James 1:1-4
Trials
Woodlawn Baptist Church
July 31, 2005
Introduction
In James 1:1-4, James wrote,
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
This morning I would like to speak to you about trials: about what they are and how we should approach them. I hope that you will receive a blessing from this message and that your faith in Christ will be strengthened as the result of it.
Sometimes our trials may seem to be very simple, and other times we feel like we are drowning in them. The other day I met with a friend to talk with him about a mission work he is going to begin. He has been pastoring a traditional kind of church. It is the kind of church he could retire from if he so desired, but he has sensed God moving him in another direction for many months now. As he resigns his church with a steady salary and leaves the church parsonage behind for lower pay and to move into a fifth wheel camper, that brother is going to face some new trials ahead.
A young man I know who has a wife and two kids is driving to work in their only car when the transmission goes out. They live from paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford the $1,400 repair.
A mother who has raised her children in church and sent them to a Christian school finds out that her daughter wants to quit school because she is pregnant and is "in love."
I look around me this morning and think of you. I think of Brother Sulton facing the possibility of losing his other foot, or the Clintons having to take on the role of parents for their parents needing special care. Some of your trials are financial. School is about to start: you need to buy school supplies and some new school clothes, but maybe you need tires too, or you’re struggling enough just to put gas in the car each week without the added expenses coming up. I think about Michael having to travel to Thailand, and Shellie getting to prepare for the start of the school year with him overseas. There are dozens of other situations that you are facing, some we know about and others that you are quietly enduring.
Trials have a tremendous effect on our lives, and they have the power to either make us or break us. How do you react to trials? And how are you handling the trials you are facing right now? Do you blame others? “If those people had done this or that thing then my situation would be better.” Do you use escape tactics? Do you run to a drink? To the fridge? To a pack of cigarettes? Do you “veg” out on television when the pressures of life get to be too much? Maybe you don’t want to deal with your trials, so you deny them or try to minimize them. “She’s just being a kid – this problem really isn’t all that bad.”
You may be like the hunters I read about. Some organization offered a bounty of $5,000 for wolves captured alive. It turned Sam and Jed into fortune hunters. Day and night they scoured the mountains and forests looking for their valuable prey. Exhausted one night, they fell asleep dreaming of their potential fortune. Suddenly, Sam awoke to see that they were surrounded by about fifty wolves with flaming eyes and bared teeth. He nudged his friend and said, “Jed, wake up! We’re rich!”
Now, either God is a liar and James is out of touch with reality, or there is something truly extraordinary that happens in the life of a believer when he faces and endures the trials that come his way. As you think about your particular trials, are they strengthening and developing your faith, or are they wearing you down?
James says here that we are to have joy in the midst of our trials, but really, can we count it all joy in these situations? Can we have joy in the midst of hell on earth? Can you experience abundant living when life dishes out more and more grief? I believe we can. I want you to see that by accepting and trusting three basic ideas about trials found in this passage, you can learn to maintain a right attitude in your trials, giving God the freedom He needs to produce in you the quality of life that you want, and the fruit of life that will ultimately bring great honor and glory to His name.
Trials are Universal
James said to “count it all joy when (not if) you fall into various kinds of temptations.” Although this seems like such a simple truth, I believe that we fail to remember it too often. God has never promised to keep His people out of trouble. He has never said in His Word that anyone will be immune to trouble. In fact, the Bible says that man is of few days and is full of trouble.
We all experience trials. James experienced them. He knew what trials were all about. Can you imagine what it was like to grow up the brother of Jesus? Some of you have older brothers or sisters. You remember what it was like to be compared to him or her. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” What if your brother was the sinless Son of God who never did anything wrong?
I have wondered whether Jesus’ perfection was a problem for James. In the gospels we read that James and his brothers mocked Jesus. They thought He was headed for the loony bin. Jesus gave up a good career to walk around telling people He was God’s Son, but eventually James came to believe that message and came to be a part of Jesus’ church.
After Jesus’ death, James became the pastor of that church that settled in Jerusalem. Again, can you imagine what it must have been like to follow Jesus as a pastor? Jesus knew everything about everybody didn’t He? “You don’t love me like Jesus did.” “Jesus used to come by my house every Friday night to see how I was.” I can imagine a fifth Sunday lunch where they ran out of tea. “If our last pastor was here He would have turned some water into sweet tea.” The banana pudding would never run out.
