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The scripture we are reading this
morning comes from James Chapter 1 beginning a verse 2. Please listen
carefully to the word of God.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you
face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your
faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that
you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you
lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without
finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must
believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea,
blown and tossed by the wind. Blessed is the man who perseveres under
trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of
life that God has promised to those who love him.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please pray with me.
Father we give you this time. I pray that this
word would enter our hearts and minds. And that Your Spirit would be
upon us and that the Word we hear will be effectual, would change our
lives. And also prepare us Lord for the supper as we prepare for your
coming and for your nourishment. Lord be with us we pray. In Jesus’ name
amen.
The Bible has many strange things. Many difficult sayings and certainly
Verse 2 of James Chapter 1 has to be counted as one of those. Imagine
you are on the receiving end of this letter. You have asked a question,
and actually if you read the Bible carefully, you will see that this
question has been asked in many contexts, in many settings, Peter
answers it, Paul answers it, James answers it, Jesus answers it, it’s
throughout the New Testament. And the question is: Why are we
suffering? We are Christians are we not? We are people who know God.
We should be blessed with things that go better for us. Why are we
still suffering? And here is the answer that James gives. ‘Count it
joy, consider it pure joy my brethren when you receive various trials.’
Now what is he saying? “Don’t worry, be happy.” No, that is not what
James is saying, it isn’t what Paul is saying, it isn’t what Peter is
saying, it isn’t what the teaching of the New Testament is. It’s much
deeper than that. The next few weeks I am going to be looking at a
series of sermons on how to have a faith that works. And today we are
dealing with problems, with pain, with suffering, how do we benefit from
our problems? First James deals with some very practical issues things
we really already know. He is saying to these people, and to us,
problems are inevitable. Now they already know this, life is life. We
already know it. But he is talking specifically to the Christian
audience who are having these questions about “Why us? We belong to God
after all.” And he has to remind them that just because they are
Christians God doesn’t take them out of life. Life does happen. And
Christians, I would actually argue that because we are Christians, I
believe the New Testament actually teaches that we are probably going to
have more problems, not less. God does not take us out of life.
Problems are inevitable. James doesn’t say “Count it joy if you
have problems.” He says “whenever”, not if but when.
He
is also reminds them that problems are unpredictable. That is they
happen at times we often do not expect. Now a lot of times we can
prepare for problems and we do and we do the best that we can. You know
in the Army, you would be surprise how many have as their job scenarios,
preparing for problems. There are people who get paid a whole lot of
money to just sit around and think about these things. Of course,
sometimes you wonder what they are doing because it does not seem like
all the problems that they think of are really the ones that happen and
Iraq may be one of those things. We go to conferences all the “time
this may happen”, “this may happen.” Well some of it was predicted and
some of it was not. It’s the same thing with life. We predict all
kinds of things and things still happen that we don’t expect. The Greek
word here is peripipto. It is the same word that is used in the context
of the Good Samaritan the man fell into, or fell in with thieves
unexpectedly, and was robbed and beaten. That is the way problems
happen for us. And so James says count it joy whenever you receive,
whenever you have, whenever you face trials. That word is peripipto.
The third thing, we already know, is that problems are of many kinds,
from changing diapers to facing cancer. From getting irritated at all
the red lights that were on coming over here today versus a car accident
of many kinds. The context there again is multifaceted. Count it all
joy. Consider it pure joy when you receive many trials, many problems,
many sufferings of various kinds.
Now these are things we already know. But the fourth one is what makes
it Christian or Biblical. The fourth thing that we know is that
problems are purposeful. Problems are purposeful. God uses things in
our lives to teach us. I have talked about this before. I believe God
in history is telling a story. I like this analogy. That history is
His story. And that God is writing a story and will end as He has
written it. The analogy breaks down in that God’s story is not like
Shakespeare or like a novel where every little bit happens in a
predetermined kind of sense, but God has written the story and within
that story are million of free agents, some of which are up to no good.
And a lot of things that happen in our lives are a result of evil acts
or things that happen to us. God is not an author of evil but God is
such a big god. God is such a big god that nothing, nothing will change
the ending of the story He is writing, for us and as a hope. The
ultimate example of that is that evil was done to His son. People
killed him and yet God counts that act as a sacrifice for our sins. It
was never out of His control.
