Good morning again after a year and a half some change of Going through the book of Deuteronomy. We are beginning a new series this morning It's gonna be a short one ten sermon series in the book of James and I just want to say a few words about This particular letter that we are going to start. I'm looking at this morning One is just the author himself who is James the Half brother of Jesus, well, oh, Jesus Christ But he's also the the one guy that we know he was a huge leader in the church the early church in Jerusalem And James is is an interesting book for us because it's actually one of those books that we may say is a little neglected In some ways we may put it here and there But sometimes people don't like teaching through it And there's a reason for it and the reason is the book of James is so practical James cuts You know to the chase he he does talk about doctrine But he really goes into the aspect of understanding your salvation and knowing that your salvation has Implications there are consequences to being a believer and that means how you exercise your faith That and that's what we call we've called our theme for this series faith in action So you cannot have faith and not act upon that faith Martin Luther one time did not really like this particular book because he didn't think that there was so much grace in it But towards the end of his life he actually did speak Very well of the book So having said those few remarks if you're able to stand with me let us honor the reading of God's holy word This morning we're reading the first 18 verses James chapter one verse one three team Here now the reading of God's word James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the discretion Greetings Counted or join my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and that steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and Complete lacking in nothing Even your view lacks wisdom Let him ask God who gives generous need to all without reproach and it will be given him But let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubt is like a wave of the seed that is driven and Tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the word He is a double-minded man unstable in all his ways Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation because like a flower of the grass He will pass away for the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass It's flower falls and its beauty parishes So also with the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial when he has stewed the test He will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him Let no one say when he's tempted I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself Tempts no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire Then the desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death Do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good gift and every perfect gift is from above Coming down from the father of light and with whom there is no variation or shadowed you to change of his own will He brought us forth by by the word of truth that we should be a kind of pursuits of his creatures The word of the Lord this morning father We do come to you and even as we've been reminded that the grass withers and fades parishes beauty parishes yet your word Remains forever made encourages Convictus and remind us that you are our God who loves us and cares for us provides for us protects us Gives us joy and all the things that we need in Jesus name Amen Please be seated Not sure about you, but I've been following the events going on in China But not just China as I'm gonna tell you a story about China, but I think we need to be careful That we don't just think about the persecuted church as only existing in China There's so much persecution going on in Nigeria In Morocco and Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and many parts of this world But in particular been following the updates coming out of China and especially events that took place on December 9th of last year And we put some of the prayer requests on our prayer matters The early rain covenant church was rated and the pastor and his wife and a hundred people from that congregation Were arrested and put in jail And I've been following the the updates that have been coming out and pastor Wang and his wife are still in secret detention Nobody knows where they are, but they're still in jail Some of the updates have been heartbreaking to say the least I've read about families that have been kicked out of their homes with young children infants and young children And no explanations given their contract and lease just But done and they've been kicked out and they cannot find homes to live I've read about families that That their bank accounts have been completely frozen. They cannot purchase anything their cards their money has all been Confiscated by the government. I've run a read about Homes that have been faced on surveillance 24-7 security just watching every move that you make no explanations given I've read all pastures that were taken out of their homes with their children trying to cling to them and were taken outside and beaten senseless By authorities no explanation given I've read about man and women and children gathering by the river in order to sing songs or praise and to honor God Because they cannot meet in their church building no explanations given Heart wrenching I could go on and on heart wrenching Illustrations stuff that's going on, but you know despite all of what's going on These churches continue to send out bulletins every week of their church services Do you know despite of all this persecution These men and women and children are continuing to pray to God and not just pray that they may be saved from The authorities, but they actually praying for the salvation of those that are resting They have not seized to gather together in worship They