Trials
James 1:1-4
“Too Loving to Waste Pain”
Few years ago, one of the most beautiful parks in America took on the characteristics of hell
- Nearly one million acres of Yellowstone National Park were charred
- Despite the efforts of 10,000 firefighters - the park burned for days
But what appeared to be catastrophic turned out to be nature's signature, written with a grand flourish
- For the fire healed rather than ravished the forest floor
- Old deadfall was cleared out
- Seed cones that can only be triggered by heat opened and gave birth to new trees
- Plant species increased 10-fold
Ecological disasters sometimes end up as blessings
- But is such true in the lives of people?
- Can an unexpected cancer, an accident, a separation of friendship, the loss of a job, the pain of rejection, persecution of convictions be a good thing?
According to James 1:1-4 - it can be even more than good - giving us a structure for dealing with life's inevitable challenges – difficult times can, ironically, be one of the best things that ever happened to us
His readers were facing such challenges
- Described in vs.1 as "scattered" - uprooted, losing the security of homes, family
- Jewish believers forced out because of their convictions - leading to poverty and oppression
James wants them to know, us to know, that God is doing something in our lives that may even involve pain
- And He does not intend to waste it
- But it will be wasted if we don't respond rightly
How must we face life's challenges, life's pain?
1- WITH EXPECTATION - RATHER THAN DENIAL
- "When" - not "If"
- For trials are part of the human condition
- Job 5:7 - as sparks fly upward - so with the same predictability -- man is born for trouble
- Life can be counted on to provide all the pain that any of us might need
- So long as we remain in the body, there will be loss, bereavement, partings, griefs of a thousand sorts
- As Yancey puts it, “Everyone lives out a unique script of hardship”
- One does not get too far into life without realizing that no one gets to heaven - or hell for that matter - trouble free
- It is part of the human condition - a consequence, in part, of our flawed condition
- And no one who comes to Christ gets a pass from pain - this is at the heart of
James' message
- In fact-when God reveals His grace - trials can sometimes tend to increase
- Just ask Abraham, as he headed for Mt. Moriah
- Job, as he scratched at his boils
- David, hiding in a cave
- Elijah, moping in the desert
- Moses - who responded to the call of God and soon pleaded for a new job description
- The disciples - who each went through suffering for identifying with Jesus
- And many of you - who came to Christ and discovered all hell broke loose
- Paul - who declared in Acts 14 - "Through affliction we must enter the kingdom of God"
Tozer - "It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt deeply"
Such realities compelled Peter to write, “Don’t be surprised at the painful trial that you are suffering – as though something strange were happening to you.”
And yet - we treat them as strange - as unwelcome rather than expected guests
- As unexpected – as something that should not have happened to us
- Shifting to denial – cover up
- We privately ask God – why?
- And publicly present an image life could not be better – when often it could be
But James goes further – much further
- If God’s purpose is to be accomplished in our pain
- We must not only face trials with expectancy –rather than denial – face them…
2 - WITH JOY - RATHER THAN DESPAIR
- Consider – count it, regard tough times as joy
- This is hard enough – but here’s what trips me up – “full,” complete Joy with a capital “J”
- One wonders if James lost his mind
- How can there be sheer joy in traffic jams, delayed flights, flat tires, and cold food?
- How does one celebrate when there is financial reversal, hurtful words, loss of life, ruined health?
This seems so contrary to an age that places an extremely high value on comfort, personal happiness, self-fulfillment
- Our immediate response to suffering is to consider it pure bad news
- We have become too soft to scale such spiritual heights
- Evidenced by prayers absent of a vocabulary for suffering
- Our immediate response to suffering is to pray for healing - for the absence of pain
- We do not normally invite God into our pain - asking Him to show us Himself - to know Him in ways we otherwise could not
- Our immediate response to those facing suffering is to speculate as to what has caused the judgment – our first assumption is that something is out of sync with God
Illustration –I knew a godly woman who came down with cancer, but to her great anguish, her immediate Christian community saw it as something that must be immediately remedied by increased faith – something that must be faced with grief and guilt and despair and anger – if things do not change
- We're far more interested in God eliminating the complications rather than seeing Him work through them
- Want the crowns without the cross
- Translate salvation as deliverance from anything unpleasant
James suggests that our response may completely miss the point
- That His goodness goes far deeper than pleasure or pain
- That those who “use” God as a means of self-realization, comfort, escaping pain, finding pleasure, immediate healing – usually come away disappointed
- We must FIRST consider the work God might be doing – and rejoice in
whatever that might be – for it is always for good.
But James is not done – he adds one more –
- If God’s purpose for our pain is to be accomplished, we must face hard times -with expectancy – with joy …
3 - WITH SUBMISSION - RATHER THAN RESISTANCE
- James seems to be warning - don't interfere with the process
- There is a purpose behind all of this
- There are benefits that can be lost if we resist
Like peaches picked too early - that remain hard and never ripen
- Don't short circuit the process – and end up tasteless
In all of this, it’s as if James is saying – at times – we need problems more than we need solutions
- Failures can often be far better than success
- Pain can sometimes be healthier than comfort
Why?
- Why accept trials, why count it joy to suffer, why submit???
A – GOD IS WORKING OUT HIS WILL – SHAPING A LIFE
- That will likely not happen any other way
- Underscoring everything James is declaring is this - GOD IS TOO LOVING TO
WASTE OUR PAIN
- When He seems most absent, He may be doing His most important work in us
- God is most likely using, testing to work something needful to our faith - making alterations necessitated by sin
B – GOD IS WORKING PATIENCE – vs.3
- A term descriptive of steady endurance, persistence, tenacity, grit
- A spirit resolved, determined
- A Capacity to Endure – a willingness to remain under
- An enlarged ability to know God – which is a far greater joy than anything life serves up
- A life that will impact others
Think of Corrie ten Boom - whose trials produced in her a spiritual toughness
- A depth of character
- A detachment from self and an attachment to God
In his book, Great Souls, Aikman surveyed the 20th century in search of the greatest influencers – people with immense capacity – and settled on who, for the most part, were well acquainted with suffering
- Mandela – 27 years in prison
- Mother Teresa – who lived in the center of it
- Solzhenitsyn – in the Gulag – who at one point cried, “Prison, I bless you”
- For in the losing control of his circumstances, he was given what life on the outside did not give him -- Character
Oswald Chambers once wrote --
"When God wants to drill a man,
and thrill a man,
and skill a man...
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part
When He yearns with all His heart,
To create so great - so bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed.
Watch His methods, watch His ways
How He ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him…”
Tozer – “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply”
God may use a chisel or a jackhammer
- The choice is often ours to make
- In all of this -
C – GOD IS ABOUT MAKING US WHOLE – vs. 4
Ultimately - God intends that our lives do not lack
- Complete, Sound, Unbroken – AUTHENTIC
- Bringing us to Himself – to Christ – to a Savior who alone can reform and shape us.
- Completed lives attract the world
- At work - trials build character
This is the theme – the aim of the book of James: God’s Manual to Wholeness
CONCLUSION:
More important than the pain – is our response
-- Will we use it – or waste it?
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