The Truth About Trials | James 1:2-4

The Certainty of Trials in James 1

Amen. Well, good morning, everybody. Please open your Bibles to the book of James. This message is titled, The Truths About Trials. We're gonna be in James chapter one. Today, I want to share with you a little bit about trials.

Today, we're gonna be talking about trials and what God's word has to say about them. But our main text today is in James chapter one, verses two through four. But let's start in verse one. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for this privilege that I have to deliver your word to this church, Father. I pray that it would be your words coming out of my mouth, that I would be true to the text, and that you will give us ears to hear.

In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so let's look again at verse two. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. When you meet trials of various kinds. It's important to note here that James doesn't say if you meet trials, but when you meet trials.

Trials are an inevitable part of life. Life is marked by trials, and all of us experience them, and life is full of trials, and they are indeed inevitable. And I'm sure all of us here have had to take a test at some point in our lives, whether it was in school, or at a job, or what have you.

And sometimes taking those tests can be rather difficult, right? And really, a test is nothing more than a trial. They are essentially the same thing. We go through tests to help us grow, and to gain knowledge.

So we all have tests in our life, and we all face them. What tests have you been through in your life, and how did you respond to them? What kind of trial was that for you? David sought God's testing in Psalm 26, verse two.

He says, prove me, O Lord, and try me. Test my heart and my mind. And he also says in chapter 139, verse 23, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. So I can guarantee you that you are either about to go into a trial, or you're already in a trial, or you're already coming out of a trial, just come out of a trial.

John 16, 33, Jesus says, I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace, that in the world you will have tribulation. You will have trouble. Job 5, 7 says, but man is born into trouble just as the sparks fly upward.

So what Job is saying here is just as naturally as you throw a piece of wood onto a fire, just as naturally you see the sparks fly upward, so will we encounter trials in our life. This happens because we live in a fallen world.

Because we live in a fallen world, everything, every aspect of this world, creation, ourselves, and all of the universe is stained by sin and marked by trials. Trials are just an inevitable part of living in a fallen world.

Once again in Job 14, verse one, he says, man is born of a woman, that's pretty much everyone, is few of days and full of trouble. Not one of the most popular verses of the Bible, but it is true. First Corinthians 7, Paul even says that the married will have trouble.

Speaking of Paul, let's look at 2 Corinthians real quick. 2 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 28. You wanna talk about going through some trials, let's read what Paul says in giving an overview of his life after becoming a Christian.

So we'll start in verse 23. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one, I am talking like a madman, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one.

Do the math on that. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Other than that, everything else is going pretty good. Good. So Paul went through many trials, difficult trials.

So the question isn't are you gonna face trials, but how are you going to deal with them, and what is God going to do in your life, and what did you learn while, what did you learn while in the trial you were in?

Do you see trials as a blessing or a curse? Do you see trials as being from God? Do you see trials in that they make you stronger or make you weaker? Do trials lead you to joy, or do they lead you to sadness?

Do trials make you trust God more, or to complain more? I want to talk to you this morning about standing firm in the midst of your trials. But before we get there, let's talk a little bit about this book of James for a moment.

So here in verse one of our text today, we have James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Now a couple things right here about James. This is probably the first book written for the New Testament that was included in the New Testament, the first penned.

Most scholars would say as early as mid -40s AD. It was written by James, who is Jesus' half-brother. Even though he was the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, he most likely didn't become a believer until after the resurrection.

We see in John 7, five, that James and his brothers did not believe in him. But Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15, six through seven, that Jesus, after his resurrection, appeared to James as well as to the apostles.

And this is where he most likely became a believer, seeing the risen Savior. History tells us that James became an elder in the early church. In fact, he was a very important figure in the first council of Jerusalem that we see in Acts 15 and occurred around AD 50.

He was referred to by the apostle Paul to be a pillar in the church, as we see in Galatians 2, nine. When James wrote this epistle, he wrote with great authority as someone who has seen the risen Christ.

There is no hesitancy in his writing or in his style. He desires to communicate the truth with great passion and precision. The audience James is writing to are the Christian Jews that have been scattered abroad, most likely after the execution of Stephen in Acts 7.

And this epistle of James, in many ways, is the Proverbs of the New Testament. He refers to the book of Proverbs a lot. And this epistle isn't so much trying to wax eloquently on deep doctrinal truths as much as it's an attempt to just be practical.