have not seized to have joy in their hearts as they gathered before God That's shocking to me and I'm sure we may also wonder the same thing like how is that possible How is it possible for you to continue gathering together in worship to continue offering prayers for those that are persecuting you to continue trusting in the Lord Despite your trial But we may sit here and wonder another question and ask How can God or why is God allowing this to happen? Why is God allowing these trials to happen to the saints that are vulnerable And in a country that does not allow them to worship God Why would he let them go through this? You know, I think reading through the verse that we just read this morning as James is reminding us I think it's something pop when I believe that this church Distains in China and in other parts of the world that are persecuted I think they've learned the secret of how to go through trial And I think this is what they know as James is encouraging us that the trials are a means Through which our testing God is working to perfect all faith Do you hear that the trials are means Through which God is working in us in order to perfect all faith in order to more us in order to mature us as believers I love the way this letter begins as James is here introducing himself I am James the servant of God and the servant of Olo Jesus Christ The James does not begin by name dropping and saying do you know that my brother is Jesus Christ? O Lord and Savior do you know that I'm the leader at the church in Jerusalem He just begins by showing his military something that is so hard to come by these days He's a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ But it's also surprising is he's not just being humbled by his Introduction the language that he uses to greet the church is he says greetings now The English there does not really help us to understand what James is saying You know what James is saying James is talking to to the dispersed church Whatever that may mean whether it's Jewish Christians or just in general talking about Christians Living all over the world and persecuted however you take it that to mean and there is debate about that what that means Regardless of that he is basically talking to people that are persecuted and going through trials and saying joy to you That's his greeting joy to you. I know it's not all well with you I know that you may be going through troubles, but joy to you What a greeting right a surprise surprising greeting And I think we need to hear that we need to get our greeting joy to you as you are going through a hard time Because in here James shows us the way the church can rejoice even in trial And that's what we're gonna start by looking at the first thing that God grants us when we're going through a hard time is he grants his joy He gives us joy in our trials Now We know that pain is real as real as pleasure is if you've ever experienced pleasure You know that pain is real and you know that if things can go wrong They will go wrong at some point that's the reality of life But you know the last thing in your mind when you're going through a hard time is to rejoice I mean it is such in a natural thing for you to think about being joyful When you are going through cancer or some sickness or your marriage is falling apart or there's just horrible things going on The last thing on your mind is to say oh praise the Lord everybody It's not natural And yet James is able to say Responsory your trials with joy Now we've dismissed people who who who claim to have joy when they're having a hard time is We just dismissed them right we either dismissed them as you are out of touch with reality Or you are basically an irrational person or my personal favorite and this is what I call the people you're just simply crazy If you're exuding joy in you know despite your trial I mean there must be something wrong with you humanly speaking
And yet James can say the same thing James must be a crazy pastor He must be out of his mind for him to tell the people that you may be going through persecution and trials but have joy Now We know how we respond to hard times in trials And we know that it's not easy and for obvious reasons when we go through trials trials are painful They are hard they are difficult to go through And yet James can say that let that be the ground for your joy now We must remember that James is not in any way telling the people that are being persecuted or the people that are doing okay Seek joy so that you may rejoice you know I think that you are supposed to go seeking joy Saying you need to look at trials from a very different perspective I would say from a radical perspective for you know this regard your natural inclination to fear your natural inclination to be discouraged Your natural inclination to be filled with anger because those are real things that we have to face and instead Have a radical perspective on your trials that We got to be careful here again, and I got to mention this I don't think James is saying Be cheerful when you're going through a hard time man. I'm afraid You see me smiling. I don't think that James is talking about a cheerful or even a careful way you just disregard Oh, yeah, I may be going through this thing, but you know when I'm I'm gonna forget about no James is not talking about creativity. He's not talking about those things James is talking about a real joy that we do not we cannot create and real joy that comes from God It's not something that we can come up with. It's not something that we can conjure up from within ourselves And then he's talking about these trials and he says you know kind of don't join my brothers when you meet trials or various kinds Well, you know that the testing of your faith the testing of your faith will produce that fast or endurance or whatever language you your Bible translation Uh, uh, uses and that language of testing actually is