Seriously – James suffered some real problems. In fact, the church he pastored suffered severe problems. It was a multi-ethnic congregation, made up of some sixteen nationalities. Those people had forsaken homes and jobs and possessions when they had traveled from around Europe and Asia to come to the Feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem. That’s why in the book of Acts we see those church members selling their possessions and sharing the profits with one another. They had great material needs. In the midst of all those needs, Saul comes along killing and arresting the Christians. They hadn’t known much persecution before this time, but now they were being scattered all over the land, which is why James addressed them in verse 1 as the “twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”
In this dispersion, their trials became so great that they began to suffer socially, economically and spiritually. If they told people about their faith in Christ, they were shut off from the community. Remember the story last week about the man who had been born blind? He was cut off from the temple by the Pharisees. His parents were so afraid of the consequences of defending him that they refused to help their own son. They couldn’t work; were treated with contempt, and in many cases chose not to suffer the results of being a believer. The entire book of Hebrews was written to this same group because they were forsaking the faith under the weight of the persecution that was coming their way.
Listen, all people suffer trials. Lost people suffer trials and saved people do too. Norman Vincent Peale said one time that “there is only one group of people who don’t have any problems, and they’re all dead.” Jesus Himself said that “God makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Rather than asking “Why me, Lord?” or complaining and grumbling about our trials, we must simply accept the fact that trials are universal. In other words, trials are simply a part of the human existence. Trials are universal – you’re not the only one with problems. In fact, if you’ll just take time to look, you can usually find people who are suffering problems that you can’t even begin to imagine.
Jesus told the disciples that in this world they would have trouble. They are a fact of life that you must accept.
Trials are Useful
What did James say about them? He said that trials work…bitterness? Anger? Worry? Depression? No! He said that “the trying of your faith worketh patience.” Patience is being able to abide under pressure. When an athlete trains for a sport, he willingly allows the coach to try his body and push it to the limits. Weights, running and other such work are designed to build strength and stamina in the athlete. A good coach requires these things to build you up, not to tear you down. God is like that coach, and the trials are the weights and exercise that He uses to build our spiritual muscle.
However, we, like any good athlete, must learn patience. There’s not one of us in this room that could just out there and run a marathon at full speed and expect to win the race. I own a bicycle, but I’d be a fool to think that just because I know what to do with it I could keep up with Lance Armstrong. That man has learned to pace himself and endure. He has fine tuned his body to do what is required. As believers, we must learn the same. I was built for glory! You were built for glory! Yes you were built to experience God’s glory, but more importantly, you were built to reveal His glory! That’s not a sprint – it’s a marathon – it is the spiritual Tour de France.
Not only do trials build patience in our lives, but they also produce maturity. “But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect.” Now that word perfect doesn’t mean flawless. It means mature; complete. Why does God want to develop maturity in your life? So He can put you in His trophy case and show you off? Not at all! He builds all of that so you’ll be more useful in His service.
Tests are intended to enable us to prove to others and ourselves the existence of a quality which, without the tests might never be displayed. You can tell people that you have faith in God, but what happens when the bottom falls out in your life? Do you cling to your faith or do you fall away? In recent months I have observed more and more of our people falling out of church when trials come up; but listen, those are the very moments when it is in the presence of God’s people we most need to be! Remember Hebrews 10:23?
“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
We Americans, and especially Texans, are notorious for our stubborn independence. We are self-made people who pride ourselves on our individualism, but that’s not what Christianity or following Christ is all about. We need one another. We need people to share our lives with, and we need people to share our hurts and struggles with. You see, those two verses I read are most often quoted to shame people into coming to church, but verse 23 tells you what the motive is: “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.” Those first century, persecuted believers were forsaking the faith. Don’t fall away, but be committed to one another; be committed to the body life of the church so that your faith will be strengthened during those trials.
As I was watching a friend’s son practice football the other night, the coaches put those nine and ten year old boys through a grueling two hour workout. Most of them looked like they’d been lying on the couch all summer. During that practice they never picked up a football. They never formed a huddle. For two hours that coach made them do push-ups, leg lifts, jumping jacks, calisthenics, and lots and lots of sprints. My friend’s son started getting the heaves, and he was crying. But I want to tell you what they did – they didn’t leave him behind. When the boys got to the other end of the sprints and he was still bent over at the starting point, the coach would yell, “Go help your teammate! No one gets left behind!” and those boys would run back to that kid, hold his hands and trot with him. They did double duty for the sake of a struggling teammate.
As you go through trials and develop spiritual maturity, God is better able to use you. In 2 Corinthians 1:4, Paul told the Corinthian believers,
“[Jesus] comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”
In other words, sometimes God allows you to suffer just so you’ll be ready to help someone else through their time of suffering. It would be nice if this were an immediate transaction, but it is not. Instead, it is a lifelong process. Just when you get through this problem there is another one waiting.
