James Session 2

Tom Shrader teaches from James 1:2-4 about finding joy in trials and suffering. He explains that trials are inevitable for Christians and come in various forms - not just adversity but also prosperity. The key is knowing that God uses these trials to test our faith and produce endurance, ultimately making us mature and complete.

“What you know trumps what you feel.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: James (2009)

Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 50 min

Themes: trials, suffering, joy, faith, endurance, perseverance, maturity, testing, facing hardship, experiencing loss, financial struggles, going through trials, new believer, struggling believer, pastor, discouraged christian

Scripture: James 1:2-4, James 1:5-6, James 1:22, Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:10, Psalm 17, Psalm 26, Psalm 139, Lamentations, Hebrews 12, Ecclesiastes 7:14, 2 Timothy 3:12

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, faith testing, divine providence, spiritual growth, christian suffering, biblical trials, perseverance theology

Full Transcript

We invite you to open your Bibles to the book of James. As you do that, a special welcome to our guests this morning. We know there's always visitors from the community, and I know the students are in here today also, so it's an honor for me to be able to welcome the students as well.

We are studying the book of James. We don't know how far we're going to get in this, but we're going to take it and certainly capture what James puts as a theme. That was verse 22 of chapter 1, where he challenges us to be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer, to not just listen to what the word says, but to do something with it.

The Author and His Audience

He's writing—this is James, the half-brother of Jesus, who describes himself as a bondservant, a slave, somebody who is totally dependent upon his master for his food and his clothing, his shelter, all provisions. He uses the word for slave that would be a slave who could not be removed from his situation. That's who James is. He's enslaved to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's writing to 12 tribes who are dispersed. They're scattered. They're refugees, likely out of two things. One, an obedience issue—they're going to spread the word. Two, they've experienced great persecution and suffering, and God has used that to scatter them. He's going to use them, just like He uses you and me, by the way, to make His word real to the lost and dying world around us.

We live in a world that we look at and we ask all sorts of questions. We wonder what's going on, and as we look at that and deal with the great questions of life—who am I, why am I here, where am I going—those types of issues, you are the ones with answers. Not because you're so smart, we know you're not, but because you know the One who does have the answers, and you have this book. Life is an Open Book Test. Those were always my favorite kind. I could always get a C in those, and I strive for that, get my grade point up to 2.0 to get out, and that was always my goal. Life's an Open Book Test. Those are the great questions, and He's given us the answers, and He's told us where to look.

Understanding Our Current Circumstances

James sets all of that up, and then he kicks right into understanding his audience. My suspicion is, and I don't know, I can tell you down Phoenix Way, things are really bleak. The perfect example—the house next to us went on the market at $535, and the last I heard it was at $265 with no buyers. Restaurants are off 30% probably. The mall's business last year was off 20%. They're off 23% from that this year. Unemployment rate is absolutely skyrocketing.

I don't know if you know this—in the state of Florida, one out of every four homes is in foreclosure. And so up in here, maybe not as radical as down in Florida, in California, Nevada, and where I'm from. And there's all sorts of pain that's associated with that.

There's something really interesting. I saw a poll the other day. I'm not going to nail this right, but I'm going to come pretty close. In the year 2000, 15% of Americans said they had everything they needed. In the year 2008, the number was 35%. Isn't that interesting? We have less, and yet we sense we have what we need. Maybe God is just drawing our attention to what's really important.

James's Command About Trials

Understanding that, James writes, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting."

Consider it. It's an imperative. It's a command. It's a call for us to react in a supernatural way. James is speaking here of a joy that is unique. It's a joy that God provides. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

He's not talking about happiness. He's not talking about something that's associated with circumstance. He's talking about something that's associated with relationship. He's talking about a joy that's available only to those of us who know Christ in a personal way. He's not talking about something that's fake. He's talking about something that's genuine, not something that's a matter of feelings—nothing wrong with feelings—but an override that kicks in and moves us from feelings to knowledge or wisdom.

