Gods Perfecting Process
or
How to Profit from Your Problems
James 1:1-8
Murphy’s laws:
* “Nothing is as easy as it looks; everything takes longer than you think; if anything can go wrong it will.”
* “A day without a crisis is a total loss.”
* “The chance of the bread falling with the peanut butter-and-jelly side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.”
* “Inside every large problem is a series of small problems struggling to get out.”
* “Any tool dropped while repairing a car will roll underneath to the exact center.”
* “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”
* “The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train.”
A random sampling of Murphy’s laws shows us how inescapable problems are in life. Someone has said after surveying life’s troubles, (“Anybody who isn’t schizophrenic these days isn’t thinking clearly.”)
For generations, psychologists and psychiatrists, peeping into what some of them choose to call the human “psyche,” have been trying to understand the inner life of human beings. Thousands, engaged in this endeavor, on all continents, have written millions of pages about it, and yet the results have been utterly disappointing. Ideas about human inner life have only proliferated rather than converged in the kind of deepening consensus that is found in other disciplines. So serious is this failure to attain a consensus that it may fairly be said that among psychotherapists confusion reigns.
* One psychologist, recently commenting on this phenomenon, wrote that it constitutes nothing less than “a babble of voices.”
* , more euphemistically calls the confusion “a ballet of differences.”
* Joseph Carey reports, “Health officials point out that it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the 250 different psycho-therapies now in use.”
Two hundred-fifty psycho-therapies are now in use. Think of it! That means 250 differing views of human life, the nature and origin of human problems, and what to do about them.
It’s time to turn from guess-work to what God has to say.
Study the inner life of the human being in the book of James.
In the early days of the automobile a man’s Model-T Ford stalled in the middle of the road. He couldn’t get it started no matter how hard he cranked nor how much he tried to advance the spark or adjust things under the hood. Just then a chauffeured limousine pulled up behind him, and a wiry, energetic man stepped out from the back seat and offered his assistance. After tinkering for a few moments the stranger said, “Now try it !” Immediately the engine leaped to life. The well-dressed individual himself was Henry Ford. “I designed and built these cars,” he said, “so I know what to do when something goes wrong.” God, as our Creator knows how to “fix” us when our lives are broken by sin.
I do not propose to psychologize Scripture. To do any such thing amounts to interpreting the Bible through the grid of one or more of the 250 man-made systems of psychology into which the Scriptures are then force-fitted. instead, I propose to help you investigate what God Himself has said about the inner dynamics of your life.
James 4:1
James 3:11, 14
Riches, worldliness
Insights into the human dynamic
What is God doing?
How does He do it?
What can we do to allow it?
James’ basic concern is to help you become a complete person.
1:4; 3:2; 1:17, 27
The final product 1:18
Rom. 8:28, 29
1:4 - object of James to teach you to allow God’s processes (not problems; opportunities) to make you a mature Christian.
Profiting from your problems or losses
1:4 - complete and entire
teleios = entirely, completeness, maturity, even perfection
Modern Greek teleia = period, mark at end of sentence to show that it is complete
Borrowed from Hebrew notion of the tam (“whole”) person
Job 1:1 - “perfect”
Job was not sinless - but a man of integrity
Job - moving ahead in every area of life.
His life, as a whole, pleased God.
resists and overthrows sin
unwavering faith
effective prayers
endures trials
controls tongue
What God is doing? Conforming us to the image of Christ. God’s #1 purpose in your life is to make you like Christ. God is much more interested in building character tan in making you comfortable.
How does God do it?
Gods profit formula. (Attitude determines outcome [income] or our responses determine outcome).
Capital investment: trials +Attitude (knowledge determines attitude) what do we know? (Romans 8:28, 29) + patience “let” + wisdom (which you ask for) + unwavering faith =perfection
Rom. 8:28; James 1:2-4
The Oyster
There once was an oyster whose story I tell,
Who found that sand had got under his shell;
Just one little grain, but it gave him much pain,
For oysters have feelings although they’re so plain.
Now, did he berate the working of Fate
Which had led him to such a deplorable state?
Did he curse out the Government, call for an election?
No; as he lay on the shelf, he said to himself,
“If I cannot remove it, I’ll try to improve it.”
So the years rolled by as the years always do,
And he came to his ultimate destiny—stew.
And this small grain of sand which had bothered him so,
Was a beautiful pearl, all richly aglow.
Now this tale has a moral—for isn’t it grand
What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand;
What couldn’t we do if we’d only begin
With all of the things that get under our skin.