Trials are to be understood from God’s Perspective
I wish I understood everything God does in my life, but I cannot. My thoughts are not His thoughts and my ways are not His ways. He has purposes that I will never know. From my perspective, the trials I go through can seem unreasonable, but I must remember, and you must remember that God has a purpose in your trials. You must learn to see from His perspective.
Perhaps you remember me telling you about the woman who was visiting in Switzerland. She came to a sheepfold on one of her daily walks. Venturing in, she saw the shepherd seated on the ground with his flock around him. Nearby, in a pile of straw lay a single sheep, which seemed to be suffering. Looking closely, she saw that its leg was broken.
Her sympathy went out to the suffering animal, so she went and asked the shepherd how it happened. “I broke it myself,” said the shepherd sadly. He then explained, “Of all the sheep in my flock, this was the most wayward. It would not obey my voice and would not follow when I was leading the flock. On more than one occasion it wandered to the edge of a cliff. Not only was it disobedient itself, but it was leading some of the other sheep astray.
“Based on my experience with this kind of sheep, I knew I had no choice, so I broke its leg. The next day I took food and it tried to bite me. After letting it lie alone for a couple of days, I went back and it not only eagerly took the food, but licked my hand and showed every sign of submission and affection.
“And now, when this sheep is well, it will be the model sheep of my entire flock. No sheep will hear my voice so quickly nor follow me so closely. Instead of leading others astray, it will be an example of devotion and obedience. In short, a complete change will come into the life of this sheep. It will have learned obedience through its sufferings.”
Many times it is the same with us. Through your trials and suffering, God may be seeking to teach you obedience and reliance on His care. It seems that in one moment He is leading us into situations that bless us, then those that develop our character. He gives us enough of tears and sorrow to keep us tender, enough hurts to keep us compassionate, enough of failure to keep our hands clenched in His, and enough of success to make us certain that we’re walking with Him.
He sees the bigger picture and we cannot. Regardless of why or when or how trials come, they are all designed to bring you into a closer love relationship with God. They are all designed to point others to God through your life, but only you can determine whether they will or not. When Job suffered the loss of all his material possessions, suffered the loss of his children and even his health his wife told him to curse God. Job hadn’t done anything wrong but love and serve the Lord. Those trials could have made him bitter; they could have turned him away from God, but instead he gave God the glory and grew through that situation to become a better man.
Conclusion
God wants you to grow in your relationship with Him in such a way that we become more and more like Christ, and He is going to do whatever it takes to bring you to that place. Trials will come, and some of you are carrying heavy loads today as you deal with your trials, but remember that not only do they have a unique purpose for your life, everyone has them and everyone of them is good for you. You may not enjoy them, but God is simply growing you up.
Now, I want you to think about something with me. James said to “count it all joy when trials come.” Let’s suppose that in your trial you remember that everybody has trials. You know that God is going to grow you through this thing and that He has a wonderful purpose. Does knowing all of that bring you great joy? Of course it does not, because joy is not the fruit of intellectual exercise. It is a fruit of the Spirit. Now, I want you to turn to John 15 with me and we’ll begin reading in verse 1, then we’ll move down to verse 4.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman…Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing…Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that your joy might be full.”
Do you see that? What is that song we sing? “It is joy unspeakable and full of glory!” but it only comes when we are rightly connected with the Father through a right relationship with the Son. You are the branches, He is the tree, and as you surrender your life to Him His joy will grow and blossom in your life. Don’t fight your trials. Don’t run from them, don’t blame other people. Simply stay connected to Christ and trust Him in those difficult times.
You may be severely weighted down this morning. Are you rightly relating to God? Are you staying in His Word? Or are you too stressed out to concentrate or even remember your Bible? Are you communicating your cares to Christ? Are you coming to the throne of God boldly, asking the Lord to enable you? Or has your mind become so cluttered that you haven’t thought about praying in days or weeks?
What we are really saying is that we don’t trust God, and we are revealing that we are not surrendered to God like we ought to be. We are revealing that we have allowed ourselves to be weighted down so that we cannot run the course God has set for us. Would you trust Him this morning? Would you cast your cares upon Him? Would you come to the altar and pray today and leave your trials there? Don’t hang on to them. Don’t carry that thing around with you another day. You give it to God, and let His mighty hand be at work in your life as you demonstrate your faith in Him. Listen to Hebrews 12:1-2.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
I’m not trying to minimize your problems or trials this morning. I know they are tough. Some of yours are tougher than anything I have ever personally had to endure, but I know this: God wants you to experience great joy in the midst of those trials and to enjoy a very blessed life as you endure them, but His message to you today is that you must get your eyes off of you for a while and look at your trials through God’s eyes. There is more going on than you or I have the ability to understand. Trust Him today.
