Testing of Your Faith

Today I like to begin a journey with you through the New Testament book of James.

James is a unique letter in the New Testament, in that it is almost entirely comprised of very practical instruction for the Christian. Some have even called this letter the Proverbs of the New Testament because of all of the practical words of wisdom that it contains a list begin a new series this morning. Please turn with me if you would to James chapter 1 will be looking at the first 11 verses today. James one verses one through 11, James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion greetings counted 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 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 is a double minded man unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boasting his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. The sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass its flower falls in its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Pray father what we know not teach us but we have not give us what we are not make us pray in Jesus name amen be seated. I've always had a fascination with the book of James. It's straightforward it's it's clear it's practical and some looking forward to digging into this letter with you over the course of of several sermons before we jump into the main body of this New Testament letter want you to notice the greeting there in verse one. This greeting gives us a quick lay of the land. It tells us who wrote the letter and it tells us to some extent. I think why he wrote the letter. The author is identified as James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there were several James is in the in the early church. But the consensus among reformed Bible scholars agree that this James is the half-brother of Jesus. He was a man of of prominence in the early church. In fact, acts 15 indicates that this James was the leader or the convene or of the Jerusalem Council. There is evidence and that the letter was written prior to the Jerusalem Council, which if that's the case would mean that the book of James is possibly the earliest book in the New Testament perhaps being written. Only about 10 years after the ascension of Christ.

So in this letter he hears a man who who grew up with Jesus. He had his life transformed by Jesus. He was vested with great authority in the church by Jesus. He wrote a letter of practical instruction to the church only a decade or so after the earthly ministry of Jesus. All that adds up to the fact that I was set up and listen when it comes to the book of James notice.

Then James's audience. He says it's to the 12 tribes in the desert in the dispersion of the 12 tribes.

It's obvious from the content of the letter itself. James's audience was predominantly Jewish. There are numerous references to the Jewish things like the Old Testament laws and customs Old Testament imagery and and narratives from the Old Testament even mentions the synagogue at one point that was the Jewish meeting place during the New Testament era was very natural for him to address his audience as the 12 tribes. Certainly there early church would have been comprised predominantly of Jewish people. I realize that Paul had only just begun his extensive mission work among the Gentiles when James is writing but we need to understand. This letter is not for Jews only.

It's written to the church by virtue of the fact that it's coming from a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is writing these things under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he calls them the 12 tribes in the sense that God's elect from every epic, every dispensation, every age God's elect, is, as Paul puts it in the true Israel of God.

Peter is going to use very similar language in his epistle, but but then he applies that similar language specifically to Gentile regions.

So this letter is intended for Jewish Christians alone isn't for some sort of category of messianic Jew is for the church is for its for Christians is for you and for me.

More specifically it's for the church in the dispersion. The dispersion was the scattering that took place as far back as the days of Israel and Judah.

When they were forced out of the promised land. They were taken into exile in Syria and in Babylon, but other dispersions like that took place over the years there were there were times of persecution that drove the covenant community away from their homeland away from each other away from stability in routine in a general sense. Dispersion is the spreading out of God's people often under duress. Oftentimes, as a result of the world's hatred of them is what happens to the people of God as we live as foreigners in a strange land waiting for our true homeland. So I think that's the backdrop behind this letter it.

It's a backdrop of of oppression and and hardship and trial now quick word about the structure of the letter and then will jump into the body of the letter, James moves very quickly from topic to topic. If you if you've read through the these five chapters you know that in fact it's it's very difficult to outline linear train of thought throughout the letter. I wasted a whole outside in my study this week trying to come up with an outline of the book cohesive logical progression and is just not there. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't there in James's mind when he wrote a letter he knew why he wrote what he wrote and and he knew the order in which he wrote it, but God hasn't necessarily preserve that rationale for us and so I don't think we need to try to make these chapters fit into it a neat and tidy sermon outline we need to just let the letter speak for itself. That's what I hope hope to do. I was I was thinking, this letter sounds a whole lot like Lauren I sounded a few weeks ago when we were dropping our daughter off at college as is the time drew near, for us to tell her goodbye. We kinda just got into parent mode and started barraging her with with advice and counsel. Don't forget to lock your doors at night. I get in after dark. Don't drive too fast in the snow and and all these words of advice all at once. James kind of reads like that. He knew the people he was writing to.

He knew their problems. He knew their character flaws and strengths and he addresses those things. No doubt systematically, even if that order and structure is is lost on us.