The Source of True Joy

So someone can write a song like "It Is Well" in the midst of losing essentially everything in his life. Why? Because ultimately he wasn't looking to those things for his fulfillment. See, that's our problem. John Calvin says your heart and mine is an idol manufacturing machine. We create things that we worship—stuff, people, comfort. And all of a sudden God says, "You know what? Maybe those things are too important to you. It's not that they aren't good, but they're too important. Maybe they're standing in the way of this relationship that I want to have with you."

So in our life comes these things. He calls them trials, these tests. "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith..." There's some things that we can observe when we look at this.

The Inevitability of Trials

The first thing that jumps off the page at me is "when you encounter various trials." Not if, but when. The inevitability of it. One of the doctrines that I see all around me, that I despise, is the health and wealth doctrine. The idea that says God wants you healthy and wealthy and to have all things and smooth sailing. That's simply not true.

Everything that comes in your life, everything, is either caused by or allowed by God. If that's not true, then He's not God. So everything that comes in your life, those trials...

The normal Christian life includes all the usual experiences everyone faces, plus for many receiving this letter, the additional hardship of persecution. God does not promise to put a bubble around you, ensuring that every deal you work on will close, every application you submit will be received, or every test you take you'll pass. He never says that. He doesn't promise that because we're followers of His there's a bubble over us.

It's the opposite. We become a raw nerve. We experience life at its deepest level. "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials."

God Tests Those He Loves

David cries out in Psalm 17, "Thou has tried my heart, Thou has visited me by night, Thou has tested me." In Psalm 26: "Vindicate me, O Lord, I have walked in integrity and I've trusted you, the Lord, without wavering. Examine me, O Lord. Try me. Test me. Test my mind. Test my heart."

Still in the life of David, Psalm 139: "Search me, O God. Know my heart. Try me. Know my anxious thoughts. See if there's anything hurtful in my way. Lead me in everlasting life." The Book of Lamentations says, "Let us examine and probe our ways in return to the Lord."

Jesus never promised us a smooth life. In fact, just the opposite. He said, "I want to give you a warning here. Count the cost. Nobody begins a building project without first planning and evaluating and counting the cost." He wants us to understand realistically what this will be like.

Various Trials Come in All Colors

"Count it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials." The word "various" literally means multicolored. These trials come in all shapes and sizes. They come in every color.

There is the trial of adversity, but there is also the trial of prosperity. The trial of not having enough and then the trial of having too much. If I said to you right now, "Let's take a few seconds and close our eyes and imagine that today, this very day, God is going to test you in some way," your mind immediately runs to the loss of a loved one, the death of a child, the loss of a job, maybe some sort of physical challenge.

Immediately we go there and we miss one of the great trials, maybe the most difficult of all trials: the trial of prosperity and of health. Thomas Carlyle said for every hundred people who can pass the test of adversity, there's only one that can pass the test of prosperity.

The Challenge of Prosperity

God grabs our attention in the midst of hardships and difficulties. But in the midst of prosperity, we tend to forget about Him, don't we? I always thought it was fascinating that Jesus said, "Give us our daily bread." You know why? Because if He gave me my weekly bread, He wouldn't hear from me for seven days. If He gave me my monthly bread, He wouldn't hear from me for 30 days. If He gave me my yearly bread, He wouldn't hear from me for 365 days. If He gave me a lifetime of bread, He wouldn't hear from me at all.

But when He gives it to me day by day, I'm reminded about how weak I am, how vulnerable I am, how totally dependent upon Him I am for my very next breath. We say, "God, make yourself real to me," but I'm not sure we mean it. Well, here's how He does it. He does it in the midst of adversity and hardship and suffering and difficulty. He whispers to us in times of prosperity, but He shouts at us in times of suffering.

Trials Are Proving Grounds

"Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." The idea of trials is closely related to the word in verse 3 of testing. It has with it the idea of proving.

