Joyful in Trials
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This morning, we are going to start our trek through the book of James. James is a book that I often find quite challenging, as it challenges me to think about how well my faith is being put into action. You see, as we have talked about here at Hope Community before, genuine faith in Christ should result in transformation in our lives that leads to service to others, following the example of Jesus while he was on the earth.
1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
The book (letter) begins by telling us who is writing - James. There is some debate, but many scholars believe that this is James, the brother of Jesus. He considers himself a servant of both God and of Jesus Christ. The term used in the original language can be translated either servant or slave. What is important for us to grasp here is not so much the word, but who we are to serve as followers of Jesus. Slaves and servants were the lowest class of society and would have served just about everyone else - even in the things that most people would not be willing to do.
James is also writing to the twelve tribes - likely to those who are outside of Judea and scattered about, some likely for centuries since the Babylonian exile. Unlike many of the letters in the new testament, this letter is being written to more than just one specific church or people and has much to say to us today about how faith in action (not faith because of action) should be displayed in the life of a believer.
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.
10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower.
11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
"Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here,” Jack Swigert of Appolo 13 said. After being prompted to repeat the transmission by CAPCOM Jack R. Lousma, this time Jim Lovell responded with "Ah, Houston, we've had a problem." It’s a famous event in the history of human space flight. Most of us, even if we are not old enough to remember the event, know of it as it has been dramatized several times, most notably in the 1995 film Apollo 13 – based on Lost Moon, the 1994 memoir co-authored by Lovell – and an episode of the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.
Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) failed two days into the mission. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as Lunar Module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the contents of both of the SM's oxygen tanks to space. Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating electric power, the SM's propulsion and life support systems could not operate. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive.
Although the LM was designed to support two men on the lunar surface for two days, Mission Control in Houston improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. The crew experienced great hardship, caused by limited power, a chilly and wet cabin and a shortage of potable water. There was a critical need to adapt the CM's cartridges for the carbon dioxide scrubber system to work in the LM.
Talk about a problem - one that no one had ever solved. As an engineer, I have often thought about what it might have been like to be part of that team. The stress, the worry, the uncertainty, knowing that there were three lives in the balance. Regardless of all these things, the team in Houston persevered through it to find a solution with the crew in space.
The crew and mission controllers were successful in improvising a solution. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television.
An investigative review board found fault with preflight testing of the oxygen tank and Teflon being placed inside it. The board recommended changes, including minimizing the use of potentially combustible items inside the tank; this was done for Apollo 14. Can you imagine being the crew of Apollo 14 after everything that happened during the previous mission? Even something as difficult as Apollo 13 did not stop human space flight, humans continued to persevere in exploration.
Let’s go back to verse 2 and 3:
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
2 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.
3 You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.
Now I don’t know about you, but the ideas of joy and a gift are not what comes to mind when I think about going through challenges and trials. What on earth would James be referring to here? The word used for trials in verse 2 can also be translated as temptation or enticement to sin. The ancient church fathers thought about the cure for temptation being the patient endurance which was the fruit of a spiritual wisdom that could be obtained only from God himself.
In verse 3, the word that is translated testing refers to the means of testing or the process one goes through during a time of testing. This is not an easy command that James is giving, but instead it is a choice to be joyful when facing problems, which emphasizes that it is not natural or easy to look to the positive side of a situation.
Let’s take a look at the sermon on the mount and we’ll find a similar theme from Jesus himself.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
James’ words in this command closely echo those of Jesus. However, we also see the why in verse 3 for why we should choose joy in times of trials and testing - the testing of your faith produces perseverance. This is our first theme this morning.
The testing of our faith - the process that we go through and endure is forming to our faith in Christ. It allows us to grow a deeper faith. It enables not just us personally, but the community of faith to which we belong to grow as we stand alongside you.
Do you know what happens during the smelting process of metallic ore? The heat extracts the impurities. It refines it. This refining process is a necessary process for a disciple of Jesus, it is truly the only way for us to grow.
4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
When we persevere, we grow toward maturity. We begin to realize that when God is with us, we can truly endure anything that this life might throw at us. Ropes writes that perseverance is “that permanent and underlying active trait of the soul from which endurance springs.” This process of testing is working to extract a deeper faith just like a smelter extracts pure metal. When we persevere through the trial or testing, and remain faithful, it sets an example for those around us of what a deep faith in Christ truly should look like.