Dr. Pentecost used to tell about going to call on a member of his church who was in deep distress. He found her embroidering a sofa pillow cover. He asked her to let him take it in his hand. He purposely turned it on the wrong side and then remarked to her that it did not seem beautiful to him, and wondered why she should be wasting her time upon it.
“Why, Pastor,” she replied, “you are looking at the wrong side! Turn it over.”
“That is just what you are doing in your affliction,” said the wise and helpful minister, “you are looking at the wrong side of God’s workings with you.”
Down here we are looking at the tangled side of God’s providence; but He has a plan and a purpose—here a stitch and there a movement of the shuttle—and in the end a beautiful pattern.
Four things we need to allow God’s processes to work
1. Knowledge to Count (rejoice) , 2, 3
In the first verse, he announces who he is and then says, “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials …”
How would you like to get a letter like that? “You got problems? Be happy!” Our first reaction is “How? There’s no way I could be happy. You don’t know my situation.” The key is the phrase “Knowing that …” Your attitude is determined by your understanding. Rejoicing does not come just from positive thinking; but it is based on some facts of life.
What makes the difference? Your attitude. It says “Count it all joy...” The word “count” means “to deliberately look at something.” It means to evaluate, to make up your mind once and for all. While I’m living in the present, I look to the forward benefit of this problem.
C Consideration is a choice. Although I cannot control the circumstances that happen to me in life, I can control how I will respond to them.
Victor Frankl, the Jewish psychologist who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp in Germany wrote, “They striped me naked. They took everything— my wedding ring, watch. I stood there naked and all of a sudden realized at that moment that although they could take everything away from me—my wife, my family, my possessions—they could not take away my freedom to choose how I was going to respond.” You choose to rejoice in the situation.
In his volume, In the Eye of the Storm, author and pastor, Max Lucado tells the story of Chippie the parakeet:
“Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. Once second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up and blown over.
The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She’d barely said “hello” when “sssopp!” Chippie got sucked in.
The bird owner gasped, threw down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie – stunned, but still alive.
Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom. She turned on the faucet and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do … she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air.
Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.
A few days after the trauma, the reporter who’d initially written about the event contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering. “Well,” she replied, “Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore – he just sits and stares.”
2. Patience to Wait (Relax)
vs. 4 - “but let”
no shortcuts
patience - let
We might paraphrase verse 4 as, “Cooperate with the testing and let it do its job in your life.”
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son” (Rom 8:29).
A visitor watched as a silversmith heated the silver in his crucible. Hotter and hotter grew the flames while the silversmith was closely scanning the crucible. The visitor interrupted, “Why are you watching the silver so closely? What are you looking for?”
In and instant the silversmith replied, “I’m looking for my face. When I see my own image in the silver, then I stop. The work is done.”
When we’re in the fire it is tough to wait till God is finished.
In the battle of Crescy, young Edward the Black Prince was given a contingent of warriors by his father and sent into battle while the king and other troops watched from a nearby hill. he assured his son, then only 18, that should the battle become too fierce for him to handle, he and the additional soldiers would come to his aid.
Things got pretty hot for the prince, so he sent a messenger to his father requesting immediate help. It was not forthcoming. Again the youth sent an urgent call for help, but not only did the king fail to send it, he replied, “Tell my son that I am not so inexperienced a commander as not to know when succor is wanted nor so careless a father not to send it when it is needed.” The king obviously wanted his son to experience, it at all possible, the thrill of victory on his own, so he deliberately delayed any aid. If it had been absolutely necessary, he would have charged to his son’s deliverance, of course.
It is thus with our Heavenly Father. In some of our trials and tribulations we cry to Him for help, feeling we are being tested above what we are able to bear. But the heavens remain as brass and our prayers go ignored, or so we think. Yet all the while our Father is watching the battle, wanting us to obtain the victory. If it does become necessary, you may be sure He will intervene.
Remember, He is too experienced and to omniscient not to know when assistance is wanted, now so careless a Father not to respond with help when it is really necessary.
If steel is removed early from tempering—it is weak.
God is molding us—through testings and tempering.
vs. 4 - “let” - patience
3. Prayer for Wisdom (request)
* We need wisdom to allow God’s perfecting processes to work)
vs. 5 - “let him ask for wisdom”
This is in a context
When you are tempted to stop God’s tempering, God invites you to ask for wisdom.
Letting God perfect us
Therefore, “what are you doing?”
God will show you.
Earl Nightingale once wrote about a young lad named Sparky. From his earliest childhood, Sparky knew what rejection was like. A socially awkward youth, he was surprised if a classmate ever spoke to him outside of school. During his high school years, he never dated; he feared being turned down by any girl he might ask. It was not as if his peers hated him. instead, it seemed like they just didn’t care about him.
