The Purpose of Trials

Introduction

This morning, we come to the opening verses of the book of James. I was drawn to this passage because it has been on my mind and my heart quite often these past months. Not simply because of the trials I have seen in my immediate family but also because I have seen so many within the church who appear to be suffering and making their way through extremely difficult circumstances in their lives. Whether it be health issues, financial woes, or battles of faith, the Church is really going through it. And, while it is impossible to know every reason for the things we face, we do know that trials have a purpose. And God has revealed to us in His sacred Word what that purpose is.

The Epistle of James is a somewhat unique portion of the New Testament. It has been studied and dissected over the years. It has been called wisdom literature, somewhat akin to that of Proverbs from the Old Testament. In a way, that is true. It has been called a loose collection of tidbits of advice with no real sense of direction, just practical tips. While we do not have the time today to really dive into the details of this epistle. I would recommend to you, if you wish to study a wonderful exposition of James to listen to the series of sermons delivered by Dr. John MacArthur covering every verse of it. I would warn you that there are over 40 sermons, so it may take you a while to work through them.

There are three points that I want to bring to your attention and will be the focus as we work through the passage. And those are the Who, the What, and the Why. But first, and by way of introduction, we should look at just who the author of this epistle is as this will help us understand our first point of Who and he is introduced in the very first verse and that is James. In the Greek, his name is Ἰάκωβος, or Jacob. Over the years and through translation and transliteration it has come down to us today as James. It was a common name as we see several James’ in the New Testament. But we are left with the question of which James this is. Again, with time permitting, we could dive into the specifics of how we know what we know but suffice it to say the evidence that we have and the church tradition we are given all point to this being James the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the same James who was the leader of the church in Jerusalem, who led the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, and who would suffer and be martyred for his faith.

He was most likely writing around AD 44-50, so, close to a decade to a decade and a half after the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. All of this points to the miraculous conversion of James who, even being the half-brother of Jesus, did not believe Him to be the Messiah. We see in John 7 that they did not believe in Him, but now not only is James a believer and an author of a New Testament book, but so was Jude, another half-brother of Jesus. And how did they see themselves compared to their brother? Look at verse one: “James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This word for “bond-servant” is most often translated as “slave.” While I think it can at times be over-translated as “slave,” I think this is exactly what James, and even Jude in his epistle, have in mind. James belongs totally, body and soul, to the one whom he previously denied but now faithfully serves, Jesus Christ.

He is writing this epistle to show believers what it looks like to be a Christian. It’s something of a litmus test. I would say that alongside 1 John, these two books serve as tools, at least in some part, to examine ourselves. Paul warns and instructs us in 2 Corinthians 13 to see if we are indeed in the faith. And he first warned us in 1 Corinthians 11 that we are to do so before partaking of the Lord’s Supper lest we eat and drink judgment to ourselves. Both the epistles of 1 John and James give us a series of proofs and tests to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. James is saying, “This is what a Christian looks like.” We are to read these texts and look at the fruit we have or have not produced and see if we are in line with the expectations God has of us. If we check out, as it were, then we can rest in the comfort that God has been transforming us from death to life and darkness to light. That we have been growing in sanctification. But if we see that we have failed or are failing then we are at best in violation of God’s commands and need to repent and pray for the strengthening of the Holy Spirit to be faithful. Or, at worst, we are actually outside the faith and have deceived ourselves with a false conversion.

So, this leaves us with a question: What does this have to do with the passage before us? How does the need to examine our faith to see if we truly are or not in the faith correspond to the opening verses of this epistle? For that, we will look at the first point I want you to notice, and that is Who. Namely, to whom is James writing in this epistle? Well, he states quite plainly in verse one that it is to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad. Now what does he mean by this? We are familiar with the concept of twelve tribes when it comes to the Bible. We know the history of the tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob. We know how the tribes split after Solomon when the kingdom divided and only Judah and Benjamin remained faithful, if only for a little while longer. And it is from the tribe of Judah and the line of David that our Lord was descended. But this is the 1st century AD at this point. So, in what context is James speaking of the twelve tribes?

Every Jew at that time would have been very familiar with their history as it pertains to the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. In 722 BC the northern kingdom was exiled by Assyria and then in 586, the southern kingdom was also exiled by the Babylonians. It was a scattering and dispersion of God’s people outside of the Promised Land. But what was happening during James’ time? If we remember what happens following the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7, we see the persecution of Paul and the scattering of the Church from Jerusalem in Acts 8. Acts 8:1-2 reads, “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” James is picking up on the theme of the exile of ancient Israel and using it to refer to the people of God, the Church, as they suffered persecution at the hands of Paul and the Jewish leaders. Just as ancient Israel was once cast from their land, the Church was scattered from Jerusalem and Judea.

