Let us now turn to God's Word as we find it in the letter of James, the very first chapter. James comes right after Hebrews and just before 1 and 2 Peter. We will read the first 12 verses of chapter 1, but consider particularly the first four verses. And before we read and hear God's word proclaimed, let us ask God for his blessing. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we come to you, expect and to hear from you, from your own word. Lord, it is your word and it shall not return to you without accomplishing its purpose. It will not return to you void. And so we pray that it would accomplish its purpose in our hearts, that by it we would be instructed in your ways, that we would see our Savior Jesus Christ and your mercy and grace to us in him, your free forgiveness, so bountiful and free. And Lord, we pray too that where there is anything in our hearts that is unpleasant and unlovely that you would rebuke to us and lead us to repentance. And we pray especially that you would speak to us if we are going through trials that we may be comforted and strengthened and show what it is that you would have us do in trials. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We begin reading from James chapter 1, verse 1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind, that man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. The brother, in humble circumstances, ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position because he will pass away like a wild flower. 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 man will fade away even while he goes about his business. 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. So far the reading of God's word and once again we will look particularly at the first four verses. Dear people of God, how do you handle trials? I think if truth be told, for most, if not for all of us, trials are, by definition, difficult. And when we are going through trials, very often our thought is that we just want them to end. When life is hard, you and I can very easily lose sight of God's goodness to us. Or at least it seems to have little bearing on our day-to-day lives. And in those times, very often we comfort ourselves with this thought that once my trial is over, once all this difficulty is past, then I can have joy again. And then I can again know that the Lord is good to me. just hang on, and it'll pass, eventually. But we know that we won't always have to, we shouldn't always at least have to comfort ourselves with just that. Now the world, an unbeliever cannot have this hope, but a Christian knows that it is possible, if we belong to Christ, if God is for us, that it's possible to go through trials and not just come out strengthened in the end but to actually have solid joy in the midst of trials. We know that by God's grace that it's possible we can come out with more comfort in Christ. Now James, who is our teacher for this evening tells us not only that trials can refine Christians and in the end bring them closer to God but he also tells us how it is that we're supposed to go through our trials so that we can consider them pure joy. And I'm talking, of course, of real joy, not just of smiles. Perhaps you know someone or you've seen someone who you know is hurting and yet for some reason, maybe because of this person himself or herself or this person's family or our church climate, this person doesn't feel like they can open up to anyone about hurt and sight. And so they try to always look like things are going really well. But like a song penned at once, smile on the outside never comes in. James is not just talking about how you can smile really well and fool people into thinking that you're well. How you can have rather real joy. in the midst of trials is what James is talking about. And so this morning, I'd like us to think of trials and those difficult times as, if you think of an analogy, as those stretches of the journey that are not like a beautiful drive on the California coast. After a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, you're in great company and you just enjoy a sunny day, the ocean to your side and seeing these beautiful cliffs. It's more like being stuck in the desert. And you are moving along but it hardly feels like you're moving forward. The going is tough and you wonder how will I come out of this? How can I get through the desert? How can I reach that end that I know God will bring me to as a believer a life filled with peace from God, a life in fellowship with God. And so the first thing that James tells us is he's simply acknowledging that Christians have many different trials. James' readers knew what trials were like. And James knew that they were going through hard times. His readers had to flee Jerusalem and Judea and those areas after Stephen was martyred, a great persecution arose and they had to be scattered throughout Judea and Samaria and go even further north. And so these people were displaced. They were being persecuted because they were Christians. And perhaps back home in Jerusalem or in Judea, they'd had very good lives. They'd worked hard. They enjoyed the fruit that God has blessed them with. They lived comfortably. But now, people turned against them. They were being persecuted. And you know, of course, that a persecution for being a Christian is a real trial. But I trust you also know that you don't have to be persecuted for being a Christian in order to go through a hard time. In fact, whenever in this life you feel that the going is just getting too tough, that's a trial. When you feel like, I don't know how to move forward, that is a trial. And Christians experience that even when they're not