James 1:1-18
Triumphing Over Trials
By Pastor Daniel W. McManigal
As we consider the book of James, we are really setting the stage for our next series which is called “Living in Exile- how to engage the world without marrying the culture.” James is interested in telling believers how to live as exiles and not surprisingly, God expects his special people to live especially different from the world.
You are living in exile right now, right this moment. That is the meaning of v. 1; as the 12 tribes of God are scattered abroad, James couldn’t be referring to some of the tribes who had not returned to the Promised Land. The 12 tribes, all of them, are scattered abroad. We are in this state, still waiting to go to our heavenly home. In the mean time, how are we to live? What are we to think, what are we to say as we wait for the Lord’s return? That is what the epistle of James is all about. It is a practical guide to everyday Christian living.
Rather than mastering the endless promises in the self-help books, it would be far better to master the principles laid out in this
epistle. I can attest that you are going
to be challenged to do things differently because James is not an easy book. It
is a high and lofty book and it is going to be up to you to climb up to the top
and put it into practice. As wonderfully creative and practical people, you have the duty to apply the book of James to your lives as you read, listen and meditate upon the scriptures. In fact,
that is something that must be recovered in a world of sound-bites and instant
messages that can be quickly read and then deleted. God’s word deserves far better.
It is worthy of everyones' thoughtful meditation and application. You will not be sorry if you do!
So James is going to teach us in the first place how to face our trials.
1. Trials and temptations:
Let’s take a closer look at the way in which James opens up the subject of temptation. Verse 2: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.”
Now the first reality is that Christians can expect trials and temptations. Did you notice the word “various”? In other words, the trials come in different forms, through different people and different circumstances of life. We need also to recognize that there are going to be many more temptations for the Christian than for the unconverted.
By way of example, you might be working in a toxic environment where the things that are said are incredibly negative. Cursing and immorality fill conversations and the temptations to join in might be so great that it is a struggle just to get through the day, let alone the work. Then after a long, stressful day you might find yourself at home being questioned about something around the house that you have not taken care of and you are tempted to lash out. The world would say “you have a right, there is no temptation in it at all, you have the right to be grumpy after the day you’ve had. “
None of these temptations for a Christian are temptations to those outside of Christ. On the contrary, what we would call sinful responses are quite often dismissed out of hand as perfectly understandable behavior.
A friend of mine was recently coming home from work when he stopped at a light and the man driving behind him got out of his car, walked up to him, and punched him twice in the face as he yelled at him, “that’s for cutting me off.” You see there was no temptation at all for this man. If someone wrongs him and makes him mad then it is perfectly reasonable for this unconverted man to see the test, not in refraining from sinning, but in getting even. The temptation for the Christian is far greater. Not only is he tempted to retaliate, he is also tempted to set aside the commandment of Christ which teaches him to bless those that curse you and repay good for evil (Matt 5:44).
The gospel and trials
The Christian is called to have a different mindset to trials and tribulations. We are commanded to have the mindset of Christ (Phil 2). The gospel says your temptations will never compare to what Jesus went through for you. He was tried and remained faithful that you might be credited with his faithfulness ─ his active obedience. Because you have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, you will redeem the trials by showing others that God’s mercy is sufficient to meet all your needs.
Our response
One thing that sets a Christian apart from the mainstream is the way in which you are summoned to respond to temptations. It is hardly what you would expect.
James says to “consider it all joy when you fall into various trials.” My friends do not take in those words and say, “I don’t have to do that, the person sitting next to me needs to hear it but not me.” Do not hear the word and then refuse to practice it. Notice there is no option here. There is no considering it pure joy unless… there is no “unless.” You will face hardships and God is calling you to do something totally different, He is calling you to consider these hardships as “joy.”
James is not so much addressing the role of emotions as he is the mind. He is dealing directly with our thoughts and only indirectly with our feelings. Emotions are like a fishing lure on the end of the line. Wherever you cast your line that is where the fishing lure will land. Wherever you cast your mind’s thoughts, your emotions will eventually follow. Of course it is not an immediate thing and there can be things like the current and the wind to throw things off a bit. At times we have to work hard at reeling in our emotions, but that comes through training the mind and focusing it on the right things.
When James tells us to consider our trials pure joy he is not downplaying emotions, on the contrary, he is showing us the way to get a grip on them. If the mind focuses hard upon the painful trial without the ultimate solution in the Gospel of God’s perfect grace and perfect justice, we will become discouraged. We will see no reason for hope if we cannot see Christ. Like Peter walking on the water and looking away from Jesus, what is it that immediately happens to him? He begins to sink. His mind needed to be on Christ, not the waves. So James is going to work on the right spot, he aims for the mind as the gateway to the emotions.