I
want to stop here and take a two minute detour and say something very
important to you. Pain is a gift of God. Pain is the gift of
God. You may think I am crazy for saying that but I just want you to
imagine for a minute what would happen to you if you got a splinter in
your toe and never felt it? You could imagine. It wouldn’t be long
before it got infected or you lost your toe or your foot or your life.
What would happen if you stuck your finger in a fire and you didn’t feel
it? You would just be sitting there, “Gosh, I smell something funny.”
Not to be funny, very serious business. What would happen if you didn’t
feel the pain in your life? You would be a leper. You know that is
what leprosy is. The movie guys have it all wrong. Leprosy is not this
wasting away of the flesh. It is a person who has a disease of not
feeling extremities. They have no feelings in their extremities, so in
the daily grind of life, near a fire, or stubbing your toe, or all those
sorts of things, they don’t feel it and it wears away at them. If you
had no pain you would be a leper. Pain is God’s gift.
Problems are purposeful. The first thing that problems do is purify our
faith. Count it all joy my brethren when you receive various trials for
you know that the testing of your faith. What is good about faith if it
isn’t tested? A lot of things test our faith. In fact the first thing
that tests our faith is the fact that we go through suffering that is
why James is dealing with this. It is not an accident that it’s the
first thing out of his mouth when he is talking about this problem
because it is such an important problem. And helping them deal with it
is helps them in their faith. Now there is something that we have to
remember. When we talk about faith, faith is not simply believing. In
the bible, faith is more kin to trust. Whenever you read the word faith
if you were to substitute trust you would have a closer view of what the
bible is talking about. And faith has to do with not only believing
that God exists but entering into a relationship with him and learning
to trust him. You do not learn how to trust someone unless things are
tested. You know what I found out about God in my life? That God always
shows up, almost always at the last minute. He is having to teach me
yet again that he is going to show up, that he is faithful.
The second thing that problems do for us is that they build up our
endurance. ‘Count it all joy, consider it pure joy my brethren when you
receive various trials, for you know the testing of your faith produces
endurance’ or as the RSV says “steadfastness”. The idea is that in a
storm you’re standing straight and tall even in the midst of chaos and
problems that you are able if nothing else to stand because you have
been tested, because you have been strengthened by the things in life.
I remember well when I entered the ninth grade. You know you go in and
doing the first day of classes and my last class of the day happened to
be gym. Well I hated gym because often you had all these other guys
that would beat you up or treat you poorly. If you were in the ninth
grade you were the lowest of the low. Well, for just a momentary moment
I had a moment of gladness, the head coach of the football team came in
and said, “You, you and you.” He pointed at me and took us out of the
class. He said, “You are no longer going to be in this class.” I said,
“Great!” He took us into another class full of more big guys. It was a
weight lifting class. I had played football in eighth grade and he was
saying “okay we are going to build you up so you can play later.” And
it was worse. They took up into the room with the weight lifting
machines and that sort of thing. The first thing they plopped me down
on was the bench press and it had a huge stack of about two hundred
fifty pounds and all these plates leading up to that amount. And I
could only do two plates, struggling to do that. And all these guys
making fun of me saying “look at that guy.” But four years later I
could do the whole stack, because I worked at it, because I was tested,
because my muscles weren’t big enough but they got big enough. And I
grew, it is what endurance is, it’s what steadfastness is.
The third thing is that pain and suffering and problems sanctify, make
holy our character. This is where it is really all about. A lot of
people compare James and Paul and say they disagreed about things. I
don’t agree with that but particularly in this area Paul said the very
same thing. He says in Romans “we rejoice in suffering.” We rejoice in
suffering because suffering produces endurance and endurance produces
character. God is more interested in your character than he is your
comfort. We are much more interested in our comfort. We run away from
tests and trials. But God is the hound of heaven. You know sometimes
God really is the image of this guy who has gotten out of prison who has
the dogs behind him. Well in our case we have one dog and its God, God
is after us. And we’re continually trying to escape, but God is
building you up for not only this life but the life to come. This is
what you need to know.
Now James tells us what we need to do. And the first thing is rejoice.
Does he mean “don’t worry be happy”? In the midst of the horrors of
life and life can not only be wonderful but it can be horrible. It
takes courage to live. Does that mean that we “don’t worry be happy”?
