Finding Joy in Suffering

James 1:1-12

As I have been praying and thinking on the subject to bring to you from God’s Word, the book of James has been unescapable from my mind. Because of that I plan to start in the book of James and work our way through it as long as God allows me to continue being here with you.

If you would like to turn in your Bibles our text today will be James 1:1-12. If I were to give a title to todays message it would be “Finding Joy in Suffering”.

When we study the Bible it is important to understand the context in which books and letters were written and the history behind the Author, so I would like to start with a general outline of what we are looking at in the book of James. Beginning a study of a book is like preparing for a trip and figuring out your map and directions of where you are going, what are you going to do while you are there, where are you going to eat. If you are a planner like I am you want to map it all out, and by doing that it helps you have a much more enjoyable trip. This is the same we want to do when studying the Bible. We study in context of Who wrote it, who was it written to, when was it written, where was it written, why was it written.

It is mostly believed that while there were 4 different James mentioned in the New Testament that the author of this letter would have been James, the half brother of Jesus, and the person in charge of the early church in Jerusalem. It was thought to be one of the earliest letters to the churches written around 45-50AD.

It is beautiful when looking at the life of James to see and understand the redemptive work of God. You would think that being the half brother of Jesus surely James was a follower from the beginning, but we are told that it was not until after Christ’s resurrection that James actually believed Jesus was the son of God.

John 7:5 “5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.”

So between growing up and seeing the ministry of Jesus on this earth and after his resurrection we see the brothers of Jesus come to know and understand He is the messiah. They are seen in Acts praying in the upper room with the disciples.

Acts 1:14 “14 These all with one accord were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.”

Jesus appeared to James after His resurrection and this may be the start of the point that James believed.

1 Corinthians 15:7 “7 After that, He appeared to James, then to all the apostles,”

Can you imagine growing up with Jesus as you older brother and the kind of life that might have been? How would the difference in how you were treated or how it affected your social life having a brother that claimed to be God. Yet we see that in the end not only did James become the head of the church in Jerusalem and someone who Paul called a pillar of Christianity in

Galatians 2:9 “9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.”

but James was martyred for his faith in Jesus around AD62. He was thrown from the top of the temple and was then beaten to death with clubs and the story relates that with his dying breath James followed the example of His savior and prayed for those that murdered him, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

James wrote this letter due to many different circumstances occurring in the church at the time. The Gospel had yet to be spread to the gentiles but the Jews had been dispersed among the nations and were experiencing persecution, temptations to sin, competing for church offices, catering to the rich in their communities, and a large failure to live what they believed. This dispersion is also where we can see the start of the early church and Christianity being spread to the non Jewish nations. If not for this dispersion of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem then the message of the Gospel would not have been spread all over the world.

There were many issues that we see occurring within Christianity today, but there is a common thread that is at the source, the lack of spiritual maturity within the church. This is still a number one issue in our churches today. So many focus on number of members or attendees as a measure of success and church growth when for true growth in the body of Christ we should be focusing on growth in spiritual maturity. If we do not build a strong and firm foundation in belief, those that come into our church family will be like the man who built his house on the sand and when the wind came the house was destroyed because there was no foundation the house was set on.

The theme of James is faith, not saving faith but the lifestyle we live when we truly place our faith in Jesus. James knew that true faith would generate obedience to God.

The topic of James is growing in that spiritual maturity. If we do not make this the focus of our lives, of our churches, then we are doing a disservice to the call God has given us, and we are setting people up to fall and fail in their faith. We must build our faith on the strong foundation of what God has given us in His Word.

My prayer is that as we study the letter of James to the churches we will learn and mature in our faith together. There is a difference between age and maturity. Just because someone has been a follower of Christ for 20 years does not make them a mature Christian. If they have not grown and studied to show themselves approved before God then they may be saved, but they have missed growing into the beauty of what God has for them to be and do. We must grow spiritually, in our knowledge, and in our walk with God. We grow through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives continually sanctifying us to make us more like Christ. We are saved and justified by faith alone, there is nothing we can do on our own to save ourselves from hell, but after God has breathed new life into our dead bodies, we walk the rest of our lives in the process of sanctification to be more like Christ and to know Him more every day. This is spiritual maturity and our charge in scripture to follow.

