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The Mystery of Unplanned & Undesired Trails
Anyone who has been Christian for a period of time recognizes that God moves in mysterious ways.
His infinite wisdom and knowledge are far beyond our finite understanding.
He sees things and does things that do not make sense to use, but achieve only what the divine can achieve, say the salvation of sinners.
Who would have thought that God himself would have to come down as a human being and die on a cross to atone for man’s sin?
That is mysterious.
Who can know the mind of he Lord?
Who can counsel him?
Who can give to him as f he needs anything?
His ways are not our ways.
The mystery of God is often what we are left with, at least at first, when we enter a season of hardship in our lives.
Trials and tribulations often show up unplanned and undesired.
No body wants to suffer pain in this life, and yet, all of us will suffer pain in this life.
And when we do, James says you must count it all joy.
More mystery.
Why would we count it all joy when we are hurting, suffering, under the burden of a trial?
In our world, joy and pain are more like Cain and Able than they are Jonathan and David.
Last week we sang William Cowpers Hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”
I think his hymn captures the ethos of why James commands us to count it all joy when we face trials.
Cowper writes,
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm
Deep in unsearchable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will
William Cowper is in many ways poetically capturing the nature of the truth James conveys to you and I this morning:
You can rejoice when you experience various trials knowing God is conforming you into the image of Jesus.
God’s ultimate desire in your life is to transform you into the image of His Son, Jesus.
Paul says as much in
And this transformation will come to completion when stand in his presence with glorified bodies fit for heaven.
Once again, Paul says,
In the mean time, we are in a process of sanctification, meaning, God is progressively sanctifying us.
He is in the process of revealing sin and unbelief and purifying our faith to make us holy.
It is a form of character development-being conformed into the character and likeness of Jesus.
In short, being conformed into the image of the Son is what it means to mature in the Christian faith.
James reveals to us that God uses various trials or hardships in your life for the purpose of purifying your faith so that you mature into a faithful believer who is able to endure until the end.
A believer who is maturing in their faith will choose to see this process of sanctification as a means for joy, even though it may hurt.
This morning I want to explore God’s use of various trials to conform you into the image of his son, that is to mature your faith in James 1:2-4.
Before I get there, I think it is wise to help us see the special grace of knowing in verse 2.
The grace of “knowing.”
There is a special grace of knowing in James 1:3.
To know is to understand the reality of what is happening in the present and what your future will bring.
The act of “of knowing” is going to be like a lens by which view trials in our life.
I think James offers us a set of bifocals to understand trials in our life, and this understanding becomes the basis for out joy.
There are two lens of knowing to view trials in your life.
The Lens of God’s present work
James wants you to know that God uses various kinds of trials as instruments of grace in his hands to to mold and perfect your faith.
He says as much when he says, “Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”
God us testing your faith to produce a kind of faith that perseveres until the end.
Knowing this gives you the basis for joy.
Think for a moment who to people would respond to God when various trials invade their life?
Scott Hubbard, editor for Desiring God, paints a picture of this tension well.
He notes,
“Some sufferers bow their heads and bless the Lord, while others curse him.
Some say, through tears, “I trust you,” while others refuse to pray.
Some collapse into God’s presence, and learn to love him with a broken heart, while others turn their backs and walk away.”
Scot Hubbard
What is the difference between these two suffers?
One knows that suffering is an instrument of grace in God’s hands, while the other rejects it.
Remember who James is writing too.
His readers are believers who are experiencing poverty, exploitation by the rich, unrighteous anger, and even murder.
They did not know the specifics of why God was allowing this or how long it would last.
But they do know the promise of God to work every ounce of pain to produce endurance and maturity, to conform them into the image of Jesus.
The grace of knowing became a ground for their hope.
You can put your confidence, you cant trust, that God is working our his great purposes in your pain.
Because you know, you can have hope.
The lens of your future hope
The joy he is referring to has an eschatological tone to it.
Its the kind of joy that looks forward to the day Jesus will rid the world of trials that test your faith.
In this lens, joy is a form of hope.
Peter describes this hope/joy relationship in the first few verses of his letter.
Consider 1 Peter 1:3-6.
Peter uses the same language as James regarding various trials and hope.
He says in verse 3
Then he explains the Living Hope we have in the resurrection of Jesus that is being guarded by the Father.
He then says in verse 6,
The “in this” is the Living Hope we rejoice.
We have a Living Hope, the resurrected Jesus, who conquered death and sin, and who will one day restore heaven and earth.
Looking forward to that future is our hope and that gives us reason to rejoice.
John Piper makes the connection of hope and joy in 1 Peter, when he says,
“Our joy is based on the happiness of our future with God and the certainty that we will make it there.
Christian joy is almost synonymous with Christian hope...
In this you have living, vital, life-changing hope; and in this you rejoice.
Our hope is our joy.”
John Piper
The special grace of knowing is, on the one hand, the joy of knowing God’s uses your suffering to mold you into the image of his Son, and on the other hand, the hope you have in the resurrected Christ .
You can count it all joy, knowing God is at work now and Jesus as ensured a day where your faith will no longer be tested.
What is it that you “know” that gives you hope?
You know that trials are an effective providence of God (James 1:2).
James 1:2 (ESV)
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
When trials enter your life, they often appear unplanned and undesired.
The certainty of trials in life leave people who do know God believing that there is some kind of acting force that works to bring trouble into your life.
Those people will call it fate, but we know that the acting force behind the trial is a sovereign God.
In some ways James alludes to this with the word “when” or “whenever.”
The temporal use of the word “when” indicates that trials may appear random, but they are a natural part of life.
James does not use a conditional, such as “if you endure trials.”
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