Sparky liked to draw. He thought he was quite talented. No one else seemed to share that opinion, though. The cartoons he submitted to the editor of his class yearbook were spurned, as were samples of his work sent to Walt Disney Studios. It seemed as though everybody felt that Sparky was a loser.
Yet rebuffs did not discourage Sparky. In fact, he used these childhood experiences as the basis for a character whose life was so much like his own—a little boy whose kite would never fly. For Sparky—better known as Charles Schulz—depicted Charlie Brown as the boy he himself had been. Millions enjoy the Peanuts comic strip today because one man used rejection as a foundation for blessing others.
Ron Hamilton - God never moves without purpose or plan. — Patch the Pirate
“Rejoice in the Lord” —copy of song in your notebook
God is perfecting us through trials
We are to let Him - patience
He invites us to ask for wisdom
4. The Fourth Ingredient in allowing God to perfect us is UNWAVERING FAITH.
Does God understand the inner dynamics of man in trial? Does He know our temptations to quit or get bitter?
* patience
* asking why?
vs. 6, 7
the wavering in letting God perfect us
How do you waver? What does it mean?
Faith is an action
Job - our OT example or a perfect man
5 fiery trials
Wavering for him would have been to have cursed God or become bitter with God
2:9 1:21, 22 Job didn’t waver
waiting 5:17
wisdom 23:10
wavering trials, part of life
James 1:7, James 1:12
Some Reasons For Job’s Sufferings (Job received wisdom)
1. That Satan might be silenced (1:9-11; 2:4, 5).
2. That Job might see God (42:5).
3. That Job might see himself (40:4; 42:6).
4. That Job’s friends might learn not to judge (42:7).
5. That Job might learn to pray for, rather than to lash out against his critics (42:10).
6. To demonstrate that all God’s plans for his own eventually have happy endings (42:10).
Another example
3 Hebrews faced with fiery furnace
—notice unwavering faith
Daniel 3:17, 18
To waver was to bow
There is not a trial which comes to any of us but that He is with us in it. God did not keep the three Hebrew boys from the burning fiery furnace, but He was with them in it. Nebuchadnezzar the king said, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25).
The only things burned in that awful furnace were the cords which bound those faithful lads.
They would not have received anything from God.
This is true for any fiery trial that you “let” God use.
-best place to know God’s presence
“I’ve never felt God’s presence”
You probably wavered in trial - didn’t receive the blessing
What would Joseph have done if he wavered?
What would Daniel have done if he wavered?
What would each have received from God?
Hebrews 11 - each made a choice of faith - all went through a fiery trial
Need to be aware of negative dynamics that hinder the processes toward perfection.
—not letting it work
Running while cake bakes - opening the oven
Don’t waver - let God - Lot moved to Sodom, Abraham to Egypt, took Hagar; Job would have gotten mad at God.
“Let” patience have her perfect work
I love the story about the old farmer whose mule fell into the well. After many unsuccessful attempts to haul the mule out of the hole, the farmer decided it was hopeless. With sadness, he instructed his boys to fill up several truck loads of dirt and just bury the old mule right in the well. Dutifully, the boys backed up the truck filled with dirt, and shovel by shovel, they began to fill the well and bury the animal. The mule did not take kindly to this action. The first shovel of dirt hit him square on the head, got in his eyes and mouth, and made him sneeze. Every shovel full after that hit him somewhere, causing that old mule to stomp around in the bottom of the well. Several trucks of dirt later, the mule was still stomping and packing dirt firmly underneath his feet. Little by little, that mule was lifting himself out of the hole. Sure enough, about mid-afternoon that mule simply stepped out of the well and snorted at the whole business.
I have noticed there are different ways people have of dealing with the problems life throws at them.
* Some are constant complainers.
* They do not handle setbacks and upsets very well.
* Some of them cannot even handle normal events.
* Others are defeated at the slightest difficulty.
* Quite a few get confused, turned around and seem not to know what to do.
Then there are a few who are unconquerable. They are like the mule. Problems can hit them square on the head, but they just stomp around enough until they actually use the problem to rise above it.
I am convinced this is the sort of attitude the Bible teaches. I am not sure I can find any one verse that says this. It is sort of the cumulative effect of the whole book. Look at the great heroes of the Bible. They were men and women who could match the occasion. Moses was that kind of man. Surely Joseph who rose from the bottom of a pit to a leader of Egypt was that kind of man.
James 1:12
