Sermon Tone Analysis

James 1:12

 

Loved ones of Christ:

 

This morning we look at verse 12 of James 1.  We have seen over the past few weeks as we have looked at James that the trials we face come with heavenly purposes.

God sends trials of various kinds James says.

God sends trials to humble us.

He sends trials to test our faith.

He sends trials to strip us of all confidence in ourselves and strengthen our trust in him.

He may send trials to wean us from the loves of this world and have us think on the eternal reality before us.

He may send trials to discipline us.

He may send trials to enable us to later comfort those who find themselves in similar circumstances.

Though we may cry out to God in the times of trial wondering why things are the way they are, James gives the main reason for trials and that is the strengthening of our faith.

We remember to whom James was originally writing.

Verse 1 tells us it is to the 12 tribes who had been scattered abroad.

These were Jewish believers who due to persecution had been forced to flee.

They were people who had under gone extreme trials.

James himself was under no illusions about the difficulties these Christians had faced and would be faced with.

Such is the heart beat of this letter from the very beginning.

He tells us that in spite of the situations that the believer can indeed yet count it all joy when he fall into various trials, not because of the trial, but in spite of the trial the knowledge remains that God is at work in us.

He is at work testing our faith, this produces patience, and it turn by the sanctifying hand of the Holy Spirit in our lives we are made mature.

This is the paradox of the Christian life, as Paul experience for himself and said When I am weak then I am strong.

Without faith what James is teaching here is something that the natural man cannot swallow.

It is even hard for us as believers to understand this reality.

James himself know this reality and immediately afterward he tells these believers to ask God for *wisdom *with the heart of childlike faith.

Following this in verses 9 and 10 we saw last week that God uses both the situations of the poor and the rich believers.

The trials of the poor remind them that in Christ they are truly rich in the Lord, while the trials of the rich remind them that they dare not place their hope in the fading things of this life.

It is here that we come to verse 12 /Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him  /

 

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Blessed through enduring trial*

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What the Word of God gives to us a beatitude for those under the weight of trial.

Blessed is the man who endures or perseveres under trial.

It is not blessed is that man who has a trial.

It is what happens through that trial.

This past year we have been using Psalm 1 as the passage for home visits.

There we also met the blessed man.

The Blessed man is the believer, the one who walks by faith not by sight.

He hopes in the promises of God.

He knows that he is blessed not because of anything that he has done but because he has been  When Jesus was on earth he also preached about the blessed man, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

This here is an encouragement in the midst of trial for the believer throughout all of time.

Often when we are going through trials we may filled with great questions which don’t have answers to them.

We may feel that we are not blessed.

The believers to which James was writing and for believers from every age it is the comfort that we receive in the gospel that makes us truly blessed.

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.

James would have these persecuted and trial ridden people find encouragement in this reality.

Think loves ones of Christ of those believers in the Bible who endured great trial.

We think of Joseph and the unjust deeds that were done against him by his own family.

In spite of all these things Joseph kept his hope in the Lord.

He endured and through it his faith was strengthen and refined so that in the end he could see the hand of God and was able to say to his brothers you meant it for evil but God used it for good.

Think of the testing of Abraham.

Think of how God called him to walk by faith all those years with his wife Sarah.

Yet he endured by the grace of God endured.

He walked by faith not by sight.

He knew that true blessing amounted not in the things of this world but as Hebrews 11 says*/ 13 /*/These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

/*/14 /*/For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

/*/15 /*/If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

/*/16 /*/But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city./

We think of Job, and the testing that came his way.

James even brings up the example of Job at the end of the letter in chapter 5:10-/11  /*/10 /*/As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

/*/11 /*/Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast.

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

/

 

We think of the friends of Job and their advice didn’t help.

Job’s faith remained in the Lord.

He knew that it was here that he would be the truly blessed man.

Let us pray for wisdom as we walk in path of blessedness.

Proverbs 3:5 says /Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths don’t be wise in your own eyes.

/Ask God for divine wisdom.

In our world today people are in the pursuit of happiness with their own definition of the blessed man and with their own definition of wisdom.

The world judges true blessedness as when you have everything coming to you in abundance then you are blessed.

Truly there are physical blessings, but James has just finished dealing the prosperous believer in verse 11 warning them of the fleeting and fading reality of life.

Many people in this life are desperately trying to find happiness and contentment searching but never finding

 

The fact of the Christian life is that God tests us in our faith and it is here that we find ourselves and it is here that we find the blessed person.

/Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord/.

And we find that these people don’t always have an easy life many of us weighted with different kinds of trials.

Some hidden, some open, some long term, some short term.

Some are a memory, while others wonder about the future, some crushing us into pieces emotionally.

How can it be that there is blessing through these things, we wonder?

George Whitefield said, "All trials are for two purposes, that we may be better acquainted with our own wicked hearts and that we may be better acquainted with our own beloved Saviour.

2.

James seeks to point out to these believers that these trials are not an end in themselves but that in fact a means (God’s purposeful and providential means to a beginning.)

When we are approved we will receive the crown of life.

For the end of all these things is a heavenly reward.

How is he rewarded?

First, James has been teaching in the previous verses that we are rewarded by growth in Christian character.

He is rewarded also by bringing glory to God and by being granted a crown of life when Jesus Christ returns.

God often 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.

Revelation 2:10 /Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.

Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.//

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To be approved of God is the great aim of a Christian in all his trials and it will be his blessedness at last, when he shall receive the crown of life.

To hear the words of our Father, well done by good and faithful servant – words that we hear not because of our work but because of Christ’s work for us and our spirit in powered life lived out of this grace.

We all need to be encourage and reminded of this heavenly perspective that t he tried Christian will one day be a crowned one.

The crown he shall wear will be a crown of life.

We only bear the cross for a while, but we shall wear the crown to eternity.

Luke 6:22         Blessed are you when men hate you,

when they exclude you and insult you

and reject your name as evil,

because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.

For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

Do view the trials and circumstance around you in the light the heavenly reality of what Christ had won for us?