Further, we see in verse two that James calls those reading this letter “brethren,” which can only mean fellow believers. So, by seeing the Who, that is, who it is James is writing to, we are beginning to see the What and the Why. James is writing to Christians, the people of God, who have been uprooted, displaced from their homes, and had their entire world and lives turned upside down. We know from Scripture and Church history that the trials of the church didn’t end there but only ever got worse as the faith spread across the Greco-Roman world. James was writing to suffering believers. Maybe not all suffered in the same form or fashion, which we’ll get into. But Christians going through trials and extreme difficulties just the same. And this now brings us to the What.

What are the dispersed believers of the early church to do? And, by their example, what are we who believe today, to do? What instructions is James going to give us? As we saw before, this epistle is something of a litmus test and proofing aid for us to examine ourselves and James is going to give us his first behavior that is exhibited by Christians and the one that is the focus of our passage this morning, and that is joy in the face of trials. James writes in verse 2: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.” Note the word “consider” at the beginning of this verse. If you were here last spring for our study through the book of Galatians, we saw how fond Paul was of giving us imperatives, of commands. Well not to be outdone, the epistle of James has the highest frequency of imperatives of any book in the New Testament. And James begins with one that seems to be quite the challenge. The word “consider” is in the imperative, meaning this is indeed a command. It means to consider, to count, to understand that something is what it is. And what we are to understand is that we should be joyful and rejoice. Over what are we to rejoice? The trials that we encounter.

We can’t miss the word “when” as we look at this verse. James does not say, “If you happen to encounter trials.” Or “in the unlikely event that you, a blessed Christian, should run into a rough time.” We are going to suffer in this life in various degrees, in a myriad of ways, at numerous times. There is a lie out there that once you become a Christian all your troubles are over. It is an easy street from here on out. Don’t worry about this or that, you can sail through life without a single worry that anything bad is going to happen to you. A couple of things I’ve noticed when this lie is repeated. First, it is usually spoken by a very rich and famous “pastor.” And second, when you do encounter trials they say that it is your fault and your lack of faith that produces it. Well, we can’t all be blessed with riches that make life a little easier. And yes, we can bring suffering upon ourselves when we are disobedient against God. But suffering comes to the righteous according to God’s eternal purpose. Look at Job. The man was so committed to God he even prayed and sacrificed on behalf of his children in case they sinned. And yet, he lost everything. In fact, James brings him up later in this epistle.

The only trouble we can say for certain is no longer in our future, if we are indeed in Christ, is eternal condemnation. In v. 12 James confirms that those who love the Lord, that is Christians, will receive the crown of life. The one trouble we will never face is the wrath of God. But here we see the common-sense lesson by one who has suffered and will suffer in the future that we will encounter trials. John MacArthur notes that when you look at the word “when” and combine it with the subjunctive mood of the word “encounter” it is like saying “When you encounter trials and believe me, they are coming.” We will certainly encounter trials. And these trials will certainly come in all shapes and sizes. If we just survey biblical and church history, we can see this.

Right here, we see James writing to believers who have been completely uprooted from their lives and lost everything at the hands of Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. After that, the Roman Empire began a series of persecutions, both official and unofficial, that lasted almost up until the declaration by Emperor Constantine that Christianity would become the state religion of the empire. Peter and Paul would be executed in the mid 60’s and all the other Apostles save John would be executed for their faith. Go back to the Old Testament and we see Job, Joseph, David, and the prophets all suffering even though they belonged to God. And even today we see believers suffering.

Across the planet, there are Christians who face heavy persecution for their faith. Imprisonment and death are very likely possibilities for millions of believers. I would encourage you to look up the Voice of the Martyrs ministry if you are not already familiar with them. They work constantly to support the persecuted church in various ways. But you also get a greater understanding of how our brothers and sisters suffer across the globe. And even in our own lives, we see what people are going through. I know here at Northside there has been no shortage of trials and tribulations. I’ve seen it at my church, and in my own life. I’ve seen believers lose loved ones, lose their homes, lose their jobs. The believer is not immune, we must understand that. And we also must understand, as I said before, that not all these trials look the same. James says we will encounter various trials. Peter says the same thing in 1 Peter 1:6, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.” They are both the same word in Greek, ποικίλος. It means multifaceted, many-colored, manifold. It gives you a sense of variety, of numerous possibilities or types. James is making it clear that there is no comprehensive list that we can look at so we can figure out what we are going through. We don’t have a checklist where we check off the boxes and say, “Well, I got this one out of the way.” These trials are not predictable other than the certainty that they are going to happen.