Just get practical wisdom on how to handle trials in your life, not only how to handle trials in your life, but what the evidence of true faith is, that true faith will always result in obedient works.

Now, I think it's important to see how he addresses himself as, in the first verse of his letter, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. This word here for servant in the Greek is doulos.

It means slave. I think it reveals a lot of his heart right here when he calls himself a servant, a slave of God. He didn't start by saying James, the half-brother of Jesus, or James, a pillar of the church of God.

No, he says, I am a doulos of God. I am a slave of God. He understood his most important relationship with Jesus, and that was not as his half-brother. No, he recognized his most important relationship to Jesus was that he was a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was through the merits of Jesus that he was a slave to him. It was his spiritual relationship that was the most important, that he was adopted, chosen by God, into the merits of Jesus Christ. So James understood his position in Jesus.

Joy in the Midst of Trials

So today I have three points. I have three points for us to see what the purpose of trials are. So number one, that you would learn to have joy. Look again to verse two. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

Count it all joy. So what is James saying here? To count it all joy during trials. Well, count means to take account of, consider, or evaluate. The natural human response to trials is not to rejoice. Trials are not fun, and by definition, they shouldn't be.

The believer must make a conscious commitment to face them with joy. As we talk about having joy, we need to know that the word trial in the Greek means to make an attempt to learn the nature or character of someone or something.

That's what the word means, to learn the nature or character of someone. In other words, God wants to test your character, not to pull you down and to expose your weakness, as much as to build you up and to build strength.

God's desire in bringing trials into your life is to be filled with joy, not to be filled with sadness, but to be filled with joy as you understand that God in this trial is going to make you stronger.

Remember that it's God who wants to do the testing. So count it all joy. It's hard to learn about something like this passage in the middle of a trial. When James says count it all joy, that's for us to learn now, so that in the midst of a trial, we'll be a little more patient, a little more kind.

While it's still true, we need to learn how to rejoice on the good days, so that on the bad days, the Holy Spirit will take his word and bring to remembrance the things that he has said, and we can rejoice in that.

Even in this moment, even in this trial, God says I can count it all joy. He desires that I would consider it, evaluate my position, and realize that God commanded that my response would be joyful. I don't know about you, but that's not my normal response.

God says we need to count it as joy. We need to count it as joy. It's a command. He's not saying that we need to get excited about the pain of a trial, but rather we can rejoice in the midst of a trial, because we know that this trial has a purpose, and God's purpose is that we would be strengthened and that we would grow.

God wants you to have joy in the midst of your trial. That's the first thing he says. Even before he says you have to grow and complete what's lacking, he says no, it starts off where you need to be joyful, right here, right now.

I want to give you my joy, says his word. Turn to 1 Peter 1, 6 -7. 1 Peter 1, verses 6 -7. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes through it, is tested by fire.

May it be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We all know this passage in 1 Peter. Being tested by fire has the idea of a goldsmith and has to heat up a fire and then take the gold as a liquid metal.

The dross or the impurities would rise to the top. And so the goldsmith would scoop off those impurities and toss them aside, he would throw them out. And then he would heat it up again. And then once again, the impurities, the dross will rise to the top and he would scoop that off as well and toss it to the side.

That's what God is doing. Because your faith is a greater work than pure gold. God says your faith is even greater than gold and the way it becomes greater than that is because God is testing you. God is turning up the burner of your life because he desires to grow you and change you.

And knowing that will certainly give you reason to rejoice from the very beginning of a trial. One purpose of our trials is so that you can learn to have joy but the second purpose will lead us to our second point.

And that is you would look for growth. It's point number two, that you would look for growth. Let's look again at verse three of James. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Steadfastness could be translated as endurance. And we know that endurance is a good thing. It's good to have endurance. If you are running cross country or something of the sort, you want to build up endurance on that race day so you don't give out.

You have to build up in your life endurance. You have to build endurance and you have to work out. Those of you who like to work out in a gym physically, you have to have resistance, right? Resistance training.

It helps build endurance in your body and in your life. So think of it as a muscle. It only gets stronger the more it's strained because what's happening is the way that they grow is that thousands of little tears in the muscle are being produced when you exercise.

But when your body recovers, it builds back muscle in those gaps and the muscle gets stronger. That's how faith works. God puts us in situations that tear our faith so that it can grow back stronger. We see that God uses testing and trials as a loving means to grow us in our faith.

