Enduring Suffering

Greeting

Good morning, my name is Jason McCullough. Thank you for having me today and letting me preach God’s Word this morning. I have my wife Beth and 4 of our 5 children with us today. Our 5th child is 20 and living on her own. I surrendered to ministry a little over 2 years ago and I have been supply preaching off and on since then.

I am going to open us in prayer and we will get started. Let’s pray

William Wilberforce was born in England in 1759. He became a member of Parliament in 1780. In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical Christian, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. In 1787, Wilberforce headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 20 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Taking on this role, he became an enemy of a lot of the members of Parliament and many prominent business owners, as the majority of them were slave owners. The same thing happened to Abraham Lincoln as he was fighting to end slavery here in America.

Young William Wilberforce was discouraged one night in the early 1790s after another defeat in his long battle against the slave trade in England. Tired and frustrated, he opened his Bible and began to leaf through it. A small piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the floor. It was a letter written by John Wesley shortly before his death. Wilberforce read it again: "Unless the divine power has raised you up... I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that (abominable practice of slavery), which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might."

If you have never read the story about William Wilberforce, i highly recommend it.

It was the divine power that was in him that enabled him to endure the 20 year battle that was before him. If he had tried to do it on his own power, he would have failed. It is that same divine power that lives in all believers and empowers us to persevere the trials that lay in our path to sanctification.

Today we are going to be in the book of James. We are going to be in chapter 1, verses 1-4.

Can anyone guess who wrote the book of James? It was James the half brother of Jesus. James did not become a believer until after Jesus’ crucifixion. After Jesus’ death, he appeared to James and that is when he became a believer. 1 Cor 15:7

James went from unbelief to a devout believer. He became the leader of the church at Jerusalem. He was often referred to as James the Just because of his devotion to righteousness. Early church history says that his prayer life was so devote that he had big calluses on his knees. They called him old camel knees. James went from unbelief to being martyred for his faith. He was thrown down from the high place in the Temple to his death.

James is believed to be the earliest written book of the New Testament. It is believed to have been written around A.D. 45. James had over 40 allusions to the OT and more than 20 to the Sermon on the Mount.

James is a very tough, in your face book. He doesn’t sugar coat anything, he tells it like it is. It is a great book to read for new believers and those who have wandered off the narrow path.

This book is a very practical book, so much so that it is compared to the book of proverbs. If you have never read through the book of James, you should do so soon. It should be a book that is read through every year by believers, because of its practicality!

Let’s read our verses and dig into them.

James 1:1–4 ESV

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it 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.

Verse 1 is a greeting that has a lot in it. James introduces himself and he could have done it in a very different way. He is the brother of the risen Christ Jesus, an apostle just like Paul. He was the leader of the Church at Jerusalem. He instead shows the humility that should be in all believers. He calls himself a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He omits that he is an apostle and leader. Titles are not important to the humble believer. We are all children of the God. Just like Jesus taught that those who want to be first must be last. Those who want to be leaders must first be servants. This is a problem in the church today in the Western world. We have to many leaders who don’t want to serve those that they are leading. They forget that Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. That was a job for the lowliest of servants in the house. Jesus, the son of God, lowered himself and washed the feet of those He was leading. Those who wish to be leaders in the church today need to do the same.

Next in verse 1 we see who James is writing to. He is writing to the believing Jews that had been scattered due to the persecution that was being brought on by the leaders of the Sanhedrin. The start of this persecution was the death of Stephan. God used the persecution to send believers to the rest of the world to spread the message of the Good News. There have not been a big number of Gentile conversions yet int he church.

It only takes until verse 2 for James to get to the hard stuff. He doesn’t waste any time. In verse 2 he says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds”. Notice that he says when we meet trials, not if we meet trials. Trials will be apart of every believers life. He is not talking about temptations but trials. Temptations are different than trials. Temptations are from the Devil and have a desired result of failure and sin. In James 1:13

James 1:13 ESV

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Temptations are evil and nothing evil is in God or comes from God. God is good and all good things come from Him. There is only one goal for the life of a christian, that is the be like Christ, to have Christ likeness. God uses trials to let us know how mature our faith is. Testing reveal how we have grown in our faith. These trial or test are meant for us, so that we know where we are and what we need to do to continue maturing our faith. God doesn’t need a test to know how mature our faith is, He can see into our hearts and know. These tests are like pop quizzes in school. We never know when they will be, so we have to continue to do our work of studying the Word, going to church, and listening to the Word preached. Also when we have fellowship with fellow believers we are maturing our faith. The bible tells in Proverbs 27:17

Proverbs 27:17 ESV

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

So the fellowship of believers is very important to the maturity of our faith. That is why the bible tells us not to Hebrews 10:25

Hebrews 10:25 ESV

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

This is a very important command that the western church i believe has neglected. We have become to busy with the American dream of happiness and materialism. We have put aside the fellowship outside of Sunday and Wednesday. The church in the beginning of Acts, they were meeting together daily and strengthening each other.