We live outside Phoenix, in a little town called Gilbert. It's now 150,000 people. Even east of that, General Motors has a place where they bring prototypes of cars. They bring them out and put them through a rigorous set of drills. They bring them out there in the heat of the summer. They bring them out there in the middle of monsoon rains. There's a big sign out there that says "GM Proving Grounds." Not testing, proving grounds. We want to see what's really in there. We want to find out who you really are.

Finding True Value

One of my favorite shows is called the Antique Road Show. People bring in things that they think are valuable, and experts evaluate them. I was watching one day when they had the most expensive item they've ever had brought in. A man came in with a rug, a real lightweight rug he was using as a blanket. It was like a throw rug they were putting on their couch, maybe two-thirds the size of the screen width and three or four feet high. It was blue and white, big, bold stripes.

I thought, "What is this guy even wasting his time for? Why is he bringing this in?" The expert got excited and said, "This is magnificent. This is a Navajo..." He said this rug is worth $500,000.

Well, that ruined the whole show for me, because that's not my favorite part. What I love about the Antique Roadshow is when a guy comes in and says, "I'm from Chicago. I have this document signed by A. Lincoln." The expert responds, "Oh, oh. What do you think it's worth?" "Oh, we have no idea. We'd never sell it." Lie number one. "We'd never sell it."

Our True Worth is Revealed in Trials

There's a part of Antique Roadshow that I love. The guy brings in his treasure, all excited, thinking he's got something valuable. The appraiser asks, "What do you think it's worth?" The owner says, "Oh, I really don't know." Then the appraiser says, "Well, we've really looked this over closely. It's worth $1.25." You can see the disappointment on the guy's face as he realizes his treasure isn't what he thought it was.

Here's what we discover: we discover who we really are in the midst of trials and difficulty. Anybody can say they love Jesus when things are going smooth. But now He puts you in the fire, and then we find out what's really in there.

Jesus as Our Role Model in Suffering

The author of Hebrews talks about Jesus. In Hebrews chapter 12, he writes: "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart."

The idea of losing heart is the idea of despairing or giving up. "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials."

What We Value Determines How We Respond

Warren Wiersbe writes this: "Our values determine our evaluations. If we value comfort more than character, then trials will upset us. If we value the material and physical more than the spiritual, we'll not be able to count it all joy. If we live only for the present and forget the future, then trials will make us bitter, not better."

Remember the equation we ended with last night: Faith plus testing or trials equals perseverance. We have this faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's absolutely amazing.

We'll sing songs like "More Important Than Silver, More Important Than Gold." We'll sing Chris Tomlin: "More than enough, You're more than enough for me." We'll raise our hands and sing, "I don't need anything but You." That is so easy to sing sitting in a church or at a place like Cannon Beach. That is not so easy to say when you're in a pit.

Constant Problems, Constant Answer

At 10 o'clock, I was in here for yet another blessing, watching that movie about the story of Cannon Beach again. I bet I've seen that little video 10 times. Mrs. McNeal has a comment in the middle of it that I wrote down. She said, "There are constant problems in our life, but God is always the answer."

I had a guy call me one time. A friend had said, "You should meet Tom," and he called me ahead of time and said, "You need to meet this guy. He's all messed up." So I went in to meet with this guy, and he was like a really big shot, really wealthy community leader. I introduced myself, and he said, "Hello, nice to meet you." I said, "What's the deal?"

He started talking, and I'm not exaggerating—it was like five minutes. "My wife and I are fighting. My girlfriend's mad at my other girlfriend. I got two kids strung out on drugs. My business is falling apart. Physically, I got chest pains. My heart's racing." He just went on and on and on. It was like drinking out of a fire hose. He's just firing this stuff at me. Then he stopped. I said, "I don't even know what the question is, but I know Jesus is the answer."

The Real Problem Behind the Problems

I was using the illustration of those young guys and gals that are coming to one of the Bible studies. They are all messed up. A bunch of the girls have been hookers and strippers, and the guys have sold drugs, sold the girls. These guys are a tough, tough, tough group.