No, he is not saying necessarily rejoice because of things. He is
saying rejoice in them. It really is a matter of our attitude.
We can choose to have joy, ‘Count it all joy, consider it pure joy my
brethren when you receive various trials.’ That word “consider” has the
sense literally to deliberate, to think about. You can’t control your
circumstances but you can control how you react to them. Viktor Frankl
is Jewish philosopher and writer who was thrown into the prison camps,
the Nazi concentration camps and he says something like this, “when he
first got there they took all my clothes away, my wedding ring,
everything, my wife, everything. As I stood naked before them I
realized something they could not take away and that was, how I reacted
to the situation.” Life can be very tough but we can choose how we
react, ‘Count it all joy, consider it pure joy my brethren.’
The second thing we can do, and I’m really going through the R’s here,
rejoice and now request. He says, “If any of you lack faith or lack
something, pray. Ask God, who gives to all generously, and it will be
given to you, to pray for things.” That doesn’t mean God will give you
everything. God sometimes says, “No,” and that’s good. If we got
everything, think about it, everything you’ve ever wanted, where would
you be? I’d be in deep trouble if I got everything I wanted. But James
says God gives generously. Why? Because when we go through problems God
doesn’t want us to waste the opportunity. And maybe the way we need to
look at it is instead of always asking God “Why?” we need to ask
“What?” James goes on to say, “When you ask don’t doubt, but ask in
faith.” You know I think in the modern world we have gotten proud of
the fact that we doubt. If you don’t doubt about things or have doubts
you aren’t intellectual or something. In my experience, doubts have as
much to do with the will as they do with the intellect. Now we all have
doubts and there’s nothing wrong with that. But often our doubts have
to do with, “I just don’t want you to tell me what to do.” Its not that
we don’t believe in God, we just don’t want Him to be in control.
Oswald Chambers once said that, “Often our lack of faith or our
disobedience results in the suspicion that God is not good. If we put
ourselves in God’s hands, wow, we’re in trouble.” There is a woman who
had a disease and it was terminal and her doctor said, “There is nothing
else we can do for you. The only thing you can do is go home and
pray.” And she said, “My, my, has it come to that?”
We
rejoice, we request, we also relax. As I said earlier faith has to do
with trust. When we come to the place where we know that God is in
control we can relax. James says, “When you ask believe and not doubt,
because he who doubts is like a double minded man.” In other words
you’re going from here and you’re going from there and not relaxed.
You’re a fanatic. You have to take it under control. You have to do
this, you have to do that. Where is God in all of it? Relax, because
God loves us and is with us and everything we go through.
Last but not least, and I’m working hard to get the R’s in, is to
receive. He says, “He who endures to the end will receive the crown of
life, will receive this glorious gift at the end.” We receive because
we believe. I think having this perspective, this eternal perspective,
gets us through life because life can be really tough. I heard a story
by a theologian who was talking about a woman that he just loved and was
a friend of his but she had cancer and she was going through the
chemotherapy. He went to see her and asked her how she was doing. She
said, “You know it’s really hard to be joyful with your head in a bucket
all the time.” And life is like that sometimes. It’s hard to have this
joy we are talking about. We simply just have to endure. Endurance is
so much easier when we know that there is going to be an end some day.
You know I told you about being in the ninth grade in high school. I
was a football player. One of the things I hated at the end of
practice, the coach would line us up for sprints, and he would say,
“Okay run the sprints” blow his whistle. “Again.” Blow his whistle.
“Again.” And you know what I hated? I hated not knowing how many we
were going to run. He would never tell us. “Run again.” Blow the
whistle. “Run again.” And a lot of guys fell out because they thought
it was going to last forever. If we would have known it was going to be
a hundred we could have made it. But you know what? We know that in
the end God is going to make everything new and it is going to be okay.
Its not that this life is not important. It’s not that what we do here
isn’t vital, but we have an eternal perspective. Endurance is
strengthened by the fact that God is in control and in the end He is
going to make all things new and right. Believe that, know that and be
strengthened by that, count it joy. And you really can because you know
your god is God.
Let us pray.
Father we thank you that we are not in control but
you are. Help us with our attitudes. Help us to know that You are with
us even in the midst of huge trials, that in the end You will bring us
through. We pray in Jesus’ name amen.
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