used of the refinement and purification of silver and gold won't that to come but keep that in mind that's the language of silver and gold being refined And therefore so so James is saying your suffering your trials are being or are means by which your faith is being tested by the Files of adversity and they are being purified so that the draws can be taken away so that all the bad stuff can be taken away and through that process God is gonna strengthen you God is gonna strengthen you the idea is not that James is saying that trials are going to be the determinant or whether you are faith or not No, James is talking about the testing which proves a faith that is already there for believers for Christians That already have faith now, but he's a big question that we got to ask ourselves I've never gone through a trial that shook the very core of your faith I've ever gone through a testing a trial that was just so difficult that it made you question and doubt everything that you believe in about Because some of us go through those trials if you haven't thank God you have But some of us will go through trials that will really question everything we believe about God Whether God is loving or caring whether God is truly there
For James is encouraging us to know that God is using our trials and our suffering to mold us and to mold our character Because I'm telling you friends. There's something that we can only learn through through suffering There are lessons in this life that God will not teach us any other way other than that path that way of Suffering it's difficult. Yes, but that is the testing that produces Steadfastness that produces endurance and to use a modern language. That's how you get tough That's how you get tough If you want to be a strong Christian it is by going through tests and tests and trials and trials that we become tougher and tougher think about a boxer. How does a boxer learn how to fight back You can't teach a boxer to just tell him yeah, this is how you throw a punch and and that's how you take it That's how you evade no, he's got to go through it And the more you get punched in the face and you get punched again and again and again You begin to realize all you know what I can protect myself and I can punch but And the more hits you take The more you learn how to protect yourself, but the more you take the more you're also able to Give back Now don't hear me talking about toughness and saying that the toughness of a Christian is by just believing in your own ability and your own strength And saying I'm gonna pull myself up by the by the bootstrap. So as John says by your sandals No No It is relying on God who is working on you. It is relying on the strength and by the spirit of God It is by asking the Lord to help you understand what your suffering is all about so that you get tougher Our trials have meant to purify our faith They are necessary for spiritual growth You see the trials really give us an opportunity to prove that we truly have genuine faith in God that we truly do believe in God And and I think the beauty of understanding that will help us to count it all joy And the reason why we counted all joy is to understand that through our trials God is trying to teach us something that is not present in us And so the prospect of gaining something through our trials Should really make us get excited about it. It's hard again. That's why I called it a radical perspective But the prospect of knowing that God is trying to give us something that we don't have with its patience with its kindness with its generosity whatever it is Hard to make us be joyful and and yes, the path is not ready It's not easy and I don't think James is saying it's ready. It's it's difficult It's painful and sometimes it is slow It's like an athlete who is running and athlete knows that I can exercise. It's going to be painful It's going to be hard and when I go to the race It's going to be endurance and determination that's going to take me there But he knows that there is a goal and purpose our trials our suffering have a goal and a purpose God is molding us God is making us for himself and James as you're talking about us being made perfect and complete lacking in nothing now, but this idea is both present and future I think it's more future that James is saying so that when we're presented before God we will be perfect in him Of course, he's not talking about perfection on this side of heaven endurance steadfastness that James is talking about here is not some tooth clenched resignation Neither is it some Presivity of life just going through stuff and not regarding them as as hard things It is seeking to obey God It is seeking to do what God says and having the ability to submit to him when he says it's going to take this wrong Sometimes it may be a long thing Someone once said to choose suffering makes no sense at all But then he said but to choose to do God's will in the midst of suffering means the world We must keep on keeping on and I think our prayer must always be God I am impatient with you when I'm going through a trial God I am restless and I am doubtful that you are even at work in my life I don't see it when I open my eyes I cannot see it. I don't feel it. I don't sense it But our prayer must be God give me the courage To come to you and ask for joy give me the courage to count it all joy Despite what I go through so God gives us joy The second thing that God gives us is wisdom and we need it We need wisdom when we go through trials, right? We need wisdom to know how to conduct ourselves how to react how to how to carry ourselves because when troubles come when trials come Those are the moments that we really are clueless about what to do And the one thing we cry out to God of course when we're going through a hard time is please take this thing away from me What's the other question if we realize that God is not taking it away from us Why and