I love to talk to them because they think their problem is that they were strippers and hookers and drug dealers. That's not their problem. Their problem is they don't know Jesus. Because you can quit stripping and hooking and all that. That's not their problem. You can watch these girls and guys cry because here's the problem: they've really never understood what it is to be loved.

That's what everybody wants. I don't care how cool you are. You're sitting there today, and you're really cool. I don't care how cool you are, how pretty you are, how smart you are. There's one thing we all want: to be loved and accepted. I deal with all sorts of business guys, and they're all just little boys inside. You're just little girls inside.

There Is a Bailout for Us

I love it when Jeff was talking about Cannon Beach and saying, "Here we are and there's no bailout for us." That's sort of true. What he means is there's no financial bailout in terms of the government coming to rescue us. Just the opposite—they're going to screw us over here pretty quick.

But there is a bailout for us. "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 6 of Romans 5: "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." Verse 8: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Verse 10: "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."

Here's what He said: while we were helpless, while we were sinners, while we were enemies, God reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. That story of Cannon Beach is one giant bailout story. God again and again bails them out. God bails you and me out.

does not mean, and this is really important, that He necessarily changes the circumstances. Because that's what we think is a bailout. God, I've got this physical problem. Whatever it is, you fill in the blank. It doesn't matter. God, I've got this. You fill in the blank. And somehow we think bailout means take it away.

That's not bailout. Peace is not the absence of turmoil. It's the presence of God in the midst of that turmoil. It's the ability to say and really mean, it is well with my soul. It is okay. Not because I'm so big or great. I'm not. But because you are a great God.

The Key to Joy in Trials

The key to this whole thing is the first word in verse 3. "Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials." Here's the word: knowing. I know something. There's something that I'm certain of. And here's a fundamental thing. If we were at junior high, I did earlier this summer, junior high, high school camp. So at this point I would say, write this down. Or even better yet, get a tattoo. If you're going to get a tattoo, this would be a good tattoo to get.

What you know trumps what you feel. Because in the moments of trials and difficulty, it feels like things are out of control. It feels desperate. It feels like maybe this will never end. Things are, and this is really an important distinction, things are out of your control, but they're not out of God's control.

That's what He's saying. "Consider it all joy. When you encounter various trials." Why? "The testing of your faith produces endurance." Why would God allow these trials in my life? I have a whole list of things: to produce patience, and the fruit of joy, and the fruit of maturity, to purify your life, to make you like Christ, to glorify God, to chasten you when you sin, to prove that we're His, to help our prayer life.

How Trials Transform Our Prayer Life

Doesn't your prayer life, doesn't the frequency of it, and the intensity of it, doesn't it grow in the midst of trials? Sure it does. Man, if everything's going really smooth, it's kind of a prayer like this: "Oh, you're a good God. Father, thank you. Thank you for all your blessings. Thank you for all the things you do. You're a wonderful God. Thank you." But now, when those things begin to get peeled away from you, there's a whole new intensity.

It's not like that. It's not, "God, thank you." All of a sudden, I'm going, "God, I've prayed many, many, many times this year. God, I'm sucking gas here. I'm barely getting by. I don't know if I'm going to make it to tomorrow morning. I don't even know what to do. I'm all messed up 48,000 ways. I don't even see anything that looks hopeful except for you. I don't know what you're going to do, but do it fast, soon. Let me know what it is. Text me. Email me. I don't care. Just let me know."

FYI, I've never gotten a text or an email, but He has communicated to me. It's through this book, as His Spirit applies it, through other people. That's that story again of Mrs. McNeil. Just a little comment somebody would make, and then it would get in her brain, and then it would percolate in there for a while, and she'd go, "I wonder why he said that. Maybe I ought to go check that out. Maybe I ought to go meet that lumber guy. Maybe I ought to go to the guy that owns the building." That's a woman. She's so in tune with God and who He is that when He shows up, she recognizes it.