Our passage once more is James 1:1-12 and this is the word of God to His people.

James 1:1–12 LSB

1 James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are in the Dispersion: Greetings. 2 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance. 4 And let perseverance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, doubting nothing, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 But the brother of humble circumstances is to boast in his high position; 10 and the rich man is to boast in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching heat and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

James begins this letter humbly and approaching the churches by reminding them that he is nothing more than a slave to God. He doesn’t use his pedigree to remind them that he is the brother of Jesus, he doesn’t use his status as the head of the church in Jerusalem, he doesn’t remind them that he is an apostle called by Christ, but he approaches them with the reminder that we are all slaves, with our master being Jesus Christ and all of our lives and our purpose is to accomplish HIs will and His will alone. We will either be slaves to sin seeking after the sinful lusts of the flesh or we will be slaves to Christ living in the freedom He gives.

A popular saying is that when life hands you lemons you make____lemonade or here in the south maybe some good quality sweet tea, the kind that doubles as your syrup for your pancakes if you run out. Whichever you may prefer, this saying is something that is much easier said than done. It is something easy to tell someone else when they are experiencing difficulty, but when we experience it ourselves we tend to grasp that lemon juice from the lemons and our flesh wants to hold to the bitterness from the lemons leaving us with a failure to look forward and grasp the importance what this trial brings.

James wants us to know and realize in this passage that we should be joyful when we experience trials because, as followers of Christ there is a sweetness in which we find rest when we experience difficulties and troubles. No matter how hard things might be we know that we will be victorious through Christ because God will use this to grow us in spiritual maturity.

There are four charges James gives to obey for us to find rest and joy in troubles and persecution. We:

Count - James 1:2

Know - James 1:3

Let - James 1:4, 9-11

Ask - James 1:5-8

Count - A joyful attitude James 1:2

Jesus told us very clearly that if we are to follow Him that we should expect trials in our lives. James doesn’t give the charge here of “if” but “when”.

Jesus said in John 16:33 “33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.””

and Paul preached in Acts 14:22 “22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of God.””

Because we live in a world that has been broken by sin and the deception of Satan we cannot look for everything to always be perfect or to go our way. It is a false gospel preached by many that says God just wants you to be healthy, happy, rich…..it is a false gospel that destroys lives because it tells us to seek after the material things of this world and when we do not receive them we question if our faith and even our salvation is genuine. This world is broken and as people who are following Christ, Satan will attempt to do all he can to keep us from having true faith. The brokenness of the world that God created means that many things will happen; sickness, poverty, hunger, fighting, and these are natural consequences of the hold that sin currently has over this earth.

The word “count” in verse two is our key word. It means to evaluate. We look at what was once important to us and realize it is now garbage in the light of God’s plan. We stop and we evaluate our struggles and our problems in the light of God’s sovereign grace. We find joy because we have a new understanding and we have promises of God that we cling to and we can now understand how these are being used to accomplish God’s will and to further make us like Christ.

We rest in knowing that we serve a good God who is a good Father and that even when we may not understand at the moment of what we are going through, or we may never understand the “why” on this earth even, we can trust in God’s mercy and grace and that He is accomplishing something for His glory that we may not be able to see.

I reference often C.S. Lewis’s work the Chronicles of Narnia. In the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, little Lucy is being told about Aslan by Mr Beaver. Aslan is the great lion who Lewis uses as a type or image of Christ in these novels. In her young innocence she asks well is he a safe lion? Mr Beaver answers her that of course he isn’t safe, he’s a lion! but he ….is……good. We serve the lion of the tribe of Judah, we serve an all powerful God that isn’t safe, a God that could strike us down and end this world with a mere thought, but we know that He. ….is…..good. We rest in His goodness. We rest in the peace He gives us. We find rest and comfort in His everlasting promises.