then we ask what how long and then we ask what There's so many questions we can ask I mean that's the idea we can ask a ton of questions But one of the questions that we ask is I do not know what to do You show me what what what am I supposed to do? So I'm suffering what am I supposed to do? And I think sometimes it's easy for us to think of what suffering is just chaotic Everything is just out of control Everything is just all out there. It's it's a it's a big mess and nobody's going to sort it out But God wants us to see that our trials are not perfectless mess Our trials are not some perfectless mess There's something that God is doing with us that we you know for us and so wisdom here the James is talking about is not Is not knowing what is not what we know so to speak wisdom here is And I love this Wisdom for James is not What we know but what we ought to become Wisdom is what we ought to become God is doing something It's not knowledge not how much knowledge you have It's not intelligence. I used to have a friend of mine that I would share a prayer request and every time I told them I was struggling and having a hard time all I needed from them was just for them to listen to me Just know that I was going through a hard time They would send me 20 50 passages from scripture. I'm like I know all those passages
All I needed you to do is just admit that I am a sinner just like you just listen to me pray for me. Let me vent just Let me be See for James Wisdom here is a moral and spiritual quality that that is based on the fear of God beginning of wisdom Is the field of the word and you know, I love the fact that James is really not pointing us as we struggle to some simplistic Solution to our trial is that James is is basically pointing out to a wisdom that we cannot buy with money That we cannot you know get and reach with our own human determination It's not just something that you can say. Oh, you know what? I'm going to sell you all this stuff up and I will know how to handle my trials. No
James is pointing us to the grace of God. He's saying you need help when you're going through a hard time You need to look to God and you will grant you the wisdom from him not human knowledge and intelligence and solutions to problems
And I think it's important for us to hear that because when we go through trials the first In the first response we have is is a response of guilt Right If only I could have done things differently, right? That's what we say, you know If I could only have cared for this child if I could only have loved my my husband or my wife If I could have just done this it would never have happened the second thing we do is confusion Why did this happen to me? And why just me we don't realize that we are going through difficult times just like any other person out there And then we're going to a place of fear Everything is completely out of control. Nobody's going to fix it And we're going to anger nothing can be done. This is a hopeless Max Wisdom Wisdom points us to the grace of God We're able to take the guilt and the confusion and the fear and the anger and the discouragement and the despair all of those things and begin to show us child I am walking with you and I'm leading you and I'm showing you what is going to happen here Asking for wisdom James says yes, we ask and God generously gives what he says the manner in which you ask matters Saying don't be a double soul that's that language over here double minded double soul Don't be a double soul person. What does that mean James is basically saying this listen There is a true unbelief that happens sometimes when we ask from God where we we're actually pretending to somehow believe or trust that God is is going to do something but we're really relying on our own abilities We're really relying on on what we're capable of doing and and James is saying you cannot do that If you ask you must be willing to first of all obey God and understand that it is his will and not yours It's going to be done But you must also be willing to submit that will when God says no When God says wait
Asking in faith is not demanding you better do this right now
It is not asking and then grumbling and complaining It is not demanding that God reach you by where you are right now Healing at this point right now
Augustine once quick and he said Speaking of this particular passage he says it's like asking God don't make me pure but not now
Not now can you just wait until I mess up a little bit Then you can start working on me You know, you've got to be willing to submit ourselves fully to God Again Sometimes waiting can be a slow process, right? A painful process And then James gives us an example here and I love this example that he may seem a little disjointed that James will start talking about You know wealth and you know verse 9 let the lonely brother boasting his exaltation the rich and we may be wondering what does that have to do with Anything with trials. I mean he's talking about the rich not boasting in their wealth wall The thing is we can spend all of our energy and all of our life Trying to get money Trying to pursue material well only to leave it behind when we die And we know what money functions in our lives right money talks right Yes, it does money does talk but it tells lies See money tells us that we are important people Money tells us that we are the most significant people Money tells us that we have security in it not in God Money tells us that we have power And that's why money can be so destructive. I tell you when I do marriage counseling if there's one thing one thing That breaks up marriages finances money Such a big deal So those who are going through poverty and a hard time with finances can be tempted to look into what money can give the self worth and the security and And power and James is saying no don't do that Because there's poverty or There's you can talk about wealth first. There's