We're so out of tune that He could smack us in the face, and we don't get it sometimes, but oh, in the midst of suffering, do we get it.

A Real-Life Example of Grace in Suffering

I have an email in front of me. It's dated April 20th this year. I've been talking about suffering, and I got this email from one of the guys in church:

"By the grace of God, I've had the chance to live some of the things you taught. Six years ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In the ensuing time, I've learned that His grace is all it's advertised to be. He didn't allow me to think why me, but instead why not me. My biggest problems were taken care of when He drew me to Himself and forgave my sin. My health is just a matter of an inconvenience, but even more, it's a privilege. It's a mission. I wear the crown of thorns like He wore them for me. What an honor it is for me to wear this disease.

"I'm trapped in a body over which I'm slowly losing control, but there are many who are trapped in the circumstances they can't control. Troubled marriage, poor health, family difficulties, money, most of all, their own sin. The Lord has given me many chances through this to tell them that there is a God who cares. Each day, He gives me strength to match the difficulty. Life is good. I can say that as one who's trapped like them. I live where they live.

"Humanly speaking, I have the certainty of an unhappy ending, but in Him, we exalt in our tribulation. In Him, we have the assurance of life more abundantly, with or without my health, that 50 years from now, I won't have this disease anymore, but I will still have the presence of God. God is faithful. God is good. I welcome the chance to have a normal life, but as strange as it sounds, if I do get well, I'll miss having this disease. It gave me common ground to share the gospel with those who have no hope, though the Lord demonstrated His faithfulness every day. I will miss having the gift of Parkinson's disease, but if health does return, you'll never hear me say I have my life back. Abundant life never left me. I've had this life the whole time in the truest, greatest sense of the word, because I always had Him."

God's Perfect Timing in Worship

I probably, more than anyone, can appreciate how the Spirit is working this week. The guys who put the music together had no clue what I was going to talk about. So when Brandon and Christy got up and sang last night, "God is good all the time, all the time God is good," that's the perfect theme song for what we're doing. When they put together the worship set, they had no idea that the end of session two would lead with "It is Well with My Soul" and the story

of Horatio Spafford. I had no idea that when I sat down to watch that movie today, the line that would jump out at me would be there's constant problems in our life, but Jesus, God, is always the answer. Each and every time. There's no exception.

I became a Christian, and one of the first things I started to do, because I was never a reader. First book I ever read in my life was at just about the end of my junior year of college. I wasn't much of a reader, and part of it was that nobody wrote anything very interesting. I wasn't much of a student. Parents get all nervous when I start talking about this, but unless you're going to be a brain surgeon or something, school is just a tool to get a job, fundamentally. Now, learning is important, but essentially for me, this is what Mark Twain said and I adopted it. He said, I never let school interfere with my education. So I found that I learned most on the sidelines of that.

The Incomplete Promise Book

I became a Christian, and all of a sudden I had this desire to read. I'm in the Christian bookstore one day, and I'm checking out, and there's this book, and it says on it, it's gold leaf, and it says, The Promises of God. I thought, boy, I don't know what they are. So I got through them. Here's what I discovered. This is really important.

In that book, The Promises of God, there were a whole bunch of promises, but here's what I discovered. There's a whole bunch of promises in this book that never got to that book. Here's one of them. "All who desire to live godly for in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That never got to that leather-bound gold leaf promise book. "When you encounter various trials," never got to that promise book.

God gives us these trials so that we can see Him work. "Knowing the testing of our faith produces endurance." I mentioned it last night. So when you pray, "God, I want to break the tape. I want to finish strong. I want to be the man, the woman, the young woman or man that you've called me to be. I want to persevere to the end," God hears you say, "I want to suffer."

Spiritual Aerobics

Suffering, trials, difficulty are spiritual aerobics. My brother's a runner, not a jogger. My brother's a runner. For his 33rd birthday, he was so proud to call me and tell me that he ran 33 miles for his 33rd birthday. I said, "That's nothing. For my 40th birthday, I drove 40 miles. I had to stop and rest, but I did it. It was exhausting."

