Count It All Joy - James 1:1-4

INTRO

Climbing up Hawksbill.

Stayed positive - I knew it was going to be worth it.

The first time I was heaving and confused, there were no markers. Ended up going the wrong way.

The difference this time was I had the end in view.

Today we are starting into the book of James.

This is a controversial book.

For many people it is beloved.

For others it is avoided.

The reformer Martin Luther didn’t even want it in the bible.

James focuses on faith in action, which many misinterpret as being saved by our actions or our works.

That isn’t the heart of James, rather the thrust of the book is that our faith will work itself out in our lives if it is indeed genuine.

In a lot of ways James reminds us of the proverbs.

The difference is where the proverbs taught us how to live out the law, James teaches us how to live out our faith and have a life that is gospel-focused.

If you want direction and practical application then James is your jam.

There are about 59 commands or calls to obedience in this short letter.

James want us Coram Deo to obey and follow the Lord.

The themes of James are numerous.

The overarching themes are the practical life of a disciple of Jesus, and the relationship between faith and works.

James digs even deeper into these topics by addressing things like: trials, obedience, our words, partiality, worldliness, wealth, suffering, and prayer.

James is going to teach us about works and how we should live, but he does this in light of the gospel of God's grace.

We are being taught in this short book how we should live because of God's grace in our lives.

We are compelled to live a steadfast life.

He starts his letter with a challenge and trust me the hits are gonna keep coming as we go through this book.

No matter who you are, or how you live you life, you will experience difficult situations.

Some are avoidable, some aren’t.

The question is, how does scripture teach us to respond to these situations.

James a leader of the church in Jerusalem, writes to the very first generation of Christians.

Most scholars agree this is the first written book of the New Testament,

These Jesus followers are spreading out from Jerusalem to the rest of the known world.

As they did, they faced the same problems you and I face today, concerns about, marriage and money, family and friends, health and home.

However, for those early Christians all those concerns were amplified due to their faith in Jesus.

Persecution came from both non Jesus following Jews and gentiles alike.

It was a difficult time.

In response to all that, James writes to teach and encourage Christians everywhere, including us today, how to face trials.

Here is the big idea:

Big Idea: Trials Lead to a steadfast life in Jesus

In order for us to understand the call to a steadfast life and how we can persevere in trials it starts with understanding first who we serve.

So let’s look at this passage and see first that James says he is a servant of the lord.

1. Servant of the Lord

James 1:1 (ESV)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

Greetings.

As we wade into the book of James we see right of the bat who he considers himself to be.

James is the half brother of Jesus.

He could have thrown that in his introduction.

Not only that he was also a prominent leader in the Jerusalem church.

But he doesn’t push either of these ideals.

Instead he calls himself a servant.

The word he uses is actually slave.

Jesus may be the brother of James, but James recognizes him as the Lord of all.

That right there should get your attention.

I love my brother Daniel but I am not referring to him as my Lord or me as his slave y’all.

This is proof positive of the resurrection.

We know from the gospels that Jesus’ brothers did not believe.

Clearly the resurrection changed that as Jesus we learn in 1 Cor 15 appeared to James.

That’s what changes everything for James.

The grace of Jesus had transformed the heart of James and now James would spend his life to compel others to know and live in light of that grace.

So captured by Jesus was James that the historian Eusebius records a testimony that James used to enter alone into the temple and would be found kneeling and praying for forgiveness for the people,

He would do this so often for so long that his knees grew hard like a camel’s because of his constant worship of God, kneeling and asking forgiveness for the people.

Are you devoted to Jesus?

Do you consider yourself a servant of Jesus?

Just a few weeks ago there was so much attention on the campus of Asbury where there was an outpouring of revival.

While that’s wonderful to read about I wonder if you yearn for that in your life?

An old revivalist who traveled the Blue Ridge mountains named Vance Havner said it so beautifully:

We hear much about revival these days, but the heart of revival is the Lordship of Christ. A mere emotional upheaval, a spurt of religious excitement, is not revival. When Christians become convicted of rebellion against the rule of Christ in their lives, confess their sins, renounce self, take the cross and let Jesus have the first and last word in everything, that is revival, by whatever name you call it. _Vance Havner

It is with this perspective that Jesus has all of me, that James writes and sets in perspective for us what a steadfast life looks like.

If we don’t start here then we can’t move forward.

Reading church history I have enjoyed different figures like that of DL Moody: While in England he heard evangelist Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God can do through a man who is totally yielded to Him.”

What about you?

Does Jesus have all of you?

Are you a servant of the living Christ?

Where do you need to repent?

We start here with the call to be servants of Jesus.

Then we turn our attention to James’ first command and we see second we should have joy in trials.

2. Joy In Trials

James 1:2–3 (ESV)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Boy that is a peculiar passage right?

