ExJM02_Trials: God’s Gymnasium for Our Faith

Introduction

Exordium. Certainly, many of us have either gone into a gym or observed others in a gym at some point. The gym is full of people straining under different weights and intense activities. They are straining, yelling at times, sweating all over the place, groaning, and even collapsing under the pressure of the weight of some bar. Of course, none of you would do this, but afterward they will often turn and flex in the mirrors along the gym walls.

Kind of weird—if you don’t know what they are doing. They know or at least appreciate something many of us don’t—their straining and suffering are purposeful and necessary. Muscles only grow when they are stretched and even broken down so they can become stronger.

James says our faith works the same way, yet instead of weights and exercise equipment, trials are God’s gymnasium for our faith. When we “count it all joy” in trials, we’re not pretending pain is pleasant—we’re recognizing that God is using the weight of hardship to build endurance, maturity, and strength in Christ.

An athlete understands and lives out something many of us struggle to appreciate. The longevity of future health comes from present distress. Similarly, in the Christian life, we need to realize the following:

Purpose Statement. Christian maturity is eternally more valuable than present comfort.

The Command: Regard Trials as the Grounds for Much Joy

Count it All Joy

Joy. When reading a verse, we typically place emphasis on the command. In this verse, James commands the believer to “count.” However, in this passage, the concept of “joy” grabs our attention more acutely. In fact, we may even interpret the verse as, “Rejoice in all trials.”

If understood in this manner, some may struggle feeling like James commands the believer to have some weird, unnatural pleasure and joy in suffering and pain. This interpretation completely misses the commonsense approach James takes in this statement.

Rather, the phrase indicates we are to take every opportunity to find joy amid any type of suffering.

Emotive vs. Active Joy. Like most other emotive terms, the term “joy” carries a meaning regarding our emotions but also a meaning regarding our actions. For instance, I can possess the emotion of love for someone, but counter to my emotions, I can also choose to love someone. Additionally, I can possess the emotion of trust for someone, but counter to my emotions, I can also choose to place my trust in someone.

Emotive Joy. This principle remains true for the emotion of joy. Some biblical authors emphasize the feeling of joy, brought on by well-being or success or good fortune. This emotion of joy relies on someone’s circumstances.  (1) For instance, the shepherd boy experienced emotional joy when he found his lost sheep. (2) When Jesus healed a woman, bound by Satan for 18 years, the multitude experienced the emotion of joy. (3) Paul felt joy when he heard that the Christians in Rome were obedient.

Active Joy. However, biblical authors also discuss a joy characterized by action and decision rather than emotion. This, joy of action, rests not in one’s feelings but rather in a choice. (1) For instance, Solomon commands the reader, in Proverbs 5:18, “rejoice in the wife of your youth,” yet Solomon includes no description as to the character of the wife or the health of the relationship. This joy is a decision. “I choose to rejoice in this person.” (2) Christ instructs his disciples to rejoice when they are persecuted, reviled, and slandered (Matt 5:12). Christ does not command his disciples to rejoice about the suffering, but rather amid suffering consider reasons for joy. (3) In Philippians 4 and 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul commands continual rejoicing. We can only continually rejoice, if our joy rests not in our emotions produced by the circumstances, but rather a purposeful decision to consider the possible value within the circumstances.

All. Like James, Paul commands the believer, “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4). James writes, “count it all joy” (James 1:2).

James does not write, “count it only joy” as if joy were the only appropriate emotion amid suffering. However, some versions, seem to misread the text in this way. The NRSV translates the passage as “whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy.”

With such an interpretation, grief finds no home. If we are to experience only joy in every trial, when is grief appropriate? Yet, in his first letter, Peter acknowledges the comingling of these emotions. He writes, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Pe 1:6).

So then, James speaks not to an amount of joy or the exclusivity of joy, but rather to the quality of joy. Consider the following translations to better understand:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers (James 1:2 NIV)

My brethren, count it exceeding joy (James 1:2 GNV)

So then, trials offer one occasion for pure or exceeding joy. Trials are not an avenue for us to put on the façade of joy when no true joy exists. Rather, we have an opportunity to truly and actually rejoice. Have you ever had a friend tell you amid some hardship, “You don’t have to put on a front for me. I know you’re struggling. You can be real with me.” But, what if your joy is not a front? What if you’ve processed your suffering and you have genuinely chosen to rejoice in the midst of it?

Count. What does it mean to count a trial as joy? We now come to the actual command in the verse. James does not command us to rejoice. Rather he commands us to count. He desires that we consider tribulations an occasion in which we can rejoice. We are not rejoicing at the trial. Rather, amid the trial we consider the opportunities with which we can rejoice.