Now having said that, there is an unrealistic, almost superficial type of Christianity which basically thinks that once a person has been to the cross, has been forgiven and has had his or her burden lifted, the rest of the song should go: “and now I am happy all the day.” That is how the hymn goes anyway. But that view of Christian living really needs to be put in the larger context.
Is it wrong for Christians to feel grieved and to have heavy hearts? The answer is, absolutely not! We aren’t to look indifferently at babies born with defects and deformities; we aren’t to look at domestic abuse and smile. James assumes heaviness of heart. He takes grief as “a given.” That is why he has to tell his readers to consider the hard, painful trials as pure joy. James is saying, “Consider it this way even though it doesn’t feel much like a joyful situation.” He is not saying, “Silly Christian, stop feeling so blue, change your emotions.” He is saying “consider your circumstances this way; even though your feelings are going in an opposite direction don’t worry, they will catch up.”
James is not ignoring our emotions, he is most surely showing us how to avoid being controlled by our emotions.
You know that James is not alone in this paradoxical statement of counting suffering as joy. Paul says something very similar in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10: 8We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -- 10always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
The
experience of grief for the Christian is never entirely without joy because the
Christian lives in two ages at the same time. You are citizens of the
2. Profiting from our trials
So we understand our trials by looking at them through the joy of our salvation. Secondly, then we ask how does the Christian profit from trials?
When James gives this command to count it as joy, he fully expects the question “why?” The answer he gives is surprising. James would say in so many words, “Because it is good for you.” That is the answer to the unspoken question, “James, why should I count my trials as joy?” James replies, “Because it is good for you, it is necessary for you.”
These trials are a part of life, but it is much deeper than that. They are appointed by God for your good. It is always important to put first things first. You are always, in every circumstance, under the watchful eye of God. Keep in mind that God’s plan for you is to make you bear a resemblance to the Lord Jesus Christ and that means that God is working everything in your life for this one great purpose. God is changing you from the inside out to resemble your savior. Angels will be amazed, “Look how she is handling that, with prayer and scripture? Doesn’t that remind you of how Jesus fenced off Satan in the wilderness? Isn’t God good in making her to look like Jesus in this way? What a beautiful way for God to bring honor to his Son, look how He is shaping them to look like Jesus. What a merciful God!”
The meaning of 1:3-4
Now a proper understanding of vv. 3-4 is absolutely critical. 3“knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
James is doing something that is missed in our modern way of thinking. He says that testing produces perseverance, and perseverance produces maturity. George Stulac asks the question, “How many people today suffer in trials of many kinds, thinking that the issue is whether they have the faith to pass the test? The spiritual reality is that God will use the trial to develop something we do not yet possess” (George Stulac, James; IVP, 1993; p. 37). He is absolutely right.
In our culture of idolatry, Christians look at brothers and sisters going through trials and hardships and they say things like “Wow, that person must have a whole lot of faith, he must be a really strong Christian to be able to go through that.” James is saying in effect, “No! You’ve got it entirely backward. We don’t experience trials BECAUSE we are strong, we go through them to be MADE strong.” Trails are tools in God’s hands to trim the undesirable fat and tone up the muscle.
And let’s also be clear about failure in trials. As vv. 13-15 show, God does not make us fail, we do that all on our own. God is not the author of our sin, yet He shows His sovereign power by using sin in our lives even for our good. If you fail in a trial, it does not necessarily mean that you are now weaker as a result. Quite the contrary, sometimes a miserable fall into sin in a trial will be a good reminder of what not to do the next time around. A scar from a saw blade will be a good reminder to be more careful with the power tool.
Take the Apostle Peter as an example. He boasted so confidently of his love for Jesus and ended up denying the Lord three times. When Jesus restored him by the sea, Peter had learned his lesson about boasting and self-confidence. No longer was he bragging of his love for Jesus. He got the message and we see Peter in the book of Acts, refusing to deny the Lord and be silent about him. There is a man who fell headlong into sin and God used it for Peter’s good. So if we should fail the test, use it as an opportunity to remind yourself to do things differently and to go to a different source.
3. And that is the third point: God is the source of our strength.
V. 5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (The key word is “wisdom.”)
Verse 5 is really a challenge to change our way of thinking AND PRAYING. How often do we assess the difficulty of the situation and then go to God asking that He grants to us our well-argued way out? “Lord this person is just being a pest and making my life difficult, please divert them away from me by sending them somewhere else.” That is how we tend to pray. There is nothing inherently wrong with praying that way. However, our first order of business is to come to God, not just with our solutions, but with requests for God’s wisdom. “Lord, give me wisdom to respond to this person until the problem is resolved. You gave me a mind, help me to use it wisely in this situation, how can I bring glory to Jesus?”