Is that a misprint?

Why would James call us to consider our trials as joy?

James is speaking about the upside-down kingdom that Jesus preached.

He knows that trials and suffering are a inevitable reality for all believers, and yet God can use even our suffering to draw our hearts to him.

Counting our trials as joy doesn't really make sense to us, but that is what we are commanded to do.

This is active and not passive.

And it will not happen if we do not intentionally do it.

This isn't going to happen when we are focused only on ourselves...

This happens when we look to Christ and trust Him through the storms.

It’s then we can see that His hand is in control of every moment of uncertainty.

This is what James is telling us here.

Nothing is left out.

Trials come in so many ways, but because of Jesus we can count every one of them as joy.

James uses a broad brush to tell us that every single one of our trials (whatever they may be) can be considered joy.

Considering our trials as joy does not mean that we are happy about suffering; it means that we know that He will bring joy through them.

Joy is not in spite of our suffering, but through our suffering.

Trials test us, but they do not test God.

We are surprised by trials, but He never is.

Trials serve to refine and prove our faith in God.

James tells us these trials test our faith.

In my attempts at trying to convey this I love what C.S. Lewis says.

I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted him to do, and we should be obliged if he would leave us alone. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what he intended us to be when he made us...

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of -- throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.

_ C.S. Lewis.

You are being conformed to the image of Christ Coram Deo.

So how in the world are we supposed to have joy in difficult moments?

Because of our eternal prospective.

1 Corinthians 15:19 (ESV)

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

This is not a find your zen kinda command, this is steadfast hope.

This is an eternal prospective.

Romans 8:18 (ESV)

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Trials, suffering, difficulty can be expected.

They do not surprise the heart of God.

One way I have heard this taught is that God does not drive an ambulance.

Do you understand what that means?

An ambulance shows up after the accident and tries to put things back together.

An ambulance shows up and goes, "Oh my goodness! We have to try to save this life."

That's not how God operates.

He never shows up late.

What are we to do with that truth in light of our suffering?

Well, the way I want us to focus our gaze and see the way I'll point is to the cross of Christ.

There is no greater objective evidence that God is for you, not against you, than the fact Christ has come, he has died, and he has ransomed and rescued your soul from sin and death.

We have ever before us the public crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection as the objective evidence that regardless of hardship and suffering, God is for us, not against us.

We have not been abandoned.

God is producing in you steadfastness.

That word steadfastness could be understood as endurance, fortitude, staying power.

It is a heroic endurance that is producing a toughness a STICK–TO–ITIVENESS. in us.

Trials like nothing else have a way of fixing our gaze on Jesus.

Here is a confession about me.

I am not the most handy person.

I know you’re shocked.

But every now and again I see guys like Alex Bustle and I get a wild hair and think, I’d like build something or make something.

I thought about getting into rebinding. My Bible is rebound and I love it.

I thought it’d be awesome to get into, I watched a few videos and felt overwhelmed.

That’s when I discovered a video of this guy showing of his terrible rebound Bible.

It looked terrible.

It was just enough for me to go, yeah I don’t know that I have the time.

Now a few weeks pass and wouldn't you know it ole youtube recommends another one of these guys videos.

A considerable amount of time had passed since that first video and wouldn't you know it his bibles looked incredible.

He explained that through multiple rebinds, loads of mistakes and more he had started to hone his craft.

We all get this right?

You don’t overnight become amazing at something

In the same way you and I we, are shaped by trials.

We must view trials as a pathway to maturity.

If we take this conversation out of the spiritual world and we just set it into your life experience, how have you matured? How have you grown?

Have you not matured and grown by falling and failing and stumbling?

Has growth into maturity for you physically, intellectually, and as a person come because everything has always gone your way and everything you chose to do was spot-on, right, and perfect?

No!

You learned by failing.

You learned by scraping your knees.

You learned by thinking you're right only to realize you were wrong.

That's how all of us have matured.

Do we really believe then that the way we mature spiritually is completely different?

Instead, God just sprinkles us with pixie dust, and we just fly. That's all it is.

We just believe, pixie dust, and we're off!

Well, no. We know that can't be true either.

I know some of us wish I would just be quiet about this because we want to believe we can get maturity without trials.

We want to believe we can mature without them.

When I come across friends, brothers, sisters, who struggle a bit with anxiety, "Oh my gosh! Trials are coming. That wave out there is freaking me out. I don't know why I even came here today. I should have gone to a movie,"

To those who are fearful of trials I would point you to this quote from A.W. Tozer. It's one of my favorites.

"The fallow [or the unplanted] field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow [or being broken up]. Such a field, as it lies year after year, becomes a familiar landmark to the crow and the blue jay. […] Safe and undisturbed, it sprawls lazily in the sunshine, the picture of sleepy contentment...."