Briefly, before moving on, I just want to bring to your attention the word “encounter.” It means to fall into or fall upon. It is the same word used by Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan when saying he fell amongst robbers. It denotes a sort of suddenness or even a feeling of chance. Though we know there is no such thing as chance, there is only the providence of God. But the things we face in life can oftentimes come out of nowhere and blindside us. Trials can fall upon us as robbers.

So, we have seen the Who of this passage. James is writing to suffering believers. We have seen the What we are to do, we are to count and consider it joy when we suffer, as counterintuitive as that may seem at the moment. But now we have come to the Why. Why on earth should we rejoice when we suffer? James tells us in verses 3 and 4. “Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” We are not to rejoice in the suffering itself. Nowhere in Scripture are we called to be spiritual masochists. We don’t revel in pain and suffering, that is a pagan practice. There were even those in the early church who got this wrong and actually sought out martyrdom. Or in medieval times they became impoverished monks. That is not what we are to do. We also are not to put on a happy face and pretend happiness as we suffer. There’s nothing happy about pain in and of itself. The sane man does not rejoice in pain.

What James is getting at is joy over the reason and result of our trials. The reason is a testing of your faith and the result is endurance which is followed by glorification. Remember when we began, I mentioned that James is something of a litmus test to see if you are in the faith, much like 1 John. The word here for testing is δοκίμιον, and it means exactly what our translation means, it is a testing of something to determine its purity. When speaking of metals, it refers to something without alloy, nothing is added to it. It is pure and genuine. So, when we encounter suffering and trials in our lives the genuineness of our faith is being tested and proved. It is being seen if we are in the Lord and standing firm upon our faith in Him. We are being strengthened and sanctified so as to prove our faith to be true and to grow in strength to weather the trials yet to come.

I am reminded of a stanza from a classic and well known hymn. How Firm a Foundation speaks of God and His faithfulness. And, in the fourth stanza is a wonderful reminder of what we get from our suffering: “When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie, my grace, all-sufficient, shall be your supply; the flames shall not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine.” We are being refined and strengthened to show the trueness of our faith and it’s strength in the Lord.

However, I think it is safe to say that we have all seen both sides of this. Some have gone through bitter times and come out the other end stronger and closer to the Lord. I have seen saints over the years endure enormous hardship and loss. I have friends who have lost children and have placed their trust in the Lord that one day they will see them again in glory. Others have had to constantly change houses again and again, sometimes as their family continues to grow, but not sure if they will have a home or not and they are there singing praise to God every Lord’s Day. Look across the oceans to our brothers and sisters who have to meet secretly in dark basements, else they would be arrested and tortured and yet they love the Lord all the more. We see those whose faith has been tested again and again and through it all the Lord has strengthened them, and they have endured. Peter calls it the proof of our faith in 1 Peter 1:7. James expresses it as our works and deeds being the proof of our faith because of the change that has been wrought within us by the Spirit. Either way it is our faith being proven true.

But there is also another side to this. I have known and I am sure some of you have known individuals who, when faced with the difficulties that come their way, rather than endure, rather than continue in the faith, have fallen away. When they lose a loved one, they shake a fist at God. When they find themselves out of work, they put their head down rather than lifting their face to the Lord in prayer and never look upon Him again. They wonder why God would allow something so terrible to happen to them rather than asking what the purpose of it is and searching the Scripture for the answer. It is to test them and make them stronger. And just as our endurance is proof of our faith, their leaving is proof of their lack of faith. When those who do not endure walk away, we learn what John says about them in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” The faith of those who endure is proven true and the faith of those who fall away is proven to be false.

What is more, this is something that we should know. The purpose of trials is not something that is to remain a mystery to us. The secret things belong to the Lord our God but what is revealed belongs to us, and this is something that has been revealed. This is a comfort for us so that we are not left in ignorance when things are dire. We are not taking leaps into the dark hoping God will catch us. Christianity is a faith that comes with assurance and that is what the Lord is providing here in this passage. Knowing here is in the present tense and active voice. We are to be in a state of knowing and what we are to know is that as we suffer it produces the result which is endurance.

