When bad stuff happens

Bible reading

James 1:2–18 NLT

2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. 5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. 9 Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. 10 And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. 11 The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. 12 God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. 13 And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. 14 Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15 These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. 16 So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. 18 He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.

Introduction to series

This week we’re starting a new series, working our way through the book of James. To understand what we’re reading here, we need to know at least three things: who wrote James, who were the recipients, and why was it written?

Who is James?

So who wrote James?

James 1:1 NLT

1 This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad. Greetings!

The letter claims to be from someone called James, a person so well-known in the church that he didn’t need to provide any further qualifications. That gives us a few options. The best of these options is James the brother of Jesus, who we meet in Acts as the leader of the Jerusalem church. James was, of course, a Jew who, after Jesus’ resurrection, joined the church, and rapidly rose to leadership. Given our records of the early church, he rose through wisdom and ability, not nepotism.

Who was he writing to?

The next question is who James was writing to—who was his audience. Verse 1 in the Greek talks about the twelve tribes in the Diaspora. The New Living Translation helpfully unpacks the most likely interpretation for us: I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.

Why was he writing?

So why was James writing to these Jewish believers scattered abroad? James’s letter is mostly advice on how to live as a Christian in the difficult circumstances of the time. So it seems that James was writing as a pastor, trying to help his flock grow as Christians.

Introduction to this passage

Now let’s move on to the passage. A number of scholars believe this section introduces all the elements of the letter. All scholars (and anyone who has merely read James) agrees that he jumps wildly about from topic to topic. All the same, I find this passage has a consistent theme: it’s exploring how (and why) we should handle trials and suffering as Christians.

This is a hard topic, and we get it wrong so easily.

Just the other day I heard the story of a girl who had believed in God as a young kid, but when bad things happened to her she abandoned her belief. Years later things seemed better, and she started to believe again, but then more bad things happened to her and she rejected God again.

This is a very common reaction. I don’t know how many people have told me that they would believe in God but they just can’t understand why he allows suffering. The Jews were very aware of this problem, and so were the early Christians, and the Bible contains many of the most sophisticated treatments of this problem in all of human writing.

So when James decided to tackle this problem, he had a lot to draw on. James’s style is not like the apostle Paul’s, who wrote most of the letters we find in our New Testament. James simply gives advice. His underlying theology is hidden. That doesn’t mean, however, that his theology is simplistic.

Let’s jump in and see if we can follow James’s answers to how we should handle ourselves when bad things happen.

Count it great joy

Last week Graham talked about how we should be able to be joyful in any circumstance. James takes that idea and pushes it to the limit.

James 1:2 NLT

2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.

When bad things happen to you, it’s an opportunity for great joy!? Why, James, why?

Well, he answers that immediately.

James 1:3–4 NLT

3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

He explains that, when troubles test our faith, we have the chance to grow in endurance. The word for testing here is related to the process of purifying metal by melting it down and getting rid of all the dross. As we learn to trust God through our troubles we learn more and more about ourselves, others, and the world. We learn how to care for more than just our own pleasure, how to trust God’s concern for us. In James’s words, we become complete. We learn true spiritual integrity. We become spiritually whole.

I read in the Weekend Australian yesterday that people in their 70’s and older are coping with the pandemic much better than people in their early 50’s, like me. The main reason, psychologists explain, is simply that people in their 70’s have more life experience, and they know how to cope better with setbacks and upsets. To use James’s language, they have learnt how to endure, how to persevere.

Does that mean we have to wait until we’re in our 70’s before we can handle suffering like mature Christians?

Well, worldly wisdom has to be won by long years of experience. But God knows what we need when we are tested, and he stands ready to help us. Even when we are young. James explains:

James 1:5 NLT

5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

God’s wisdom is only a prayer away. We have direct access to his understanding of how to navigate reality, with all its struggles, in a wholesome, productive way. However, James warns, don’t expect God to answer you if you are just messing about. If one moment you want to live God’s way and the next you want to try the world’s way, that’s just not going to work. God’s way of living isn’t like fusion food, where you mix cuisines from different countries. God’s way of living is more like life-saving medication which needs to be carefully administered and not mixed with other medications. You probably wouldn’t trust a sous chef as your anesthetist, and neither can a person who is torn between the world and God implement God’s wisdom—they’re too unstable, James says.

Single-minded commitment is key.

What trials?

So now we know the why and how of taking joy in our troubles. But what sort of bad stuff might James be talking about? Does he give any examples?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Yes, he does.