Wrap up of first point. James’ command to “count it all joy” has little to do with our feelings. God did not intend for trials to bring a smile to our face as if to communicate to others how well you process trials. Additionally, amid someone’s sufferings, this is not the phrase with which to begin your conversation, “hey man, just count it all joy.” In fact, that poor counsel and even our own façade of emotional joy amid trial flies in the face of Jesus’ emotive response to Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus. Christ shared deep grief with Mary and Martha at Lazarus’ death. Certainly, Jesus knew God’s greater purpose; yet, in that moment he comforted them and wept with them (John 11:35).

Counting it all joy does not equate to seeking out trials. Nor do we pretend trials are pleasant. Trials cause pain and difficulty. However, we consider trials an occasion for joy because they hold potential for producing something good in us.

When You Meet Trials of Various Kinds

In what context are we to “consider it all joy?” We’ve danced around the context already, but let’s address it head on. We are to “consider it all joy when we encounter trials of various kinds.”

Meet (stumble into or fall into). Count it all joy when you encounter trials of various kinds—encounter, meaning to stumble or fall into. Count it all joy when you stumble upon a trial or fall into a trial. The context seems to emphasize trials not brought on by ourselves but also allows for any kind of trial whether a temptation from within or a trial from without; whether the trial develops due our own stupidity and sin or is in no way connected to our actions. The word various implies such a meaning.

Various (many-colored). Trials come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Yes, colors. The word technically means, many colored. Count it all joy when you stumble into various colored trials. 

We consider every trial as grounds for joy, whether the trial be hard or easy, enduring or momentary, physical or spiritual, external or internal.

But why? Why would we find joy in our trials? The motivation for our joy rests in the understanding that trials may result in steadfastness.

The Motivation: Embrace Trials as the Pathway to Maturity

Trials equate to faith being tested.

I hate tests. I would imagine most of us do. Of all tests, I’m certain a test of my faith will result in a failing grade. However, James speaks of another kind of test—not one likely found in a classroom, revealing your level of proficiency. This test does not gauge whether you have faith or the strength of your faith. Instead, the test strengthens your faith. It firms up the faith that already exists. Maybe your faith is weak—that’s kind of the point of the test—to strengthen weak faith.

Both King David and the apostle Peter use the word testing in this manner. In Psalms, David describes God’s Word as “pure words, like silver refined (tested) in a furnace” (Psa 12:6). As well, Peter writes to the suffering church spread throughout Asia Minor concerning the testing of their faith. He writes, “so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pe 1:7).

We know our faith is weak – so often cluttered and made filthy by our doubt, frustration, and failure. So, in his grace, God tests our faith and rids our faith of its impurities. Sadly, like the refining of silver, our faith needs to be refined repeatedly.

Trials produce steadfastness (patience).

The KJV translates this majestic word as “patience.” For us, we tend to limit patience to reigning in our tempers. However, a display of patience involves much more than merely holding back a foul temper. Consider the following word picture. Picture a man, under a heavy load, determined to stay and hold the load rather than escape.

Tyndale translated the Bible into English at great risk, defying both king and church authorities. For years he endured poverty, exile, betrayal, and danger—always with the chance to flee into obscurity. But he stayed under the crushing weight of opposition so that the English people could read God’s Word. Ultimately he was strangled and burned at the stake, praying with his final breath:

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

His endurance, rather than escape, paved the way for the English Bible and the Reformation’s spread in England.

With steadfastness or patience, we endure not only the trials but also the pressures the trials produce. Paul speaks to this same point in Romans. He writes, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3–4).

Let steadfastness have its full effect.

Is it not true, that we almost always pray to God to remove us from trials? Naturally, we desire to be free from trials. Trials are hard. However, James exhorts us to allow trials to have their full impact—their full work done in us. So then, rather than praying for the removal of trials, let us pray God will give us grace and strength to bear up while the trial does its effectual work in us.

Getting Sick for the Glory of God. Dottie and Ed Powell came to a small village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, as a part of their orientation to African culture. They were beginning translation and literacy work among largely animistic people. They lived in a village of fifty-five people, all members of an extended family. They were to remain there for a limited time as they learned the rigors of living at the tip of the Sahara Desert.

Two in the village could speak French. The rest only knew the local tongue. Daily temperatures reached above 100 degrees. The Powells kept the door of their house open for light and air. Livestock traffic and a stream of curious Africans poured through their living room.

Several days after arrival in the village, Dottie became ill with dysentery. The heat and the difficulty of adjusting to native food sapped her energy. Tears of anger and self-pity flowed frequently. Then one day, she asked the Lord in desperation, “Lord, what can I do?”