I started this in my own life about 5 or 6 months ago. I just reached a point through a bunch of circumstances where I said, I'm coming up, I'm going to turn 60 in November. There were a whole bunch of things and I said, I've got to do something. So I started eating correctly and exercising. I looked at the picture that Jeff had and I got my hair cut this week. I took about 12 inches off my hair over the last year, just a little bit less each time.

When they showed that picture of Chris and they said that's coming back again, that style, not for him. It may be coming back again. It ain't coming back for him. It doesn't matter how cool it gets. He ain't never going to have one unless he kills a raccoon and sticks it on his head. That's the only way he's going to have one of them.

Well, I've changed the way I look. So I have all these people, I have all these people and they'll say, "You look good. You've lost some weight. How'd you do it?" I'll say, well, I eat less and exercise more. Every time everybody goes, "Oh." Every time. There's not one example. I have never not had that happen because what they're looking for is what? A pill, a theory, a shot, something you can do.

We want endurance, but we don't want to hear the suffering part. Spiritual aerobics. My brother didn't just get up on his 33rd birthday and run 33 miles. He trained. He runs all the time. He's run literally, and I can't remember what it is now. It's like something every day for 19 years now he's run at least four or five miles. Well, he's ready to go.

God's Involvement in Suffering

Spiritual aerobics. That's what we need. What gets us into shape spiritually? Well, what James is saying is it's trials. It's difficulty. It's hardship. It's the normal Christian life.

R.C. Sproul writes this: "To remove God from human suffering is to quit the pilgrimage of faith. God majors in suffering. He disciplines and displays Himself in the holy involvement in all suffering." Rather than to be removed from our suffering, it's those circumstances that allow us to see God work. Paraphrasing Martin Luther, he said you can't begin to understand hope until you understand hopelessness. Your faith will not be real to you until you comprehend need. Grace is a sweet gift to the truly needy. It's in the midst of all of this that God displays who He really is.

Everything Happens for a Reason

Oprah says this. And you'll hear people say this all the time. And these would be people that would not be Christ followers. And many are kind of this new age or some hybrid of some religion. Oprah says this all the time. Here's what she says: "I believe everything happens for a reason." You hear that all the time. By the way, that's true.

But if everything happens for a reason, then there has to be something that's controlling things. For there to be reason in this, there has to be purpose. There has to be one who's in control. One who's in charge. One who's all-knowing, who's all-powerful. One who's all-loving. I said it when we prayed. We pray to God because, number one, we think that He cares. And number two, we believe that He can do something about it.

"Count it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." What you know trumps what you feel. We were at Disneyland with the girls right after they had opened the Star Wars ride. And one of the things is you get to the front, so now they go in and they have monitors up

here and you can watch the people in the ride. Or you can see the people in the ride. You all been on the Star Wars ride? So you're going and you can see these people and you can see all this going on. And then you get in there and all of a sudden, here's what it feels like. It feels like you're moving forward at hundreds of miles an hour. And then you dip. And then you go over here. And then you come back over there.

In reality, the ride moves less than six inches in any direction. If you come out and say, "How was the ride?" You're going to say, "It felt like we were going two hundred miles an hour. It felt like we dropped a hundred feet. It felt like we just went dead left." But your senses tricked you. What you know trumps what you feel.

David's Understanding of God's Knowledge

David got a hold of this. That's why he wrote in Psalm 139, "Oh Lord, you've examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up, you know my every thought. When far away, you chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I'm going to say even before I say it, Lord. You both proceed and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Too great for me to know."

And then he closes Psalm 139 with these words, "Search me, O God. Know my heart. Test me. Know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me on the path of every lasting life."

The Nature of God's Blessing

I want to be blessed by God. And I am blessed by God when the job happens, when the deal closes, when I get the promotion, when I'm healthy in body and mind and spirit, when I have good friends, when I'm in a body of believers or when God puts me out into the world and uses me to become a blessing.