wealth that can leave us poverty-stricken and there's poverty That can leave us or can make us Fabulously rich Understanding or self-worth And all I'm going to say about this example because we're going to come back to it is this Do you want the good life? Do you really want the good life? Who doesn't? Here's the secret Psalm 73 if you want the good life Stay near to God. That's it And then I think James is also here comparing how temporal riches are with our trials as well. It's a play of languages here And so we must seek God's wisdom because we need to understand even when we are going through poverty and and hardships Financially speaking to understand that our self-worth and our security and our power is only found in Jesus Christ When we're going through uncertain times that we can look to God and say God you are my God and you are my provider You're going to provide all these things to me. I may not have the finances But God will provide for needs And you know, it's when those trials when a spouse walks out of a mage when when you lose a job when when that Problem child just becomes a problem child even more when when you're crippled with sickness and going through a hard time When you deal with depression and anxiety when you deal with all this thing that we you must ask the question Is Jesus worth Serving and loving and obeying and glorifying every time even in those moments of my tribe
It is in those dark moments of our life That we must ask the question is Jesus still worth our pursuit The hardest thing for us is He doesn't always tell us why we're going through a hard time In fact when we're going through those hard times he feels like he's silent Like he's not there even though he's there But we must be reminded that God always desires the best for us He is always good. I read a story about Jet pilots Do you know jet pilots are some of the The best experts you can find out there their vast experience in training a jet pilot has to go through tremendous tremendous training Before they can be allowed To fly a commercial airplane And of course, all these reasons right it's not a car if if if if I was driving a kind of just felt like oh man I don't know what these signs mean. I can just park the car on the side and if I had passengers just tell them find someone else to drive Where you're going when you're 10,000 feet above You can't do that But is the thing do you know that jet pilots know that with their expertise and all that they cannot land a plane on their own That it would be foolish to ignore the control tower Don't try to land the plane on your own Don't try to rely on your own strength. You're not an expert when it comes to trials You have not gone what Christ has gone through to know what true trial is Don't try to insulate. Don't try to come up with your own solutions to land the plane God is standing and saying I can give you wisdom. I can provide it to you in order you for you to know how to do with your trials So look to him Finally, James says I give you joy. I give you wisdom I give you strength When you're going through hard times again when you go through a hard times the first thing we want to do is God take this thing away from me There's nothing wrong with asking that question the problem is that's not your greatest need That's not the the worst thing that could ever happen to you is not the affliction itself The greatest danger is not the wrong that I may face or the wrong that's done to me the greatest danger is the wrong that I can do
It's interesting that the same language for trials in terms of suffering is the same language for temptation meaning being tempted to sin So James reminds us of how much we need to be aware that life is a temptation. We're tempted by everything We see everything we think about everything we do there's temptation for us all over the place Jesus did did promise us that we would be tempted we would face temptation temptation is not a problem It's not a sin, but it's what James describes here that we begin to think about our temptation We would begin to not only think about it, but actually go beyond the thought process and then imagining it We let it linger in our hearts Before we know it we're frustrated we're miserable we're obsessing over it and by that time we were to see
See the truth is we all have sinful desires every single one of us has a sinful desire And the problem is if we keep nurturing it It's only a matter of time before we say And so the best way to kick temptation out of the door is actually to kick it out of the go before it enters in right Don't let it in don't don't play with temptation Don't don't let those things come into your life because within all time you're gonna find yourself having a hard time to you know saying now And James is really careful to remind us that we That Jesus does not tempt anyone Jesus does not tempt us in the sense that he wants us to sin or fall into sin the problem is me The problem is you you are the problem I am an expert in Evasion if you will You know, I I want to blame people I want to blame circumstances. I want to blame everything else Everything but me Josiah did not do it. It was because That's why I sinned I'm not saying that things don't have effect on us in terms of how we we grow up and and acting all of that But sometimes we even blame God God made me do it Given an opportunity none of us would take responsibility for what we do We would blame someone else
Here that sin would actually be helpless If there was nothing in the human being to appeal to me You know sin would have no effect on us if there was nothing that sin had to appeal to us and so sin appeals to a sinful desires And it goes like oh yeah, you like that don't you yeah
Again, we may ask the question so if God loves us if God cares for us then why would he allow these temptations all these things to come to us what Why why does God allow temptations to come to us?