Even when Christ went to the cross the writer of Hebrews tells us in

Hebrews 12:2 “2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Christ endured even the cross, to fulfill the will of the Father, and did so joyfully knowing what was to come. The return to heaven, and to share His glory and His righteousness with all those that the Father gave Him.

We must not live only for the present. If we catch ourselves in the material, the physical, our comfort then we will miss out on the joy God has set before us in our trials but, if we look in our lives to the future of what is to come, if we look for our hearts and our wills to seek after and be conformed to the will of the Father, if we set our minds on things above and not below then we will walk through our trials with the supernatural joy of the Holy Spirit at work in, and through us, and we will end our trials with rejoicing.

Psalm 30:5 “5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.”

We hold to the promise. We may feel sorrow and heartache in our trials but we look forward to what is ahead and count it joy that we know what is coming. That God is using our present circumstance to shape and mold us to be more in the image of Christ and that if we look to that in joy, that we are counted worthy to go through trials for the sake of God’s glory, that we will be even more joyful when we come out the other side and the sun that God has promised illuminates His plan and His will for us, His children.

Our next point is we must Know- an understanding mind (James 1:3)

James doesn’t just tell us to be joyful but imparts knowledge that we KNOW that the testing of our faith brings perseverance. in 1 Peter Peter writes

1 Peter 1:7 “7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

These trials bring a perseverance that results in the fulfillment of our entire purpose in life. To glorify, honor, and praise God! The word testing here can be translated approval. That the approval of our faith, that the trials and troubles brings about a refinement and approval that our faith is genuine and that God’s approval of this faith is precious.

Charles Spurgeon preaching on this subject said;

… your own faith in God is proved when you can cling to Him under temptation. Not only your sincerity, but the divinity of your faith is proved; for a faith that is never tried, how can you depend upon it? But if in the darkest hour you have still said, "I cast my burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain me," and you find He does sustain you, then is your faith that of God's elect. If in temptation you cry to God in prayer that you may keep your garment unspotted, and He helps you to do so, then also are you sure that yours is the faith which the Spirit begets in the soul. After a great fight of affliction, when I come forth a conqueror, I know that I do believe in God, and I know that this faith makes me a partaker of covenant blessings; from this I may fairly argue that my faith is of the right kind. (Charles Spurgeon)

God always keeps His promises and we are told in

Romans 8:28 “28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

If we love God He works all things for good according not to our purpose, but to His purpose. and while we may have trials in this life we are told

2 Corinthians 4:17 “17 For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,”

We are told that this affliction, these trials are just momentary. They are a blip on the screen of all eternity. That by having patience and persevering through these trials we are looking at a much larger picture of their purpose in eternity and in God’s plan. Patience is not a passive act. Patience is persevering courageously in the face of suffering and difficulty. We have a great example in the book of Job.

Job’s faith was tested greatly more than many of us could ever imagine. He was wealthy with a large family and lots of property. In the end he was naked on the ground with all of his possessions gone, his children dead, and his wife telling him he should just curse God and die and he would be better off. Instead Job says God gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the LORD. This perseverance in the worst of circumstances that allows us to say as Job,

Job 13:15a “15 “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him…..

Though God takes my very breath from my body I will still place my trust and hope in Him because I know it is for His glory, it is for my good. What faith and trust to have in God. That no matter what happens to us, we bless His name and know that our temporary affliction is to bring Him glory and praise. We cannot learn to endure and live for God by simply reading, listening to sermons, or praying, we must go through difficulties and trials so that we learn to trust God and to obey Him in all things.

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Two: Turning Trials into Triumphs (James 1:2–12)

Satan can defeat the ignorant believer, but he cannot overcome the Christian who knows his Bible and understands the purposes of God.

