James 2: Wisdom In Trials

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: James 1:12-25

N:

Opening

Thank you praise band for leading us in the musical aspect of worship this morning, as you do every week. I appreciate your faithfulness. Good morning, and welcome to our Family Worship service here at Eastern Hills. Whether you are here in the room this morning or joining us online, thank you for being here as we praise our Lord and take some time to study His Word together.

I need to open this morning by saying “thank you.” Thank you, church family and all who made my family’s trip last weekend possible. We had a great family time in Pittsburgh, and there are just a few pictures from it. Thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging by asking how our trip was. Thank you, Trevor, for filling the pulpit last week while I was “watching football.” =o) You can read more about our trip, if you’d like, on the front page of the EHBC Life (our bulletin).

Announcements

I just have a couple of announcements this morning before we get into the message:

First, I wanted to let all of the ladies in the church know that you are all invited to our women’s ministry’s Fall Celebration, “Ladies’ Night Out” this Friday, October 22, from 7:00 to 8:30 PM here in the building in Miller Hall. The speaker that night will be Jeanne Saxon from Sandia Baptist Church, and our own Rich Willard will also be there to share about our church benevolence ministry. Dessert will be provided. You can get a little more information on the back of the EHBC Life, or by grabbing one of the flyers on the “Get Connected” Table in the foyer.

We still have today and two more Sundays that we are collecting our Mission New Mexico State Missions Offering, and church, we praise the Lord that we have already crushed our goal of $8,000. Our offering currently stands at $10,360.75, and that is a reason to celebrate! Remember that all of the funds that are collected for this offering go to support our cooperative ministries here in New Mexico, such as camps, church planting, and collegiate ministries. Thank you so much for giving to the Mission New Mexico Offering, and to all of our special missions offerings throughout the year! Please continue to pray and give as the Lord leads!

Intro

Last week, as Trevor so effectively started our series on the book of James, he said that if we had to summarize the book into one word, it would likely be the word “wisdom.” So the stage is set for what we are going to be looking at in this book for the next five Sundays (including today). We are looking through the book of James to find wisdom, to have a practical knowledge in order to be, as Trevor said last Sunday, “so in tune with how God has arranged the world that we make decisions both responsible and righteous.” In short, to have a faith that works. This morning, we will pick up a thread that James started in verses 2-4 of chapter 1, and consider having wisdom in trials. Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read our focal passage this morning, James 1:12-25 together:

James 1:12–25 CSB

12 Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. 13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, 20 for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

PRAYER

There have been some times in my life as a Christian that I felt were exceedingly difficult. Sometimes I navigated those times well. Sometimes, not so well. Sometimes I just flat out crashed and burned. Can anyone here relate?

Trials, difficulties, struggles, suffering, hardship… I think that we can all agree that these things are a part of the human condition—a part of the reality of our lives that are universal. They touch every life at some point, from the rich to the poor, the young and the old, no matter our nationality or heritage, job, or family makeup.

While I’m not saying that we should go looking for difficult, trying situations, I think that we generally have a tendency to want to avoid difficult situations because they’re, well… difficult. But what if there could be a deeper, greater, more important reason behind a trial that we face? A way that God could actually use a trial as a means of accomplishing His purposes in our lives?

James was writing to a people in the midst of a trial. They were Christians who had been scattered throughout the Roman world at the time because of persecution (verse 1). And as we saw last week, James opened his communication with these dispersed Christians with a statement that we find to be almost outlandish:

James 1:2–4 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

James told them to “consider it a great joy…whenever [they] experience various trials.” Why? Because God can use the trial for accomplishing His purpose in our lives. This isn’t to say that God gives every trial. Sometimes, He does. Sometimes, however, the difficulties in our life come from the brokenness of the world. Sometimes, the trials happen because of someone else’s sin, and we find ourselves as a part of the collateral damage. But in the life of the believer, God does, in His sovereign will, allow trials to occur in our lives.

In His commentary on James, David Platt said this about the purpose of trials:

“If our goal is to know God and to be conformed into His likeness, then we can take joy in trials because we can know that no matter how tough these trials are, they are moving us toward our goal.” (Exalting Jesus in James)

Disclaimer: Something that Trevor said last week is so important that it bears repeating: James here is giving a theological answer to the question of the struggles that these believers found themselves experiencing. He wasn’t speaking to how to minister to your friend who has just lost a loved one or a job, is going through a divorce or experienced a miscarriage, or some other major painful event in their lives. He is giving us practical knowledge for how to live a life that honors and pleases God even in the midst of struggle. These verses are absolutely still true for those who go through the darker valleys of life, however, it is not at all helpful to look at your hurting friend and tell them, “well, you should just consider this a great joy.” He’s also not just saying to “look at the bright side” of a trial, although that sometimes can be helpful in the right way and at the right time. Consider Mary and Martha when Lazarus died: Jesus knew the plan of God, but still comforted them and wept with them first. I just wanted to reiterate that today, since we are on the same subject matter as that statement from last week.