And if our faith isn't tested, we grow weaker. Hebrews 12 verses one through three. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witness, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. So this passage reminds us that Jesus has been there. I mean, he faced the ultimate trial and he surpassed everyone.

And the Bible says, look to him. Look to Christ, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising shame. Run with endurance, God's word says. Not so you get tired, but so that you would not grow weary and faint-hearted.

Trials are not brought into your life to make you weary, but rather to grow you stronger. Trials are not brought into your life to make you weary, but to make you stronger. Perseverance and testing results in spiritual maturity and completeness.

So lastly, our third point for trials would be this, that God will complete you. God will complete you. Verse four, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.

Sometimes you will hear from people, I'm in the midst of a trial right now and I just don't know why. Sometimes people will be in that perspective mode and say, I don't know what God, I know God is up to something, but I just don't know what.

But based on what we're learning here this morning, we can respond to them and say, I do. I know what he's up to. God wants to make you stronger. He wants to complete something that is lacking in you.

He wants in your heart and in your life and in the faith that he's given you to strengthen in such a way, to such a degree that you'll no longer be lacking. There is a purpose to our trials and that is what we would rejoice in and that will be built up in endurance, but also that God's word will complete you.

In other words, every one of us is lacking something in areas of our lives. The only way to fill you up to the point of completion is to put you through a trial. That's the only way. You'll never be completed without a trial and that God and his goodness will bring into your life.

It's because of God's great love for you that he brings trials into your life. He sent his son to die on a cross for you so that he could bring trials into your life and make you more like his son. It's from a loving father.

Remember that with no trials, there's no growth. You don't want trials in your life? Then you won't grow. There's an illustration of a man who found a cocoon of an emperor butterfly. Emperor butterflies are beautiful.

They're big and they're blue and purple, just gorgeous. And he took it home to watch it emerge. One day, a small opening appeared and for several hours, the butterfly struggled and couldn't seem to force its body past a certain point.

Deciding that something was wrong, the man took some scissors and snipped the remaining part of the cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled. He expected that in a few hours, the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not.

Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the butterfly spent its life dragging about a swollen body and shriveled wings. The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God's way of forcing fluid from the body out into the wings.

So this merciful snip was in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need. See, sometimes our temptation would be to say, God, just get me out of here. Just get me out of this trial.

But he says, no, I want to grow you in this trial and remove you from it. And if I remove you from the trial, you will be missing something because I desire to complete you. The ultimate goal is that God wants to make you more like Jesus.

Romans 8, 28, we know it all well. We quote it all the time and we should. It says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good and for those who are called according to his purpose.

So we preach that all the time because it's about God's sovereignty. And we should preach that all the time. But we forget about the need to do that. The next verse in 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

His desire in ordaining all the things in your life, bringing everything about in your life is to make you more like him, to make you more like Jesus. So that's the goal. That's the goal. Notice what it says.

In various trials, it could be a life-shattering trial. It could be a trial with just a little discomfort. No matter what it is, God wants to conform you into the image of his son. So how is that working in your life?

Are you becoming more like Jesus in the trials in your life or are you a complainer? Do you wish to just be taken out of a trial or are you saying, God, I want to be more like Christ? Make me more like Christ because I know why I'm going through this trial.

God often does not, does not often remove our trials, but he gives us the grace to endure, to remain steadfast through the trials. He gives us the grace to sustain us underneath these trials. He doesn't take them away.

He gives us the grace to endure underneath them. Remember Hebrews 12, two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Jesus endured the cross.

God did not take the cross away from him. God gave him the strength to endure it. God does not remove our trials. He gives us the strength to endure in the midst of trials. The perfect result of trials, this isn't talking about sinless perfection here.

Salvation is not perfection, it's direction. But God through Christ has equipped us with everything we need to face and to endure trials. If you're a believer in Christ, if you have been adopted into the family of Christ through the merits of Christ, you are a new creature in him.

You have been passed from death to life. You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is strong enough to save you. He's strong enough to keep you. He's strong enough to sanctify you.

He will enable you to grow in the faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and you have him residing inside you. You have the word of God, the perfect, inerrant, infallible, all-sufficient word of God.