Our 3rd point in this text is the word Let - A surrendered Will (James 1:4, 9-12)

While we contribute nothing to our salvation and justification, we have two choices in the process of sanctification. We either fight against God’s Will and then we are disiplined and brought into obedience, or we willingly submit to Him and He accomplishes His perfect work in our lives.

Philippians 1:6 “6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

We have God’s promise that if He began the work within us He is going to complete it. We will not be left partially complete or standing at the beginning of the race without even starting, God will complete the work He has begun and we will cross that finish line to spiritual maturity and growth by His grace. God wants maturity in our lives.

There are three works that Paul outlines in Ephesians in the life of the Christian.

The work God does for us - Salvation

The work God does in us - Sanctification

The work God does through us - service

God builds us and grows us in sanctification before he calls us to serve. These three works are in order. God calls us to salvation and then He begins growing us into spiritual maturity and as we are growing in maturity God works through us in service.

We must surrender our wills, our human desires to God, and willingly and joyfully accept God’s will for us. If we do not surrender ourselves fully to God then when we go through trials we will miss the opportunity to grow in maturity and instead we will remain immature.

At the time of James writing this letter, there was a struggle between those that were rich and those that were poor within the church. Those that were rich wanted to continue with their own wills and use their money and influence for their own gain and position. Those that were poor resented those that were rich and had more influence. James here is pointing out in verses 9-11 that material possessions don’t matter.

The poor person is told to boast in their position in Christ because they have a heavenly reward and promise that can never be taken away from them. Those that are rich are told to be humble and boast that even if his riches are removed from him he has an eternal inheritance in Christ. Not to let money and status divide them but to realize we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and we are all members of the body and we are to function together as one to glorify God. Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians,

Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

We must realize that it is not our material possession that will get us through the testing that we experience in this life but it is the spiritual resources and the Holy Spirit that builds our faith. When we find joy in our weakness and in our suffering we will make it through the storms of life and we will be richer in Christ because of it.

Our fourth and final charge in this text is Ask - a Believing Heart (James 1:5-8)

How should we pray, how should we seek God when we are going through these difficult times? What do we ask for to carry us through the storms we encounter?

We ask God for His wisdom. Knowledge alone is not enough, it must be coupled with wisdom. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. I may have knowledge of a jet airplane and what it does but I don’t have the wisdom of how to fly it or how to move it from one place to another. Knowledge is knowing about something but simply knowing about something is not enough. We must also know how to take the knowledge we have and apply it correctly. That is what wisdom is. Wisdom requires action. Wisdom is using the knowledge we have in the correct way.

The Teacher’s Commentary (160: James 1:1–2:13—Faith’s Lifestyle)

James reminded us that ours is a giving God, and one of His gifts is wisdom.

This “wisdom” is practical: it is the capacity to apply spiritual truth to daily decisions.

James promised that God will show the person who asks the way to go. “Belief” here suggests a willingness to respond and act on God’s guidance. The wavering individual, who hesitates to respond obediently, will be unable to receive what the Lord is eager to give.

We must not waver on our faith and trust in God. We must not waver in our faith when going through these trials. We see Peter when He gets out of the boat in Matt 14 to walk to Jesus on the water of the sea. As long as Peter’s eyes are fixed on Jesus he is walking on top of the waves to Christ, but as soon as he is distracted by the storm and the waves and his eyes leave Christ for that split second he begins to sink. We must always keep our eyes on Christ who we are told is not only the author of our faith in Hebrews 12:2 but He is also the finisher or the Greek word here can also be translated the perfecter of our faith. Jesus;

Originates our faith

Controls our faith

Steers our faith

Presides over our faith

Cares for our faith

Creates and sustains our faith

He will see our faith to completion or perfection.