Back to the text, in a way, James 1:2-4 could serve as kind of the thesis for the entire book of James, and as a result, we will visit it again and again throughout our study. Following verse 4, James took a little bit of a side track away from the discussion of trials, and now in verse 12, he picks that thread back up. And in our focal passage today, we will see three things: What God gives in trials; What God doesn’t give in trials; and What it looks like to wisely respond to trials.

1) What God gives through trials

We’ve already seen in verses 2-4 that God uses trials in our lives to test or refine our faith, and that testing produces endurance, and that endurance leads us to maturity and completeness. However, these results are not guaranteed through every trial we face. Some of the result is dependent upon our response to the trials. Yes, God wants to work through trials to mature us, but in His sovereignty He still allows us to choose how we will respond to the trials that He allows in our lives. That choice is something that the Lord graciously allows us to make.

James goes on when he picks the thread back up from verse 4 to inform us that God blesses us as we endure trials:

James 1:12 CSB

12 Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

The one who is blessed is the one who endures, the one who has stood the test. This is the one who will be crowned victorious. The crown of life here is not a diadem crown, a royal, jewel-encrusted thing. It is the stephanos crown, basically the laurel wreath ring that someone would receive when winning in an athletic competition. It is the crown of the victor, not the crown of the ruler. So the crown of life is an image of the victorious life—which could easily mean two things: the life that has overcome through faith in Christ, and now has been so strengthened that it can face the future, and likely even greater trials, in confident faith. Or it’s the life that has endured to the very end trusting God, and now receives the greatest victorious life of all: life eternal in the presence of God, which God has promised to those who love Him… the victory that all of God’s people are guaranteed.

The church at Smyrna was challenged with suffering and trials, and was promised the same crown:

Revelation 2:10 CSB

10 Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, and you will experience affliction for ten days. Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

A good example of this is Daniel. At a ripe old age of probably 80, Daniel faced what would be his most difficult trial: He was thrown to the lions because he had dared to pray to Yahweh instead of Darius. But Daniel had endured trials before: taken from Jerusalem as a boy; standing for God by refusing to eat defiled food; certainly hearing of and knowing about his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in their Babylonian names) and their encounter with the fiery furnace; prophesying a negative message for Nebuchadnezzar; reading the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar… Daniel knew that he could trust God because of the trials he had already walked through with Him. Either God was going to deliver him from the lions, or God was going to take him home in faithful victory through them. Either way, Daniel wins.

Paul saw it the same way:

Philippians 1:21–26 CSB

21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. 23 I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better—24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. 25 Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.

Either way, Paul says… he wins. Either a trial strengthens him and makes him more like Christ, or through it God gives him the ultimate victory over sin and death. For us to think this way, we have to learn to have an eternal perspective instead of an earthly perspective, because it’s only when we put the eternal first in our lives that the earthly, the temporary, begin to fade into the background so we can see what is most important. And what is most important? Being made to be like Christ. Do we have this kind of perspective when it comes to facing our own trials, even minor ones?

Back to our point in James: James kind of chases a little rabbit after 12, anticipating what perhaps his listeners (and perhaps we) might be thinking. We’ll see that in a moment. For now, let’s continue with this point of what God gives us through trials by looking at verses 17 and 18:

James 1:17–18 CSB

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

How many “good and perfect” gifts can you think of? How many are so good and so perfect that they could never fade, never grow old, never wear out, never need to be replaced? I can only think of one: the gift of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died so we could be saved. And now, God continues to give to us through that initial good and perfect gift through the work that He is actively doing to make us more like Jesus, including the work that He is doing through various trials. And the trials that we face, the endurance that come from those trials, the maturity and completeness that come as a result of enduring those trials, and victorious life in Christ both now and forever, are good gifts that God gives to us that we should rejoice in.

God has done all that is necessary for us to be saved. He chose to give His Son. We deserve wrath and punishment and eternal separation from Him because of our sin. But He chose to offer Jesus in our place so that we could receive life out of death if we belong to Him by faith. And He keeps working to make us all that He wants us to be, so that our lives would be a beautiful offering to Him.

So through our trials, God gives blessing: endurance, maturity, completeness, and victory—all because of what Christ has done: His good and perfect gift of Himself on our behalf.