Back came the answer, “Be sick.”

Dottie Powell felt relief in accepting that task because she judged that she could handle it. She was already sick, and she determined that she would do a fabulous job of performing that role. At the time she did not realize the excruciating events she would face in her sickness.

The day after determining that she would honor God in her sickness, she and her husband received a fax from America telling of trouble for her married daughter. Doctors could no longer pick up the heartbeat of her unborn child. When villagers learned of the concern the Powells had for their daughter, one man borrowed a motorbike, loaded Dottie Powell on it, sickness and all, and carried her to the nearest telephone. Dottie was relieved to talk to her daughter in a hospital delivery room and to learn that mother and child were doing well.

Back home in the village, Dottie Powell complained to God, “Lord, I want to go home. I want to see my daughter and hold my grandchild. I can’t stay here.” God’s love responded to her during this outburst, and she stayed. She made the commitment, “Yes, Lord. I’ll be sick for you.”

The chief elder of the village grew concerned at Dottie’s inability to retain her food. He called for two Christian men to come from an evangelical church nearby and pray for her. The elder was an animist. People in his village had actively persecuted the little church. The men came and prayed. She recovered. The Powells requested permission of the village elder to take the two French-speaking villagers with them to the church. Surprisingly, he agreed. That day the two villagers heard the gospel. One of them became a believer.

After the Powells completed their orientation time in the village, they still maintained contact with their friends. Letters frequently come from the two French-speaking villagers to them. One letter told of the conversion of the brother of the village elder.

Dottie Powell learned that God wanted her to be faithful to him in her sickness. He did not require that she be strong or effective. She was to live in complete faithfulness. He would compensate for her weakness.[1]

Like Dotty, we naturally desire the challenge, hardship, or trial to stop.  In so doing, we ask God to remove the means of our spiritual growth. If God has so chosen to use trials as the means to help us grow, when we ask for the trial to stop, we are asking God to stop growing us.

Malcolm Muggeridge, the once atheist turned believer said, “Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness ... (Muggeridge, Testimony, n.p.) In trials we experience growth in godliness like we could never experience any other way. This is not encouraging if your goal is to have a nice, easy, carefree life— your best life, as it’s called— with all the circumstances going like you have planned. If that’s your goal, then trials will never be a joy to you.[2]

Conclusion

Most of us don’t wake up early longing to run off to the gym. Probably most of us don’t want to run off to the gym any time of day. We know we’ll likely be exhausted by whatever exercises we have planned. The treadmill will be hard and boring. The weights will be heavier than we are in the mood for. We may feel sore afterward. Maybe, if we felt justified, we would avoid the process altogether. But, in the end, that exercise routine will help us to be healthier and stronger.

Similarly, we don’t wake up in the morning and hope for trials in life. If we got our preference, we would never walk into God’s gym of trials. Yet in his love, he sometimes places us there—against our will and for our good. The suffering is real, but so is also the strengthening of our faith. James tells us that through these trials, God is producing steadfastness, endurance, and maturity.

Personal Application. So then, (1) Don’t despise God’s gym of trials.You don’t need to skip around like you love it, but you should be able to choose joy. Suffering is not God’s punishment but rather his training grounds. (2) Stay under the weight. Accept the trials and training God determines for our good. Don’t unnecessarily prolong them and don’t try to produce unnecessary suffering, but when suffering and trials come, accept them as God’s good work in our lives. (3) Trust the trainer. He knows what we can handle. He does not allow suffering unnecessarily.

Community application. Let me offer a simple application to all of us as a congregation, while sticking with the gym motif. If we go into the gym and see one of our teammates struggling with a 400 pound bar on their chest, unable to lift it, we can step in and help. Far too often, we see the suffering of others and simply hope they make it through okay. It’s as if we stand as observers on the far side of the gym, making short video reels, cheering them on, hoping they make it, but not lifting a hand to help. However, Paul exhorts the church to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Ga 6:2). We need to live in the church more as a spotter, standing behind our teammate with every expectation of grabbing the bar if they need any help. In that moment of weakness and exhaustion, our hands are posed to bear the burden with them.

Isn’t this what Christ did for us?

PRAYER:

May we see you more as a trainer than an enabler or affirmer.

May we acknowledge our sinful human tendency to run from hardship and in so doing reject the growth that comes through it.

Be patient with us and pursue us because we are in Christ, not because we deserve your patience.

Endnotes

[1]Thomas D. Lea, Hebrews, James, Holman New Testament Commentary (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 10:255–56.

[2]David Platt, Exalting Jesus in James, Christ-Centered Exposition (Holman Reference, 2014), 155–61.