being persecuted. James knows also how hard it can feel. And the word that he uses for encountering or facing trials is very telling. It's the same word that is used in the New Testament for the ship that Paul was traveling on in Acts 27 when it ran up against a sand bank. If you remember what happened, they were hoping to run the ship aground as the Romans were bringing Paul from Judea, or rather from Palestine, to Italy over here. And they're almost on their way, they're almost in Italy. They realize that they need to run the ship ashore after a terrible storm. They cut off the ropes for the rudders. They hoist the mainsail to the wind and they decide to head for the shore. The ship hits and counters a sandbank. And that's what a trial can feel like. All of a sudden, your life just came to a screeching halt. You also find that word in the Gospel of Luke, in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man whom the Samaritan helps is a man who encountered or faced robbers. Often our Bibles say he fell among robbers. And so trials can make you feel like you're left half dead or half living. So James knows trials are difficult. And we should also be encouraged when we come to this text that James' own brother, Jesus, our Savior, knew what trials were like even before the cross. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept. He did not just pretend to weep just so that the mortals around him would realize that this is a sad thing. He was moved. He was grieved. We have a Savior who knows what trials are like. And now, some trials are not really anyone's fault. Or in a sense, they're due to the fact that we are sinners and we live in a fallen world. When a loved one dies, very often there isn't really somebody's fault to point to. Just recently in our congregation, we had three deaths and we just learned that Henry Dorn's father died. Well, in those situations, it is a trial, but no one's at fault. Perhaps even when you lose a job or the economy is in the downturn. Now, there are men and women who are responsible, but your employer might just be facing difficult times and you have to be laid off. Trials can be of this sort. Oftentimes, they're also caused by sin, whether our own sin or someone else's sin. And James is saying that no matter what kind of trial you're going through, you can consider it to be pure joy. You see, he says in verse 2, whenever you face trials of many kinds, We could say any trial. See, even if your own sin got you into a difficult time, difficult stage in your life, God says, I have provided a way through Christ how you can repent and even now turn to me and ask for wisdom and I will turn to you as well and I'm standing ready to help. God can give us joy in the midst of any kind of trial. But James also doesn't want us to be naive about difficulties in life. It's not always the case that when a Christian goes through trial, that he or she comes out stronger than before. Sometimes Christians actually come out bitter after trials. I once came across a quote in an old yearbook from my college where a person wrote, looking back in their academic year, they said some of us were growing, some of us were shrinking. Sometimes Christians shrink under trials. And you see what's comforting about this passage too is that James knows that his readers were not all exemplary Christians who were just doing so well and were doing exactly what they were supposed to. He knows that they were grumbling amongst themselves and you can take comfort in this because even if you have a bad history of dealing with trials and perhaps you realize that you are a bitter person now because of something that has happened and you don't want to be a bitter person, well, James is speaking to you as well. This is a passage for all of us. And now as we think about what James' readers were dealing with, how they were not reacting like Christians, See if that perhaps describes all of us, describes you and me. When they lost all their possessions, they were hoping that the riches would be the solution to the problem. You see, they left everything behind in Jerusalem or in Judea. And so James has to tell them, don't worry about having rich friends. Don't say to the rich people, here's a great seed for you. Don't trust in man. His readers were not taming their tongues and they were becoming angry with one another. And so he has to tell them, don't grumble against each other. And when the world hated them, they surely realized that it was, hating them. They wanted to be friends with the world. And James says, don't you realize that friendship with the world is enmity with God? In many ways that describes your average Christian church, perhaps us in this church. You see, all these things with James' readers point to a fundamental problem that they had. They misunderstood the gospel. They were assuming that Christian life is incompatible with suffering. If I'm a Christian, if I belong to Jesus, then my life must be a great success. Very often, that's how we are tempted to think, too, that the world really notices the kinds of Christians who look like they have it all together. Perhaps we think that because that's the kind of people that we're impressed by. That's who we want to be. But the gospel says that you get not earthly comforts or success, you get fellowship with God through Christ. You receive a heavenly inheritance, an eternal inheritance, and you receive peace with God even in this life. James knows that trials for Christians can feel like, for the psalmist in Psalm 51, restore to me the joy of my salvation. He knows that we can wonder, is joy for Christians only in the 95% of life when things are going really well, but then