2) What God doesn’t give in trials

When James wrote this little letter to the dispersed Christians, I believe that some of what he was doing was addressing bad thinking and bad theology that had crept into the church community. One example that I think he was addressing was the idea that trials and temptations are the same thing, and so God must be the author of evil if He brings trials. But this thinking is wrong, as we just saw in verse 17: God doesn’t change. He’s always good, always perfect, always in the light because He is the light. Therefore, God does not give temptation when He gives trials. Temptation and trials are different. Temptation comes from within us, as James explains:

James 1:13–16 CSB

13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.

We might be a little surprised that it’s not Satan that tempts us to sin. But in this case, it’s not. Sure, he might be a part of it, but ultimately, our sinful natures using our fleshly desires are the things that tear us down. While we might want to blame others for our sin, like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden back in Genesis 3, the reality is that the responsibility for our sin lies solely with us.

Let me see if I can explain the contrast: Trials are circumstances that put our faith to the test, and the terminology here is one of refining, like gold or silver. Temptations to sin are fleshly responses to facing those trials, and when we give into the temptations, we ALWAYS fail the test, because just as we saw that God chose to give us birth into eternal life through the message of the Gospel, so our sinful natures want to give birth to death by breaking our fellowship with God by trying to do things our way instead of His. Please note: being tempted is not in itself sinful. It’s what we do AFTER we are tempted that is the problem.

Notice the path and the fairly graphic language James uses: our evil desires turn our heads and hearts away and entice us with that which is sinful. Then desire “conceives” its child who is then born: sin. And as sin grows, it too gives birth: to death. Death of our fellowship with God. Death of our peace. Death of our confidence. Death of our hope. It’s not that the true follower of Christ can ever lose their salvation: that’s a guarantee. It’s that when we give into temptation, we go the opposite direction of where God has been leading us, and we act like Cain, whose first recorded temptation and giving in to sin actually did end in the death of his brother. God warned him clearly:

Genesis 4:6–7 CSB

6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? 7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Cain was faced with a trial: his offering had not been acceptable to God, but Abel’s had. The trial itself was not sinful, nor did it demand sin in response to it. But Cain’s evil desire to be better than his brother dragged him away into fury and despondency. It gave birth to the sin of attacking his brother, and that sin literally gave birth to the death of Abel, and more figuratively to the death of Cain’s relationship with God, Cain’s relationship with his brother, and Cain’s relationship with his parents. Trials aren’t sinful. How we respond to them can be.

There is never a trial that God gives where we MUST sin in order to endure it. Trials have a positive purpose, which our flesh subverts by tempting us to sin in response. Also, for those who are in Christ, there is never a temptation that is so strong that we MUST give in to it, because God always provides a way out.

1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.

Brothers and sisters, if there is some sin that you are flirting with, toying with, contemplating, practicing… it’s not worth it. I promise you, it’s not from God. We can NEVER say that God provided us an “opportunity” to sin. This is an abomination of the character of God. If you are willing to say that God is leading you to make a sinful decision, you are lying either to yourself, to others, to God, or to all of the above. You are deceived, which James clearly warns against in verse 16. God doesn’t tempt us to evil. It will give birth to death. Entertaining the temptation to sin during trials isn’t wise. Which brings us to our third point:

3) Wisely responding to trials

So we know that God brings and doesn’t bring through trials. What is the practical aspect? How do we respond to trials? Very quickly, three simple, straight-forward points from our focal passage, but these aren’t really all separate… they are basically one continuous act:

A) Submit

Parents: have you ever started to explain a wise decision you made to your kids, and the moment you start to explain, they dive in with why your decision was wrong, talking over you? Or all of us: have you ever been in a discussion and you were so busy coming up with or planning what you were going to say next, that you didn’t actually hear what was being said to you? Well, James warns us that this is not how we should be with God, but instead, we should be submissive to Him:

James 1:19–20 CSB

19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, 20 for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.

I have almost always taken this verse and applied it simply to our relationships with each other. It wasn’t until I was studying for this message that it fully hit me that yes, while this can certainly apply to interpersonal relationships, it first applies here in the context of trials, temptations, and our relationship with God!

We often do exactly the opposite of what this verse says with God. We are terribly slow to listen—God provides us with other believers in our lives who give us wise counsel or correction, and we dismiss it entirely, instead choosing to defend ourselves. We read the Scriptures and immediately disagree with them or discard them because they don’t affirm our point-of-view. We cover our ears to what God is saying to us and instead fill our minds and hearts with other, lesser things, and then we wonder why we don’t hear from God.

We are quick to speak, coming to God with nothing but our own perspective when we pray—telling Him how He should take care of things, informing Him of our plans and demanding that He bless them. We are so busy shouting from the digital rooftops that we don’t always give careful thought to what sort of testimony we are giving to who God is, and who we are in Christ.