There is an old saying that the christian is either in a trial, coming out of a trial, or going into a trial.

There is a false teaching in the church today that God does not want you to be sick or poor. That you should name and claim health and wealth. That is a lie from the devil himself! Trials are a part of the Christians life. Becoming a christian doesn’t mean that life will be easy and fun. The bible tells us quite the opposite. If we do not have trial and test, our faith would not grow and we would be weak christian. It is through these test that we mature our faith and can then begin to help other believers. Trials and test are not a bad thing. They may feel like a bad thing when we are in the middle of them, but they are ultimately a good thing that grow us.

Trials/tests can come in an infinite variety of ways. There are physical trials that come from disease, illness and pain and death. Others are emotional - depression, anxiety, fear. Still others can be relational - Sickness of a child or mate, death of a loved one, a child going in the wrong direction, a marriage coming apart and you don’t know how to fix it. This is not an exhaustive list. Trials come in all colors and flavors! To many to list. The form the trial comes in is not the important part of the verse. The important part is that we are to count it all joy. James is not telling us that we should be happy during our trials. Joy and happiness are two different things. Happiness is a product of what happens to us. Our circumstances are what make us happy. We will not necessarily be happy during a trial or test. James is not telling us to put a smile on our face. The word used for count means to add it up. He it telling us that if we add up all the trials and test that we go through during our lives, it will not even come close to what waits for us in eternity. Our joy comes from our risen King. He joy that is in us is like an artesian spring welling up inside. Never running dry, always overflowing. While we may not be happy during a trial, we can have His joy because He is in us and He as been through all that we are going through. Our joy is the spiritual pleasure that comes from His presence in us. Not all people have this joy. Joy is the unique promise from Jesus to believers. It is this joy that enabled the Apostles to endure what they went through to spread the Good News. Don’t let our trial turn our disappointment into despair. No one wants to go to a pity party. The conversation is not good and the food is bad. God uses tests to see if we are doing our part. Are we on the right path. Have we strayed? God is always at work, whether we can see Him working or not.

We see in verse 3 the reason for these tests and trials. They bring steadfastness. Steadfastness means firmness in purpose, resolution, faith, attachment. This is God’s goal in our lives, maturity in Him, growth in His likeness. God is preparing us for the time when we have to stand before Him. We must live a kind of life that is radically God centered. This is the kind of life that will endure the trial and test that are to come and are here now. This is not easy, because the default nature we have is to find a way out when we find ourselves in a trial. We don’t want to endure and see what growth God has for us. We mature in our faith like we could never experience any other way through trials and tests. Trials are not a bad thing, they mature us. They are like growing pains. I remember when I was a kid my knees would hurt when I went through a growing spurt. It wasn’t fun at the time, but I am glad that I grew. We must go through trials so that we can be more like our King Jesus.

In verse 4 we can see the result of steadfastness, maturity and lacking in nothing. Now James is not talking about worldly possessions. He is talking about spiritual things. Our mature faith, our christ likeness. When we have let steadfastness do its work in us we will have a mature faith and have joy that is out of this world.

Here are some results of testing.

Stability- we are no longer tossed around like a wave by the wind. We are firm in our faith and immovable.

Maturity - God had completed His work in us.God’s work in us we never truly be done until we stand before Him. When we endure we mature.

Clarity - Through testing we gain wisdom. We have knowledge that people who haven’t been through the same tests don’t have.

Vitality - when we endure we are ready for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence in Christ.

Humility - the trials we go through will produce a humility that is foreign to the world. It will be the humility that Jesus demonstrated on the cross.

The test that we go through turn into our testimony.

A faith that can’t be tested is a faith that can’t be trusted.

Remember when we are in a trial to focus on God and our Lord Jesus. That will bring about His joy in us and allow us to endure.

We are all either in a trial, coming out of a trial, or entering a trial. Let’s pray for God to reveal the work that He is doing in us so that we may mature in our faith. Remember that trials and test are not a bad thing, they may not be a comfortable thing, but they are a tool that God uses to mature us and make us more Christlike.

Let’s pray