sadly there's bad news when life is hard? Then, well, you just can't be joyful. Just wait. Eventually you can be. He knows that that's not the case. And so he gives us directions for how to go through the desert, how to get back on track. And he says the first thing now, in verse 2, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance or steadfastness. Trials test your faith. And so you can consider your trials to be pure joy because of that. Now, if you are like me, you might wonder at first, now, how is this good news? If trials test my faith and this is what's supposed to give me joy, then I'm sunk. My faith is really weak. But when God tests our faith, it's not the way you and I test our work. If you've ever tried putting together something that you bought maybe at Ikea or some other store shelf or some piece of furniture, Very often at the end there's this last bit of information that tells you now test your work. And you and I might not really want to do it because we don't trust our work. Poor thing might fall apart. Well, that's not how it is with your faith. Remember what Paul says in Ephesians 2. By grace you have been saved through faith and it's not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. Your faith that is being tested is God's work, God's gift. You're the one who is to trust in him, and yet it is his gift, his work that's being tested. And when his work is being tested, it cannot fail. And so consider trials all a joy, we're told, because your faith that's being tested is faith from God. But consider them also to be all joy because your faith is not just from God but faith in God and that's what's being tested. It's whom you're trusting in. Are you trusting in yourself or are you trusting in Christ? You see, our faith needs to be a faith in Christ, faith that looks outside of ourselves, faith in one who, for the joy that was said before him, endured the cross and despised its shame and did it for you and for me and for all who trust in him. Now, how does that happen? How do trials test our faith? Now, think of the Apostle Paul. How was his faith tested in his life? We read in 2 Corinthians 4 about what it was like for him. And you wonder if Paul ever wandered to himself in his life. Now, since I became an apostle, it seems that my life has just gotten more and more difficult. And he would probably say to himself or pray to God, Now, God, why is it that my path is rockier than an unbeliever's? Wherever I go, I just want to preach the gospel. I want to tell people there's a way out of your misery. You can be forgiven and not by your own works. And yet people persecute me. Why is that? And you see that his faith was being challenged, was being tested. And what he realized in his trials is that although he's an earthen pot, an earthen vessel, that's just as well because then God's strength shines all the brighter. And when he reflects on this and how he as a frail human being preaches the gospel and often gets rejected, he says that we have this treasure, the treasure of the gospel in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power is from God and not from us. He realized that his weakness was, as it were, room for God to work and for God's strength to shine so that he could rely on the Lord, not on himself. And so what's tested in trials is whom are you trusting in? self or the one who's able to strengthen you, come what may. But James goes on. This is not the only thing that he tells us. He says, consider your trials to be all joy because trials test your faith, but because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Now isn't it true that our greatest need in this life is not earthly comforts, but comfort in God. Our fear very often is not that bad things will happen to us, but that in the middle of the bad things, God will not be with us. What we need is deep confidence and joy in the Lord in spite of our circumstances. And James says trials can do that. they can accomplish that kind of perseverance, as some people have called it, stick-to-itiveness, where you might not know exactly how things will work out, but you press on. Now, how does this happen? GANF analogies are helpful. You don't become a good driver by driving around at an empty parking lot. No, it's great. Nobody gets in your way. You can brake whenever you want to, but that's not really where your skill gets honed. You need tough conditions to hone your skill. And that's what trials are like. If Jesus accomplished salvation for all of life, then surely, in the midst of trials, we can keep coming back to the Lord and turn to him. Now, I'd like to read from Romans 5. You may turn there if you will, but I will read the first few verses from Romans 5 and see how the Apostle Paul viewed that as well, how it is that Christians, through trials, are being taught patience and perseverance. Paul says in Romans 5, verse 1, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us. are trials. The props that you and I so often rely on are taken away. Maybe you used to have a great friend that you could always turn to whenever your life was tough and you know that that person would always understand and now you can no longer talk to that friend. Perhaps he or she died or perhaps you just can't get to them. But from, again, from the standpoint of growing in your faith, that is just as well. Because then when you can turn to any human prop, you can only cry out to the Lord and say, Lord, I don't know what to do. Help me. Give me wisdom. And that is where the Lord would have us. That is perseverance. Looking to the Lord, turning to him. If you think of Job, the man lost seemingly everything. And yet, even as he was suffering over