One of the big topics of James’s letter is the struggle of poor Christians. In this passage, James encourages poor Christians to boast about their salvation (they’ve been accepted into the most important club there is—heaven). But he does something else that’s very interesting: he tells rich Christians to boast in their humiliation. What is the humiliation of rich Christians? Well, the fact that they only get into heaven because Jesus paid for them. A rich Christian is no better than the poorest of poor Christians, and from the world’s perspective, that’s pretty humiliating. To make sure that we rich Christians don’t forget that, James reminds us how transient wealth is. We have a modern saying: you can’t take it with you.

It is strange to think of riches causing trouble, but they do. I knew a family in Hong Kong who moved there from the USA. In the USA the husband (and dad) had been very successful and his family had a huge house and nice cars and whatever they wanted. Except for him, because he was too busy working. His wife got to the point where she wanted a divorce, because she never saw him and he was a totally absent dad. Fortunately, they responded to this trouble (and it was genuine suffering) by selling everything they had and moving to Sham Shui Po, one of Hong Kong’s poorest districts, where they lived to minister to their neighbours.

This is an amazing example of a response to suffering resulting in lives of incredible integrity.

We have agency

And that’s an important point: it’s not the suffering that makes all the difference, neither the type of suffering nor necessarily the amount. Rather, it is how we respond to our troubles that counts.

You see, we have a choose. When something bad happens to us, we can play the victim, or we can choose to trust God.

James warns us against blaming God. God doesn’t tempt us, he says. Rather, when we are tested by trouble, it is our own desires that lead us astray. We don’t have to react selfishly to suffering. When we do, we can’t blame our circumstances, it’s our own choice.

This idea of personal responsibility is an increasingly radical concept in our modern world. The dominant narrative today is an academic idea called critical theory. This claims that individuals are not responsible for the state of their lives, or even for their actions. Rather, the power interactions between groups within society are responsible for our situation. For example, I’m rich, healthy, and emotionally balanced because I’m a white Australian male, while someone else is in struggle street because they’re a black American lesbian.

This idea is supposed to recognise how history has shaped people’s circumstances, and so liberate them. Unfortunately it has done the opposite, and people’s motives and status are often defined wholly by the group they belong to, with no consideration given to their own actions. This worldview insists that we are defined by our group identity; our own choices and the actions they lead to are a predestined response to that group identity. As a result, people are increasingly confused about who they are, as they attempt to escape the doom of their group identity. Angry protests may not achieve much, but what else can you do when you’re trapped in your group with nothing that you do making a difference?

In contrast, James, and the rest of the Bible, tells us that each individual human being gets to choose how they react to their circumstances, even bad circumstances. Especially bad circumstances, because these are the ones that really define us.

As a result, as Christians we don’t get to blame our parents, or our country, and certainly not God. As Christians we recognise that human beings are always free to choose how they respond to even the worst circumstances. That allows us to treat others as having individual worth. It encourages us to offer even the most desperately messed up people a chance to choose the path to life.

God’s reality

But don’t get the wrong idea about our freedom. God isn’t a grinch who only gives us freedom to endure suffering. No, says James, whatever is good and perfect is a gift from God. God single-mindedly loves us, and we can always trust him. In fact, we have life because he gave us his Son. And, James assures us, we are his most precious possession.

Our trials

Have you been following? James exhorts us to take joy in trouble, because in choosing to trust God we learn to persevere in faith. God helps us in that, when we ask with genuine intent. Whether we’re poor or rich, we can take pride in our salvation, and they way it brings us all together in his family. And we can trust God to always give us good gifts and to never tempt us.

How do these truths apply this to our lives today?

What troubles are we having now?

How are we reacting to these?

What wisdom do we need to handle this better?

How is this trouble teaching us to endure?

How is this endurance maturing us?

Are we single-mindedly trusting that God has got us, or are we toying with worldly solutions to our problems?

Have we stopped to consider all the wonder gifts God has given us?

How much have we focused on God as a grinch rather than as a loving Father?

I want you to choose one of those main questions, think about it and its sub-questions, and then share a little with the person next to you. Spend a couple of minutes, and then we’ll wrap up.

[2 minutes]

You know, there is a trope amongst Christian testimonies. It goes something like this: I was running with the bad kids, I was struggling with addiction, I was a complete mess, but then I heard someone preach the gospel, and I chose Jesus, and he turned my life around. Just in time for my fifth birthday.

OK, maybe that last bit isn’t part of the trope (a “trope” by the way, is a pattern that commonly occurs in stories). But the reason there is such a trope is because we can choose Christ in even the most desperate of circumstances, and our choice makes all the difference. That’s something to be joyful about. That’s a reason to wake up every morning, and to say, “No matter what comes, I am going to choose you, Lord.” And then we can walk into each day,

Romans 8:38–39 ESV

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.