We must have a firm foundation that we know our God keeps His promises always. It is part of the very nature of who God is. We also know that it is Gods desire to give good gifts to His children. Jesus told us in the sermon on the mount in

Matthew 7:11 “11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

Why do we ask for wisdom when we go through trials? Would it not make more sense to ask for strength or to be delivered from the storm? Would it not make more sense to ask for God to give us grace in this trial? While these are all good and worthy asks we must have wisdom and this is our most important ask in these trials. We need God’s wisdom to see His lessons and providence in the storm and not waste the opportunity that God has given us to mature spiritually.

We see the dangers of asking the wrong question and doubting God’s word all the way at the very beginning in the garden of Eden. The Heidelberg Catechism give us insight when it tells us

An Aid to the Heidelberg Catechism (II. True Faith Is a Hearty Confidence)

6. Dangers threaten true faith from all sides, from within and from without.

From within (from the flesh, through the temptation of the devil) arises doubt. It overthrew the faith of Eve with the words “Did God indeed say?” James 1:6.

Questioning God and doubting God’s Word, the very opposite of faith in God is what Satan used from the beginning to destroy relationship with God. When Eve was tempted the question posed was did God really say this. We can look at questions like is God really using this for His glory? Is God really going to keep His promises? Is God really making you more like Him? Our answer must be an emphatic YES because we know who God is. We know what God has already done for us and that He always keeps His Word.

In verse 12 we see the blessed promise that we hold and cling to. That when we persevere through the trials, when we are approved and we do not falter, God has promised a crown of life and not just life on this earth but an everlasting life in which we will spend eternity with Him.

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Two: Turning Trials into Triumphs (James 1:2–12)

God does not help us by removing the tests, but by making the tests work for us. Satan wants to use the tests to tear us down, but God uses them to build us up.

Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament Chapter 1

What is God’s purpose in trials? It is the perfection of Christian character in His children. He wants His children to be mature (perfect), and maturity is developed only in the laboratory of life. Trials can produce patience (see Rom. 5:3), which means “endurance”; and endurance in turn leads the believer into deeper maturity in Christ. God put young Joseph through thirteen years of testing that He might make a king out of him. Peter spent three years in the school of testing to be changed from sand to rock! Paul went through many testings, and each one helped to mature his character. Of course, it takes faith on the part of the Christian to trust God during testings, but knowing that God has a divine purpose in mind helps us to yield to Him.

In verse 12 James emphasizes that this reward at the end of trials is not for those who only trust Christ, or those that obey Christ, but the promise is to those that love Christ because love is the spiritual motivation behind every command and charge in this section.

The wavering or double minded person is one that wants to love both God and the world at the same time. It is like a husband or wife that is unfaithful to their spouse. True love of God keeps us faithful to the LORD.

1 John 4:19 “19 We love, because He first loved us.”

We love God because He first loved us. From the very beginning of time and space He looked through eternity and knew who we were and loved us. He loved us so much that though He knew we would be disobedient, He knew that time after time we would spit in the very face of Him who loved us, He still said I will redeem them, I will pay the price for their disobedience, and He sent His only Son to pay the penalty for the sins of all those that believed. Christ came for each of us that God has called and adopted to pay our penalty, to pay our punishment for our sins and when He said It Is Finished on the cross that debt was erased from the pages of eternity.

We are now able to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We are called heirs with Christ and we are adopted as the sons and the daughters of the sovereign God of all creation. What a blessed promise! What a perfect love! We are secure and safe in the love of God no matter what we go through. No matter what happens to us. We rest secure in the arms of our savior. We find our peace and our joy in Gods work and His promises.

If that is your true desire, to love and know Christ, to find joy in all of life’s circumstances, to be counted with the apostle Paul, who wrote in his letter to the Philippians

Philippians 4:11–13 “11 Not that I speak from want, for I learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in abundance; in any and all things I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

If that is what you want then count it joy, know that testing brings perseverance, let God accomplish His work in your life and trust Him, and finally ask for His wisdom so that we grow in maturity and in so doing we bring glory to the name of Jesus Christ and declare His love to the nations!