and over, he would turn to the Lord, complaining to the Lord and saying, God, why are you doing this? This is not just. Later, of course, he learned to be silent before the Lord and to realize that God does not have to explain himself, but God is kind to him. God is loving to him and his purposes, and God will sustain Job. Perhaps you're wondering why it is that you need to, why is it that you have these conflicts at home? Well, perhaps it is so that you, as the one who's involved in the conflicts, will just come to God and say, I don't know what to do with my teenager or my child or my spouse. I know what to do with my parents. Lord, help me. Give me wisdom. Make me patient. Make me kind. That is what the Lord is teaching us. One day, all that the Lord is doing here on earth will make sense, though it's not making sense now. But for now, that is where the Lord is guiding us. And again, you and I don't serve, don't learn, rather, perseverance in this life by, let's say, going on a great cruise of the Caribbean. It's all very nice, but that's not where you and I learned that God is our all in all. It's painful when we run up against a sandbank or when we feel like we're half dead or like we're earthen vessels. But that is where we realize that we need Christ's strength. We need the cross of Jesus to sustain us. And finally, James says, consider your trials to be pure joy, not just because your trials test your faith, and the testing of faith produces perseverance so that you're taught to rely on the Lord, but consider your trials to be pure joy because they're God's way of sanctifying you, of making you perfect. He says that in verse 4, perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. As a careful pastor, he's told us what we should know about the trials, but now he says, don't stop there. Consider your trials to be all joy. Do look to the Lord so that he can make you mature and complete, not lacking anything. Now what is God saying here? What do these words being mature and complete mean? Now, mature means being perfect as far as not lacking, being all you're supposed to be. That's being mature. And being complete means being sound or whole. Now, is the Lord saying that His purpose for you here on earth then is to be perfectly sinless? In some way, we can say that the Lord does desire it for us. Of course, we're always to turn away from sin and to love righteousness and to trust in Christ. But that's not specifically what he is saying here. He says that God's purpose in making you mature and complete is to make you lack nothing. To make you lack nothing by finding it all in the Lord. Even in the most difficult of times, you and I are to turn to God and to find Him sufficient for all of our needs. Remember Paul's other lesson. Not only did he realize that he is an earthen vessel and that God's strength shines brightly in his weakness, but also that God's grace is sufficient for him. It makes him lack no good thing. And if Christian peace is anything at all, then it's surely what we also read in Paul in the letter to the Romans, chapter 8. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And a few verses later Paul says, if God is for us, who can be against us? And so press on in your trials. When hard times come, look for every spiritual blessing in the Lord. Sometimes you and I can be very stubborn when the Lord is molding us and shaping us. You may think perhaps of a man who must care for his wife who is perhaps sick with some serious disease and that person can be thinking to himself, now why does she get all the attention? Why does she have to be the one who is cared for? You see, the Lord is showing that man to look outside of himself, to be self-giving, not selfish. James is saying, don't resist God. Perseverance must finish its work. Let it have its perfect effect. And when you think that God is dealing too harshly with you in your trials, remember too what Paul says in Romans 8, He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how should he not also, with him, freely give us all things? Remember that perhaps the road through the desert that you're going through, when you're grieving a loss, when you're not sure where your future will turn, when there are difficulties in your family, remember that way through the desert is perhaps God's shortcut, as it were, to sanctifying you, to bring you to deeper fellowship with himself. One final note before we conclude. In the next chapter, in the very beginning, James tells his readers to hold without partiality the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Why is James telling them that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory? You see, they, just like you and I, needed to know that one day we will be with glory where our Lord is. For now there's suffering. For now there's pain. But there will come a day when you will be with the Lord when all that happened on earth will make sense in the end and when you will be with Christ who because of his suffering and death was crowned with glory and now meanwhile put your faith in Christ the author and the finisher of your faith Amen Let us thank God Our gracious Lord we pray that we we may be attentive to your word to us through his servant James and we pray that in the midst of our trials we would turn to you and that we would indeed consider them pure joy because we are with you because you are our God and we are your people and you care for us. Oh Lord, draw our eyes to our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior who suffered for us in our place and the one with whom And we will be one day. Keep us, Lord, until that day, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.