I believe that God speaks to us louder In those moments of all brokenness when we realize that we're hopeless We can't protect ourselves When our desires are raging and the evil one is tempting us It is in those moments that God is working in and speaking to us louder than before Let me ask our question How would you learn how to fight something if you've never encountered it? You would have no clue So for us to grow and to learn how to fight evil and to fight our desires God has got to allow those temptations to happen to us again So that we may go at it and the more we conquer by his grace the more we overcome by his grace The tougher we are becoming the more resistant we're becoming to temptation and to sin That's why and how do I do we fight Jesus gives us the way to fight evil and our desires When Jesus was tempted what did he do by the evil and he said it is written we fight by giving God's word and reminding our own desires But also the temptation the evil one who comes to us by reminding him This is what God says about me this is what God says about this particular thing And I am armed I am ready you are not going to defeat me because I have God's word And I will overcome But that means you must be spending time in prayer and reading your Bible Because otherwise what you're not going to quote what you don't know You're not going to pray what you don't know A friend of mine shared a story with me a while ago and I thought it was such a powerful story So this week I asked him to send it to me It's a story. It's a known another way it comes from It's a story about a group of women that were in the Bible study There was studying the book of Malachi and they came across Malachi chapter three verse three which says he will sit as a refiner And purifier of silver He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver And so they they were puzzled by this passage and so they wondered What did this mean in terms of God's nature and his character And so one of the ladies volunteered to go and find out what that particular passage meant So she called up a serviceman to watch him at work And she would come back and report to the Bible So she never told the serviceman why she was doing this other than curiosity So she goes and she meets the serviceman and she watches him at work And so the serviceman would take the silver and just hold it right in the in the flames and he was He didn't get up and as he was doing it he told this lady that He had to hold the silver right in the middle of the flame where there were hottest right then And so she started imagining He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver God holding us in that hot spot And so she she asked him just wanted him to verify she said Is it true that you have to sit there the whole time while the silver is being refined and he said Yeah, I have to sit right here and hold the silver right there But he said more than that I actually have to watch the silver the whole time Because if it was to be left only for a moment too long The silver is completely destroyed And she was like oh, so she paused For a second she asked him a question The big question, she said so tell me How do you know when the silver is fully refined Serviceman spoke that her and he smiled And he said oh, that's the easy part When I see my image reflected in it
Psalm 66 reminds us That silver is refined by fire But the heart is refined by pain See the most important thing in this life is not to do It is to become It is not to do To become see that loss of your job That trial that cancer that husband that wife that child that The trouble that you're facing Did you know that nothing none of that has come To you without passing through God's love and care for you and you see God is sitting He's holding you in that heart spot But you know what he's doing he's slowly adjusting the heat Waiting patiently for the scum of your life to be We find until that day When you meet Jesus and his reflection Is going to be on you your trial is a blessing Because God is maturing you through that trial Father, we thank you this day that you've given to us and So thank you for your word that reminds us that you Are refining us Every day Remind us you know a struggle you know suffering Well, how much you love us and we can't need to care for us in Jesus name