James Part 2

James 1:1–7 ESV

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. ἡγέομαι

to engage in an intellectual process, think, consider, regard

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

James 1:2–4 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

2-

Trials are inevitable.

James 1:2 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

You don’t have to go looking for trouble - it will find you.

James chooses his words very carefully.

He doesn’t say count all joy if you meet trials of various kinds.

Jesus said it this way:

John 16:33 ESV

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Difficulties and hard times and trough roads and not possibilities but absolute certainties.

John Phillips

Trials are not electives in God’s school of spiritual maturity; they are required courses.

spiritual maturity; they are required courses.

It is not strange that James says we are going to have trials.

What’s strange is how James says we are to understand our trials.

James 1:3–4 ESV

3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

James has one of those T-Shirts that reads:

You don’t have to be crazy to hang out with me… I’ll train you.

If im going through a tough time

Please don’t come running up to me and say “Consider it all joy when you meet trials.”

I don’t want to be joyful all by my self!

He is not crazy or irrational.

James says that we need to keep our difficulties in perspective.

This is the perspective that you must have. Is that

Trials are beneficial.

James 1:3–4 ESV

3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

What do you need to know - what perspective do you need to have.

Our God is not capricious. He is not whimsical.

Trials are purposeful.

God is up to something good!

Dr. Viktor Frankl who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp said,

Everything can be taken from a human being but one thing—the last of human freedoms—the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.‖

How true— trials can strip away everything but our attitude toward them.

“Count” hēgéomai “ἡγέομαι” to engage in an intellectual process, think, consider, regard.

So James is telling us that when trials come we must filter those trials through our minds not simply our emotions.

Engage your mind so that you see your trials through the lens of the cross.

God’s goal is not simply to make you happy but to make you holy.

James 1:3–4 ESV

3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. ὑπομονή

the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty

It means that we must deliberate engage our minds and understand that

Steadfastness ‘hupomone’ The ability to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty.

It means that we must deliberate engage our minds and understand that

Biblical example of Joy in suffering.

Paul and Silas.

Acts 16:19–25 ESV

19 But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 20 And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. 21 They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,

Illustration Annie Johnson Flint

10,000 Sermon Illustrations Annie Johnson Flint Song Writer

Consider the witness we give when we are faithful through suffering. My mind is drawn to Annie Johnson Flint, author of 6,000 hymns and gospel songs. She was an orphan. She lived with crippling arthritis. She was stricken with cancer. Yet her faith was especially evident in this hymn:

He giveth more grace as the burdens grow greater

He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;

To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,

To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

Ac

to engage in an intellectual process, think, consider, regard

Embrace the paradox of joyful suffering.

hēgéomai- ἡγέομαι - to engage in an intellectual process, think, consider, regard

ly Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 434.

This is crazy speak. It sounds like James needs to have his head examined.

Preaching the Word: James—Faith That Works James’ "Irrational" Call (v. 2)

James was not commanding that we exult upon hearing that our career position has been given to our secretary, or that the neighbor’s children have leukemia, or that one’s spouse is adulterous. Rather, James is commending the conscious embrace of a Christian understanding of life which brings joy into the trials that come because of our Christianity.

10,000 Sermon Illustrations He Becomes the Light in the Darkness

Patricia St. John, who has been described as an ordinary woman with an extraordinary faith, poured out her life ministering to people in the neediest places on our planet. She was in Sudan when war refugees flooded that country. They had suffered terribly and had lost everything, yet those among them who were Christians still gave thanks to God.

Patricia said that she stood one night in a crowded little Sudanese church listening to those uprooted believers singing joyfully. Suddenly a life-changing insight burned its way into her mind. “We would have changed their circumstances,” she said, “but we would not have changed them.” She realized that God “does not always lift people out of the situation. He Himself comes into the situation. . . He does not pluck them out of the darkness. He becomes the light in the darkness.”