Pastor Craig Groeschel shares the true story of his “less than promising” career as a pastor. It should serve as a reminder that rejection and criticism are never final, unless we allow them to be:
Only weeks after putting my faith in Jesus, I tried to teach my first Bible study to a group of young guys in a little church in Ada, Oklahoma. Afterward the leader of the youth group said, “Well, I guess teaching the Bible is not your gift, is it?” Three years later I finally got up the nerve to try teaching the Bible again, after being asked to preach my first sermon.
After the service, as I stood at the door saying goodbye to church members, an older gentleman looked at me with a raised brow and remarked, “Nice try.” Nice try?! The next lady in line asked if I had any other skills besides being a preacher and then made a weak attempt to encourage me to keep my options open. Seriously, that really happened.
I had to fight off the temptation to run and hide in the church baptistry. And yes, full immersion! Despite yet another setback, still believing God’s call, I continued my journey toward full-time vocational ministry by going to seminary following college and marriage.
About halfway through seminary, the day finally came when I stood before a group of spiritual leaders as a candidate for ordination in our denominational church. With the entire committee looking on, the spokesperson explained to me, “We’ve chosen not to ordain you. You don’t have the gift-mix we see in most pastors. In fact, we are not sure you are called to be a pastor. But feel free to try again next year. But for now, it’s a no.”
Craig Groeschel, Winning the War in Your Mind, Zondervan, 2021.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
and in the Message:
5 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it.
6 Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves.
7 Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way,
8 adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
In verse 5, we see a shift to a new topic, which is our second theme for this morning, wisdom. It starts out, but if anyone of you lacks. This is a call from James to his readers to examine their own inward self and if they are lacking to ask God. In particular, we see this idea of asking God for wisdom.
Let’s take a quick look at:
3 Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.
4 The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.
7 “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.
8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number.
9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
We see Solomon request wisdom for his rule, for his everyday decisions in addition to the more monumental decisions of ruling a people. It is the same for us in our lives. We need to be continually praying to God for wisdom - not just once, but maybe even daily. We cannot achieve wisdom by ourselves, it only comes from God.
In particular, it is important to note that we should also ask God for wisdom in persevering through the trials we have in life. When we do this, it shows that we truly want it and believe that God will provide that wisdom. But James encourages us to take it one step farther, to be committed to acting upon that wisdom when it is received by God. This shows that we truly do believe and do not doubt that God will guide us to live a mature and wholesome Christian life while following his guidance.
If we do not, however, James paints this picture of a wave in the sea. If you have ever been to the ocean, you know that the waves are a bit unpredictable. They can easily throw you around. When we are not centered on Christ in both belief and resulting action, the temptations of this world, the things competing for that part of our lives will more easily blow us all over the place. We are not rooted in our relationship with Christ.
9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.
10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower.
11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
9 When down-and-outers get a break, cheer!
10 And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it.
11 You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.
Our third theme is found in verse 9-11. The theme of status. We see a comparison in the humble versus the rich. In that day, people would have believed that if someone had more than they needed, that someone didn’t have what they needed. Society was much more focused on the whole versus the individual. It was likely the poorer or those of less status that would have been the ones to stand up to the Syrians, while the rich were more likely to figure out how to assimilate and cooperate with them for their own benefit. Thus many would have thought of the rich as evil people.
James believes it is those who are humble who are in better position to serve God, as we see going back to verse 1 with the image of being a servant or a slave. While both groups were likely part of the Christian community, the humble might have been in that better position. You see, the poor are typically more aware of the fragility of their lives versus those among us who are more well to do. They are more aware of their humanness and the finiteness of that human life. Thus they are more likely to receive the good news and the idea of service through the works that come out of our faith in Christ, rather than the rich, who in that day were more likely to be identified with greed and apostasy. When we are tested, if we are not enduring that with a perseverance that can only come through Christ, we are more likely to fall away when times get tough.
As we wrap up this morning, I want us to each take a moment between us and God and ask him how well we are enduring the trials in our lives by choosing joy and perseverance. Is our faith deepening as a result of this choice of joy? Are we asking God continually for wisdom? Or are we like the plant in the scorching heat and fall away every time things go wrong?
Invitation and Prayer