Everybody is like, "There we go! Okay! I would like… That sounds… Oh wait. I'm lying lazily in sleepy contentment? Yes, please. Is that your point? Finish there, Pastor. Just pray and get us out of here." But that's not the world we live in.

"But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility: never does it see the miracle of growth; never does it feel the motions of mounting life nor see the wonders of bursting seed nor the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know because it is afraid of the plow and the harrow. In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like and in a hurry.

Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken, but its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All over the field the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consummate the grand prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground."_AW Tozer

One of my favorite sentences ever written is, "Nature's wonders follow the plow."

We know this, right?

We know it.

If you're in the middle of the trial, maybe you've forgotten it,

but those of us who have been through the dark night of the soul and come out on the other side,

we see how it's shaped us, how we interact with our friends, how we walk alongside our spouses, the patience we're able to extend, the way we're able to see what is important and what's not important.

It's the plow that shows you that.

It's not pixie dust; it's the plow.

As anxious as we are about the wave that is coming, my hope is that these lenses will serve as a type of seawall, a break against that wave when it lands.

The trial is a path to maturity.

It is the way to a steadfast life

And that is what we see third.

3. The Steadfast Life

James 1:4 (ESV)

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

We could summarize our passage as Trials will come; count them all as joy because God is good.

What is the end result of our trials and sufferings?

A steadfast life.

What is the result of a steadfast life? One who is perfect and complete lacking in nothing.

This carries the idea of wholeness.

How does your life feel now? Whole?

Or is your life fragmented.

Do you struggle to wade through your emotions and communicate honestly.

Do you look back on your week and see ways you were impatient, ways you didn’t respond graciously?

Do you see a life that is still in process…you are beginning to see God’s purposes for you, to grow you and shape you.

The idea here of being perfect and complete means you will stand before God clothed in Jesus’ righteousness.

You will hear, well done good and faithful servant.

You will be whole.

An analogy I think many of us have heard but is poignant for a reason

Gold is one of the most valuable materials on earth.

It has been used for centuries as money, but it also has many uses in industry, manufacturing, and even space flight.

One of the traits that makes gold so useful is that it can be shaped and formed so easily.

In fact, a single ounce of gold can be flattened out to cover three hundred square feet.

But gold ore dug out of the ground contains many other elements that must be removed prior to the gold being useful.

The refining process for gold involves intense heat.

Gold melts at a temperature of almost two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

That incredibly high temperature is required for gold to be ready to be used.

The Christian life involves much the same process.

Sometimes we are surprised when “bad things happen to good people.” But the Scripture tells us that fiery trials are part of God’s refining process for our lives.

Rather than griping or complaining when trials come, we should rejoice as we think of the end result they will produce.

I can honestly look back to moments in my life that felt like a living nightmare.

Moments where I begged God for mercy, to take pain away.

Here is the reality…he didn’t.

But he gave me something better, himself.

Something that helps me understand God at work in trials is the story of Lazarus.

John 11:32–35 (ESV)

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.

Jesus knew in mere moments he would prove that he was indeed the resurrection and the life as he would raise Lazarus from the dead.

Yet he weeps.

When you bring your pain in the midst of trials to Jesus he doesn’t shove James 1 in your face, he meets you.

He is with you.

When the storms of our lives arise we have this passage to remind us who is in the stern.

Jesus is with us.

God is so good that he will allow even the most severest of trials to work for your good.

I want to share again the helpful words from Milton Vincent on perspective in trials:

More than anything else could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials. The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ. Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for intelligent rejoicing that exists in them. I can then embrace them as friends and allow them to do God’s good work in me. _Milton Vincent

The full effect of steadfastness is this, the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance.

You are no longer far from the Lord.

You are brought near by the blood of Jesus.

Whether the news is heartbreak or cancer it must work it’s way to ultimate good in you.

Because of this we can rejoice in the midst of trials because God is good.

We can grow in steadfastness speaking hope to others.

David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and explorer who spent thirty-three years in the heart of Africa.

He endured much suffering as he labored to spread the Gospel and open the continent to missionaries.

When asked how he endured such intense suffering how could he sacrifice so much he said:

“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?...It is emphatically no sacrifice. No, rather it is a privilege.

Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment.

All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.” _David Livingstone

Trials will come; count them all as joy because God is good.

Application Questions

Do I consider my self a servant of Jesus? What areas of my life need to bend to the lordship of Christ?

Why is it important that I remember trials do not surprise God? How does this give me hope?

How have my trials grown me in perseverance and steadfastness becoming a more mature Christian through it?

What trial am I enduring now? How can I come to Jesus in this trial for comfort and assurance?