So you have the Holy Spirit, you are adopted and sealed into the family of God. You have the word that is perfect and complete and sufficient for everything we need to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

We have the fellowship of the saints. We are to bear one another's burdens. We have everything we need. We are fully equipped unto every good work. We have everything we need to live a life of obedience to Christ for his glory.

We have everything we need to endure our trials. So why do we go through trials? Trials engender humility in us. Trials serve as tests for our faith. Trials result in conformation into the image of Christ.

And trials ultimately result to the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it's easy to be faithful to Christ. It's easy to claim to be a Christian when everything is going well and there's plenty of money in the bank and when our health is good and everyone in the family loves us, when everything is just great, it's easy to be a Christian.

Not so easy when we're going through trials. Know that trials are ultimately designed to bring honor and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. God does not remove our trials, church. He gives us sufficient grace to endure through them.

And when we remain faithful to God in the midst of trials, the persecution, the sickness, we still remain faithful to him. We will speak well of Christ. That brings honor and glory to his name. That glorifies Christ far more so than when everything is going well.

Faithfulness Under Persecution and National Decline

So before we close, I would like to touch on something really quick. I don't wanna spend too much time on this but I think it's important to talk about and to think through. So when we look around us today here in America, September, 2021, the days look dark and they are and they have been getting darker for quite some time.

We see evil running rampant everywhere into every corner of society. We are living in the modern day Holocaust of abortion and the blood of millions of babies running in our streets. The abomination of homosexual marriage is accepted and celebrated.

Boys can be girls and girls can be boys. The ever-growing control of the government over its people as it continues to strangle whatever life is left in this nation and declares what is evil good and what is good evil.

These are dark times we're going into. Speaking as a post-millennialist, we see upswings and we see downswings all throughout history. Some dark periods and not so dark periods all throughout history.

We've had it pretty easy here in the West as Christians. We've never had to deal with hard persecution like we see in other countries right now. None of us have ever been told, deny Christ or die. We've never been beaten for our beliefs.

We've never had our families taken away because of our faith in Christ. I'm not saying that this is the future for us here in America, but if it is God's will for hard persecution to fall upon us, are you standing firm enough in God's truth and trusting in his promises to say, so be it.

I can't say for sure of what will all play out in the near future or what is going to happen in the coming months and years, but one thing I do know is that the one who has been given all power and authority over all of heaven and earth, the one who is still on the throne, the one who gives life to death, the one who is the alpha and the omega, the one who has been given all dominion, glory and kingship, the one who is putting all his enemies under his feet, he is Jesus Christ and his kingdom will continue to grow and thrive and take dominion over the whole earth.

And church, we should not fear what is to come or what may come, for God has not given us a spirit of fear. For what then shall we say to these things if God is for us, who can be against us? Church, when we experience trials and persecution, we must remember the words of James, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. Count it all joy when you face losing a loved one. Count it all joy when you face losing your job. Count it all joy when you face being rejected because of your faith in Christ.

Count it all joy when you face hard persecution. Philippians 4, 29 says, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. It's not often we think of suffering for the sake of Christ as a gift, as a gift to us, something that is granted, but it is.

So as we close, brothers and sisters, suffering for the glory of Christ is something that is granted to us. It is a privilege to be able to suffer for Christ. So when you go through a trial, know that this is for your sanctification.

It is for the testing of your faith. It will serve to conform you more and more into the image of Christ. And it is an opportunity to bring more honor and glory to him. So my call to you this morning is to remain faithful to him through every trial that you face, as well as through this difficult time we are living in within this nation, and to repent of trusting in your own volition.

Remain faithful to Christ during the trials. It doesn't mean that the trials are enjoyable, but we can count them as joy, knowing that they are ultimately for God and for his glory, and they come from his sovereign hand.

There's nothing wrong with praying for a trial to be removed, but maybe instead of praying for the trial to be removed, you should pray that God will conform you into his image, into the image of his son through this trial, and to learn more of him through this trial, and ask for help to remain faithful to him, and to be obedient to him in the midst of this trial, so that it'll result in the praise and honor and the glory of the grace of Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this word. Father, going through trials, going through the fire to be purified, it hurts. At times it hurts, Father, but because of what your word says, that if we remain faithful, if we remain faithful to you, Father, you'll remain faithful to us, and that you'll give us the grace to endure the trials, to endure the fire.

Father, I thank you once again for this message. I pray that you would bless us. In Jesus' name, amen.