We are quick to anger—ready to blame God when things don’t go the way we wanted them to, even though we never actually asked God what He wanted. Ready to complain at God’s apparent lack of response to our prayers, acting as if He somehow owes us an affirmative answer to our every desire. We have a hair-trigger for being angered or offended by our brothers and sisters in Christ and by the lost in the world, but we believe that everyone else should extend us grace.

The simple fact is that we are not submissive to God. We want Him to know our opinions, not to know His. And so His righteousness isn’t accomplished in our lives, because that takes submitting to His will and His way, working for the good of the community of faith, not for ourselves. We will talk more about submission to God when we look at chapter 4.

B) Repent (if necessary)

The fact is that we likely have sin that we must address if we are going to submit to God and respond to trials wisely. This is why James said this in verse 21:

James 1:21 CSB

21 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Therefore—because human anger doesn’t accomplish God’s righteousness—we need to “get rid of” or “set aside” those things that hinder our ability to submit to God. In short, we need to repent. We take off our moral filth and put on His purity, we set aside the evil that we find ourselves being deceived by and we put on the truth.

A special note to those who are listening today and who have never trusted Christ for your salvation. This message from James is being given to Christians, and it makes some assumptions. James knows that:

Romans 10:17 CSB

17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

He knows that the Gospel is the message of salvation. He’s not saying here that you have to work to be perfect in order to be saved. He’s saying that surrendering to God is humble submission to the message of hope found in the Gospel: that Jesus died to rescue sinful man, and He rose again so we could live forever, because God loves us enough to want to save us. I call on you this morning to turn from your sin, and humbly receive the truth of the Gospel, trusting Jesus to save you. He’s the only way.

Back to believers: We often say that we want God to just remove temptation from our lives. The incredible thing is that He has provided us with the means of resisting temptation: His grace:

Titus 2:11–13 CSB

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If you have received God’s grace, you have access to His power to walk in a life of repentance and faith, because His Spirit lives in you according to Scripture.

C) Obey

And finally, if we are going to respond wisely to trials in our lives, it’s going to take obedience, which demands action:

James 1:22–25 CSB

22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

The mirror is the Word of God. We so often talk about how to interpret the Word, but what really matters is how the Word interprets us. We come to the mirror, and it shows us who we really are. It shows us the places where we have it right, where we have a little work to do, where we are just an absolute mess. If we refuse to obey what God reveals to us by His grace through His Word, James says its like looking into a mirror, seeing that we have something on our face or stuck between our teeth or hanging out of our nose and not doing anything about it, and then going away and forgetting that there was a problem. That would certainly be foolish! Likewise, if we only hear the Word and don’t obey it, we deceive ourselves into thinking we have it all together.

We’re going to look more closely at this relationship between faith and works next week.

Verse 25 brings us full circle: the person who works from faith is the one who is blessed, as is the person who endures a trial so that God can make them more like Christ. Verses 12 and 25 are bookends in this way.

Closing

This message is not an easy one to either preach or receive. Trials are going to come in our lives. The question isn’t if or even when, but how we will respond to them when they arrive. Will we seek to see them from God’s perspective, even though in the moment they might be painful and hard? Will we trust that God is doing a work through them to make us more like Jesus, maintaining an eternal perspective, and not giving in to the temptation to do things our own way? That is the essence of wisdom in trials.

If this morning, you are facing trials and need to spend some time in prayer, perhaps in repentance, during our time of invitation in just a moment, the steps will be open for you to come and pray if you need to, or you can come and pray with one of us. Joe and Kerry will be down front with me, and we would be happy to pray for you and with you.

Perhaps today you have heard the message of the Gospel, and you know that you need Jesus to save you. You can surrender to Him right now, right where you are. Confess that you have sin that you need forgiven. Trust in the blood of Jesus to cover that sin. Surrender yourself to Christ’s lordship and give up going your own way. We would love to help you with this or to celebrate your new spiritual journey with you. Come and share with one of us, or if you’re online, send me an email, so we can help you as you start this new life of faith.

If this morning, you believe that EHBC is a church family where you can grow in your faith and have fellowship with other believers as we serve and worship God together, and you want to find out more about joining Eastern Hills in formal membership, please let us know. You can come and tell us, and we will set an appointment to get to know each other a little more, review our Statement of Faith, and answer any questions you might have about the church family. If you’re online and live in the Albuquerque area, send me an email to set up an appointment to talk about membership.

As the band comes down, let’s pray together.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: Hebrews starting today with Hebrews 1.

Instructions, including visitors coming down.

Benediction:

1 Peter 1:6–7 CSB

6 You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials 7 so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.