wants you to lack in nothing. Ask, says God, and it will be given you. God is not a liar, amen … and He doesn’t make offers and promises that He doesn’t plan to keep.
There is another condition, however. You must ask in faith, never doubting … “for the one who doubts is like a wave on the sea, driven and tossed by the wind” (v. 6). If you or I don’t really want to “remain under” and grow, then James warns us that we cannot “expect to receive anything from the LORD” (v. 7,8). A double-minded man or woman is “unstable in all that [she] or he does” (v. 7,8). The word that James uses describes a person who is staggering around like a drunken man. A double-minded man or woman is someone who wants to have it both ways. “I want what God wants, but I don’t want to do what God wants me to do.” “I want to grow but I also want to gripe.” “I want to learn but I’m tired of feeling like a loser.” “I want to get better but I kind of like staying bitter.” “I want to be reconciled but the thought of revenge seem oh so sweet.” If we are divided and conflicted inside, the pressure … the trials … of life will come along and not only expose our double-mindedness but possibly tear us apart as well.
Ask for wisdom. And when you ask for wisdom, expect God to deliver. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, considerate it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith will produce endurance and patience because God wants you to be mature and complete so that we can come to “know this love that surpasses knowledge” and be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Doesn’t that sound good?