So, the reason for our trials is the testing of the genuineness of our faith. And the result is our endurance. And this brings us to what is for me one of the most comforting doctrines in the Christian faith and that is the perseverance of the saints. I think in this context the better translation here would be perseverance rather than endurance, but it works just fine. This endurance is the steadfast ability to continue through these trials and whatever may come until we stand before our Lord in glory. Those who endure to the end and have persevered have done so by nothing less than the grace, mercy, and empowerment of the Lord through His Spirit. We know that our salvation is a gift from God. We know that our faith is a gift from God. We know our weakness is a gift from God as it causes us to rely on His strength and so even our endurance is a product and gift of God because He has saved and regenerated us. And if it is God who is causing us to endure then we need not fear falling away, we will endure to the end.

Another way this has been articulated is by a phrase I am sure we have all heard. Once saved, always saved. This is more or less true, but it can leave some wiggle room in there that I am not comfortable with. It can wrongly give the sense that if you get saved you can live however you want, and you’ll still make it in. This of course is contrary to what the Bible teaches, so I much prefer the preservation of the saints. When you are genuinely saved and regenerated then the Spirit will sanctify you, grow you, and cause you to endure through all the trials that will come your way. Thereby proving the genuineness of your faith, assuring you of that salvation, and you the joy of looking forward to an eternity in the new heavens and new earth. The result of perfection, completeness, and lacking nothing spoken of here does of course look to our glorified future, it speaks to our growth here in this life through our trials.

This is not to say that we cannot stumble. There can be moments in our lives when we have seasons of doubt, fear, and rebellion even. Even true Christians can fall into serious and grievous sin, but if their faith is indeed genuine, they can never fully and finally fall away from the Lord. The Second London Baptist Confession puts it this way. “And though they (that is Christians) may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalence of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God’s displeasure and grieve His Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.” In short what this says is that if God has regenerated you and saved you, renewed your spirit, and dwells in you, you cannot fall away because of suffering in trials because it is not you who is holding onto God but He that is holding onto you and you will not fall because God cannot fail. Paul tells us in Romans 8:38-39 “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And somewhere among all of those things is trials and suffering and that will not cut us off from God either by His casting us out or our falling away. Again I come back to the hymn How Firm a Foundation in the last stanza: “The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes; that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I never, no never, no never forsake.”

As we bring this to a close, Scripture provides an amazing example of one who fell during a trial and yet did not fall away fully and was restored. For this, we can look at the life of the Apostle Peter. That disciple of Christ fell amidst a trial and he fell hard. When he should have led by example and stood by his master, he denied him three times and abandoned Him. And yet look at how Jesus interacts with him in Luke 22 knowing full well that this was going to happen soon. Luke is coming to the end of the earthly life of our Lord and this even occurs right before Jesus enters the garden prior to His arrest. The disciples are arguing about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. And, in the middle of this Jesus says to Peter in verse 31, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.” Talk about a trial. The prince of fallen angels has asked to assault Peter much like he did with Job. And what happened there? God allowed Satan to do what he wished. God allows these trials in our lives for a purpose. He did so with Job and He will with Peter. Look at what Jesus says in the following verse. Satan has asked to sift Peter like wheat, we do not see Jesus say he denied the request. Instead, what does He say? “But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Jesus prayed for Peter. It says when Peter turns again, so we know his failure is coming already before Jesus is arrested, but also that he will be restored. But Jesus has prayed for him and even given him instructions to carry out after his restoration.

Jesus prayed for Peter. Let me put it to you like this. If the Lord Jesus Christ says he is going to do something is there any possibility of it failing or His action not coming to fruition? Obviously not. Not only did Jesus pray for Peter and His other disciples, He prays for you and He prays for me throughout our whole lives and during our suffering. He is our mediator as Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:5. His prayers cannot fail. I am reminded of a quote by the 19th-century Scottish minister Robert Murray M’Cheyne. He said, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; He is praying for me.”

We will suffer in this life. And while we do not rejoice in the pain itself, we can look beyond it at the result and where it will lead for those who trust in Jesus Christ. And where does it lead? Look down to verse 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.” We who endure to the end will receive the crown of life, that is, eternal life with our Lord and Savior. While we remain here, and while our Lord tarries, we will suffer in this life. And while that crown of life can seem distant, and we can often feel as though we cannot endure, fear not. Jesus is praying for you. Let us pray.