But what we need to remember is that as with any book in the Bible there is a divine author behind the human author right and God knows who he is writing this letter to God knows our problems. He knows our character flaws and strengths and so he has breezed out this short, pithy letter for us his people need to sit up and listen. With that said, let's begin making our way through the letter very first point James makes is that trials perfect us trials perfect us and there's an implication beyond that, because trials perfect us we should rejoice in those trials, we should rejoice in the midst of those trials now. I said, this letter is very practical.

Notice that James begins right out of the gate with the command he says, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. This command is primarily a command to the mind. It's a command to think differently than we are naturally inclined to think, to consider or regard difficult things are hard things are things we would put in the downers column as things are ultimately good for us beneficial for is helpful for us it's a command directed to the mind and aimed at changing the way we think about the difficult circumstances in our life that stretches them that test our faith. It pushes to the limit of our capacity to endure. So, what kinds of difficult circumstances does James have in mind. Well various kinds. He says so himself. In verse two. Trials come in different sizes.

They are of different sorts. I remember in my early 20s as a as a single guy going through a painful break up with the girl and I remember thinking that the pain of that situation was not really serious enough to qualify as a trial. I guess I had this idea that trials with the T in a certain kind of struggle we had to be spiritual not emotional or physical. It had to maybe be the consequence of persecution, not the consequence of my own misjudgment or my own character flaws and my particular trial. At that time just didn't measure up to what I assume James had in mind.

So it didn't count a member revealing to myself using your just a wimpy Christian because your you're not even able to count these junior varsity trials as joy during that time I read a very helpful book by Elizabeth Elliott in which she was pointing out that suffering of all sorts is a potential point of identification with Christ suffering of all sorts of various kinds is a potential source of identifying fellow shipping in the sufferings of Christ. Yes, there were there different kinds of suffering are different causes of suffering, but those qualifiers don't really matter in James one because he expressly says that it's trials of various kinds that are to be rejoiced in no that phrase various kinds, translates the same Greek word that's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe Joseph's many colored coat.

Remember that story don't you in this life we experience trials of many colors and stripes Christian one ever trial your experiencing large or small spiritual or physical or emotional respectable or invariant very singly shameful. God is able to harness that trial and use it for some good, some benefit in your life. It may be sickness or loneliness may be bereavement or disappointment.

We need to learn in each of these to count them as James says in verse two all joy was look at that phrase all joy here in James two. All joy is not a quantitative statement. It's not a measure of how much rather it's a qualitative statement is describing what kind. Some have suggested another translation might be pure joy counted as pure, sincere joy, so were not being called here to put on some fake happy face and just pretend that everything is peachy when it's not know were being commanded to recognize to to look for to think about the genuine joy that will result in an otherwise awful situation. I remember a drummer friend of mine in high school. He was a great drummer but he had an odd view of pain.

He used it to practice his drums all the time. Sometimes till his hands would start bleeding.

He said, and then he would say I love the pain because it's making me a better drummer folk Scott isn't calling us in verse two to love the pain is calling us to have pure joy in the midst of the pain, not in the pain itself is a huge difference.

This leads us then asked the question, what is there to rejoice over when I'm suffering when I'm hurting. See the answer in verses three and four. These verses tell us that trials of various kinds work to put it another way, the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. It produces endurance staying power and that steadfastness of character in turn enables you to stay in the crucible long enough to see all sorts of growth in virtue and faith. As a result, even to the point of you becoming perfect and complete, lacking nothing. I want to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So how do I get there I get there by learning to rejoice in trial. I was talking to Rachel Macola a few days ago. She's carrying a baby. She's getting pretty close to her due date and I asked her that dumb question that nonpregnant people ask pregnant people you're ready to have that baby and she said something that struck me as kind of a metaphor of the very process that James describes here in verses three and four.

She said the early on in the pregnancy. She was a little nervous, maybe a bit fearful of what labor and delivery would be license her her first child, but she said as time goes on, the pregnancy has a way of making you eager for labor and delivery.

They call it delivery for a reason, right the trials of carrying a baby for nine months, gradually builds perseverance to the point that you are ready when it's time for delivery Christians, we long to see Christ face-to-face. We long for the bliss of heaven that's coming. But we have to die to get there we have to we have to die physically. We have to die to ourselves. We have to die to sin. We have to die to the world and the truth that James is showing us is that the various trials of life are bringing about that death to self. Death to sin that death to the world so that we will be prepared and eager for the joys of eternity. So James begins his letter with the command to rejoice because trials are given to us to perfect us, but he then moves on to give us examples of the kinds of imperfections that we need that we often have the kinds of perfections we often have in the kinds of trials that we often experience. First, we see an example of our imperfection in verses five through eight. He says if any of you lacks wisdom, and right there it is. That's the imperfection we are prone to a lack of wisdom I've Artie pointed out that James is steeped in Jewish life and culture. He steeped in the Old Testament, so I think it's appropriate that we assume he brings up a virtue like wisdom, his his understanding of wisdom is shaped and defined by the ways in which the Old Testament understands and speaks of wisdom.