If we are regularly being tested and experiencing trials, and if we aren’t praying regularly for wisdom, we are by our actions saying “I am wise enough.” That might be hard to take, but it is a natural conclusion. If James exhorts us to seek the wisdom of God and we don’t, aren’t we really saying “I am wise enough”?
God may have given you plenty of knowledge about many things, but you are also equally dependant upon Him to know how to use that knowledge He has granted you. That is the purpose of wisdom. Knowledge says, “these are the facts.” Wisdom says, “this is what to do with those facts.”
There is good reason to go to God seeking wisdom. God, we are told, is a generous giver when it comes to wisdom (v.5). Why would God be a generous giver? It is because the opposite of wisdom is what? It is foolishness. God does not want his people to behave foolishly. In the Bible, foolish people are characterized as those who live independently from God. Don’t live this way, congregation, ask God to impart His wisdom to you.
He will not come back at you with complaints that you are too clingy and dependant upon Him. He not only gives generously, James says He gives without reproach. That means He will give wisdom and He will give it without criticism, without scolding and without rebuking you. Don’t you just hate it when someone begrudgingly gives to you? “Well you don’t deserve it, but here you go anyway, you’ll probably spend it on something that you will regret later on.” God doesn’t do that.
The grace of God displayed
So what James is doing here is not just teaching us the cause and effect relationship to asking and receiving. He is not simply giving us “moral codes” to live by. He is teaching us something about the incredible grace of God. God is a gracious giver. God gives without holding your sinful failures against you. How can He do this? He can do it because the Lord Jesus paid for each and every one of your sinful failures upon the cross.
It is a clear sign of God’s grace- He loves to give wisdom to his people. Also it is a sign of his grace to tell you to seek it from him. If He didn’t tell you, you would not do it otherwise.
What are some of the biblical ways we are to seek it? Well here in James, God grants wisdom through means of prayer; yes, we also go to the printed page, the Word of God. Look at 2 Timothy 3:15 “and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” He speaks to us through Godly advisors and counselors. Proverbs 11:14 “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” God is entirely gracious by giving us these resources, but the question is, are we using them?
Now what if we reject this course laid out by James? What if someone sitting here was to say, “I am sorry, but I am not going to count my trials as pure joy. I am not going look at the hardships as a means of increasing my perseverance and making me complete. I will go to God though, but these other things I can’t do”? Most Christians wouldn’t say this, but some live this way. James, in turn, shows us what it all boils down to─ namely “unbelief.”
If vv.2-5 are the sure and good promises of God, while vv. 6-8 are the sure and serious warnings. There is a warning for those who come to God doubting. Verse 6: “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting…” You see the problem with this person is not that he goes to the wrong source, the problem is he goes to the right source the wrong way. It is not that he is like King Ahaz who refuses to ask God for a sign (Isa. 7); rather this person asks God for wisdom and all the while he is asking, he is doubting God’s willingness, or worse still, doubting God’s ability to grant wisdom for the difficulties.
If you doubt that God will give you wisdom to approach your trials correctly, then you will fall into the trap of self-help. You will attempt to deal with it in your own strength and the end result is that image at the end of v. 6 of the wind pushing the waves this way and that.
Storms at sea push waves into other waves. There is no peace. Coming to God while doubting Him, assures us that we will be driven hard, tossed around like a rag doll and exhausted as we use our energy to no good solution. You will never have peace in conflict unless you settle yourself upon the rock of God’s gracious wisdom. Leave God’s wisdom, pray a token prayer all the while doubting him, and you will end up not knowing up from down. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself face down wondering, “How did I ever get myself into this mess?”
So we have the way to look at our trials, profit from our trials and heed the warning about unbelief.
The final thing we will say is that James is not going to permit the Christian to boast in his or her accomplishments. As if even faithful obedience to the commandment merits God’s wisdom, God forbid! In v. 16, we are called not to be deceived. “Every generous act of giving, every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” To look at your situation as pure joy is something that you must do, but it is a gift from God. To persevere comes from heaven to earth rather than from earth to heaven. We endure temptations and receive the crown of life in v. 12, but it too is a gracious gift.
In other words you must work at it, but you must not think that you are earning it, that would be a terrible deception.
God is trustworthy, God is sovereign and God is determined to make you a kind of first-fruits of His creatures (v.18). We will close with the comments of Thomas Manton on the Christian as a first-fruit unto the Lord. It points in two directions: your dignity and your duty. As to dignity, James is telling you, like the offerings of old, you are “the Lord’s portion.” Others are but creatures, but God delighteth to be called your God.
Secondly the word “first-fruits” hints at your duty. Thankfulness is to mark your life. First-fruits in the Old Testament were dedicated to God as tokens of thankfulness. The principle and motive of obedience, under the gospel, is not terror but gratitude (Thomas Manton, James; Banner of Truth, 1988; pp. 126-127). May our lives this week be testimonies of our thankfulness to God.