Wisdom in the Old Testament is the ability to know and understand how life works it's it's distinct from mere knowledge of the facts. It involves a comprehension of how those facts fit together and ability to use that knowledge in a beneficial way to share this a while back, I think it's appropriate here. I heard someone say that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato and a fruit salad that sums it up.

The difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Wisdom. Ultimately, then, is not merely knowing the facts about life. Rather, it's the ability to see life from God's perspective. Proverbs 910 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy one is insight so James hears pointing out an imperfection that is typical of us.

It's an inability to see life from God's perspective, the man or woman who lacks wisdom, has very little capacity to rejoice in trial, because when bad things happen to them.

All they can see is bad things happening to them. They lack God's perspective that trials are for our good and so they find themselves unable to rejoice in suffering. No, that's an interesting dilemma is in it that did that puts us in the very thing that enables us to count it all joy when we meet various trials is the sort of thing that trials themselves develop in us the word suite. We can't benefit from the trial until we attain what the trial supposed to give so checkmate the trial winds but now God says something very important. He says if you lack that wisdom. If you if you lack that ability to see life and to see your trials from God's perspective.

All you have to do is ask me for it to see what a sweet grace that is you see the provision of God. At the very point of our need. Interestingly, though this exposes another imperfection in us. Not only do we fail to see life from God's perspective, but we fail to see God from God's perspective. You see, we expect God to be annoyed by our lacking and asking because we are often annoyed by the lacking and asking other people toward us. Think of parents helping their children bosses helping employees older siblings helping their younger siblings the needy child. The incompetent employee. The dependent friend these relationship bring us to our wits and and so we assume that God must also have a wits end with folks God is never annoyed by our lack or are asking. He doesn't roll his eyes we ask for help. He is glad to give what we at what we lack.

He doesn't upbraid us for asking, even though we often abrade needy people who ask things of us look at the latter half of verse five it says that God gives generously and without reproach for success. So ask in faith, with no doubting. Evidently there is a tendency in you and me to doubt that God really wants to perfect us by giving us what we ask for. By giving us what we lack. Evidently, we are prone to unbelief because we don't see God as he truly is James as God gives generously and that word again is is a qualitative word not a quantitative word.

It's not telling us how much God will give it's telling us what his motive is in giving. He wants to give wisdom. He delights in our asking and he delights to give what were asking for folks. We doubt that generosity that that sweet disposition of God towards his children. We did mean that generosity we fail to perceive God as he truly is. Not only does our doubting misrepresent God. It also exposes our own double mindedness.

James says if it were double minded and how we view God, we will be double minded in all areas of life, unstable in all our ways. One commentator called it spiritual. Schizophrenia wanting wisdom from God. One day in the wisdom of the world. The next forever to learn to rejoice in trials we got to learn to ask God for a correct perspective on life and for a correct perspective on God we gotta believe that he is both able and willing to give good things to those who ask.

Now before we move on to the last section of this passage let me just take a moment to point out an error that is is often defended from James 15. This verse tells us that if if we lack wisdom, we can ask God for wisdom and he will give it. There are those who broaden the application of this verse to include the idea that anything you ask God for as long as you believe you get it will be granted and so there are false teachers claiming that God has given them jets and mansions in fame and power, and health simply because they asked in faith church. Faith isn't about seeing what you want and then claiming it from God. It's about seeing God as he is, and then acting upon that knowledge. He is a gracious God who wants to give. He is also a wise God, who knows what to give when we approach him in prayer were to approach him fully convinced that he is able to give exactly what we want, what we what we ask for when it accords with his will and surely we understand that Scripture interprets Scripture one passage will not contradict another passage and so that the let him ask and it will be given statement in verse five is qualified in a number of places in in Scripture. In fact, James himself will give us a qualification we get to chapter 4, where he tells us that all of life ought to be lived under the caveat of if the Lord will just bring us back to what James is saying here he is telling us that God requires joy in trial joy in trial requires wisdom. Wisdom to see life from God's perspective wisdom to see God from God's perspective and if we lack that wisdom God will generously give it to us.

John Calvin. Commenting on these verses said, let us learn whenever the Lord commands anything to ask him the power to perform. This brings us to the last section of our text in which we see examples of the kinds of trials we go through in this life we learned that trials fix our imperfections, we see what kinds of imperfections they fix.

Now we see what kinds of trials are typical of life in this world and for this illustration.

James goes to the world of wealth, the trials that come with poverty and riches. Look at verse nine let the lowly brother and in this context I think lowliness refers to socioeconomic lowliness.

Let the lowly brother boast. Ironically, in his exaltation, and the rich. Ironically, boast in his humiliation.

You'd expect lowliness to be associated with humiliation and riches to be associated with exaltation, but the reverse is true, it is counterintuitive, as is often the case with God's wisdom worlds measuring stick of value and success is radically different from God's measuring stick. The world says richness riches are the measure of a man. God says one's connection to Christ is the measure of a man and so God uses various trials such as poverty and wealth wean us of this tendency to think and measure like the world in verses nine through 11, James addresses two kinds of Christians a poor one and a rich one.

And for both. He shows them what rejoicing in the trial looks like but consider first the trial of poverty. In general, you notice the world despises the poor for being poor. A person who lacks means is always needy. There a burden to society their deadweight their encumbrance. The poor person himself often feels inferior and helpless and and embarrassed by his poverty, and yet James tells the lowly brother, the poor Christian to boast to Brad to be proud of something. What is it he is the most in his exaltation, and so in what way is a financially poor Christian exalted me he has no wealth to speak of except of course the riches of grace. He has no clout, no prestige, no status except the status of being a joint heir with Christ. He has no redeeming qualities except the eternal redemption that is in Christ, no glory, except the eternal weight of glory that awaits him at the second coming Christian. If material poverty is your lot in life if if you feel tempted to feels insignificant and powerless and despised because of your economic situation.

Remember that in God's economy value is not measured by dollars and cents.

You are Christ's, and Christ is yours. Your exaltation on judgment day is worth a million lives lived in luxury and ease boast than in your exaltation, but there's a flipside to this coin.

Not only is there the trial of poverty. There is also the trial of riches the world esteems a wealthy man for for his riches but riches are not what defines a man because riches can be lost.

James says in verse 10, like a flower of the grass, the rich man will pass away for the sun rises with that scorching heat and withers the grass its flower falls and its beauty perishes, so also the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits, whether poor or rich. The measure of a man is not his wealth. The measure of a man is his union to Christ. So what is this this humiliation that a rich Christian ought to boast in all I think the key to understanding what is meant by humiliation lies in the parallelism that exist between verses nine and and 10. In verse nine. The object of boasting has to do with the poor man's identification with Christ so it would stand to reason then that the object of boasting in verse 10 has to do with the rich man's identification with Christ so that we just to the question what sense is a rich man humiliated by his identification with Christ. I think that's simple. The world is impressed with the materially wealthy person until that person lets it be known that his lot loyalty lies with Christ and not with his wealth and his identity is hidden in Christ let a man expose that in the world will laugh and mock and despise and abandon such a fool if and when the rich find themselves despised for their association with Christ is a humiliation to be posted because this humiliation is nothing less than an opportunity to fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. So what does it look like to count it all joy when you encounter trials of poverty are the, the trials of riches. It looks like finding your value. Not in all the things you lack or in all the things you have rather finding your value in Christ who loves you and who died for you and he was coming back for you what happens if you find yourself unable to see your trial through this lens of Christ and his work may be because you're just too plagued with doubts or because you're too blinded by your own double mindedness.

Well, you ask God for the wisdom to see life from the vantage point of eternity. You asked God for the wisdom to see God from the vantage point of the cross. How can we possibly learn to view life's trials as a source of pure joy. We keep our eyes on Christ and we find ourselves unable to keep our eyes on Christ. We ask for God's help, God commands us to do that which we cannot do to rejoice in trials, and then he invites us to ask for the ability to do it and then he gives us that ability to rejoice because we are Christ's, and Christ is ours, which pray God you are the giver of every good and perfect gift, and sometimes those gifts are pain-and-suffering with. Thank you for the reassurance that even those gifts are good because they accomplish in us that which would never happen. Otherwise they make us cry out to you with a whole new fervency or they make us abandon our crutches and our idols in our doubt make us long for what only you can give, and you turn around and give it to us. Father, son and Holy Spirit, we thank you in Jesus name, amen