Let me stop for a minute. I want to drop this in there. God blesses you for one giant reason. What is it? So you can bless others. God blesses you. Now you get to enjoy this blessing along the way. You get to glorify Him. But He blesses you so you begin to bless others.

Why should you give to Cannon Beach? Because this place becomes a blessing to others. Why should you live the life that you do? Because you become a blessing to others.

A friend of mine was just in Africa and they were going to visit this village. It's a village that he and some others had sent a bunch of money over for a medical center and to dig a well. And that was done and they were going over to follow up on this. And they do and out comes the mayor of the city, the tribal leader. And he said because of you this city is better off.

Being a Blessing to Your Community

Let me stop right now. Portland should be a better place because you live in it. Boise should be a better place because you're there. Sacramento should be a better place because you live there. Vancouver should be a better place because you live there. Beaverton should be a better place because you live there.

I do this thing in the summer called Hot Summer Nights. And a lot of stuff at church slows down in summer. So what I do is invite people in that will interest me and have this discussion and invite people to come and voyeuristically watch, text me questions and we'll go through it. And I had the mayors of three or four of our cities right around the church in last summer. And one of these mayors started launching because we have a bunch of these conservative Christian fundamentalists there. Probably people like a lot of you. And me.

And he said let me ask you a question. How many of you are elected officials? Not a hand in the place. How many of you serve on a Parks and Recreation Board or a Zoning Board? How many of you serve on a Home Owners Association Board? How many of you have been appointed to some function that's overseen by the state or the city? Not one hand went up.

And this guy rightly said, but I'll bet you you complain about the town you live in. It is time for us to quit complaining and get involved. It is time for us... Thank you, one person. It's time for us... And he's clapping because he thinks you're going to do something. It's time for you to get your can on the school board rather than to quit complaining about the schools. It's time for us to run for office. Not to take Christ there, but to take the Gospel message there as we live it and to bless the city. You can't sit and complain and complain and complain.

God's Purpose for Our Lives

The night before He died, what did Jesus say? "Father, as You have sent Me into the world, now I'm sending them into the world." How did He come into this world? Incarnationally. You are here to live incarnationally.

God saved you for a reason. And it wasn't just to get you to heaven. If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, then the moment you said, "I believe," bam! He would have taken you there. He left you here so this will be a better place. I understand full restoration isn't going to come until Jesus comes. But this should be a better place because you're here. Because you know something. You know the truth.

Blessing in Both Prosperity and Adversity

We are blessed when the deal of closing the promotion happened, but we're also blessed when He allows you to be sick, when the car wrecks happen, when you're hurting. Solomon writes this in Ecclesiastes 7:14, "In the day of prosperity, be joyful. In the day of adversity, consider this, God made one as well as the other." God creates both of these.

I wrote this and we got to get close in here. God has structured and organized our lives to include suffering and difficulties. Our mission is not to stop the suffering prematurely, but to first find Him in the midst of the suffering and the hurt and the pain.

Also, we need to avoid being consumed by the adversity, obsessed with discovering relief and resisting the ever-present temptation to be absorbed in self-pity. Here's the question: what is God doing to me, in me, through me in the midst of this? That's our mission.

If somebody comes in hurting, the first thing we seem to want to do is to alleviate the suffering. I'm not sure that's the first response.

I understand the human side of that, but here's the question to ask: God, what are you teaching me? God, what are you teaching us?

When you look at the situation we're in as a country, and it is not good, we are not in a good position morally. Here's our problem—it's far bigger than economics. Our problem is we no longer trust the system, and the system is totally based on trust. It started with Enron, a born-again evangelical Christian who taught a Sunday school class, who screwed over a whole bunch of people for money. That's where it started. So now, you don't trust anybody. You're suspicious of everything.

When I watch a TV ad that a guy said, "I owed $435,000 in income tax, but boy, income tax relief got me off and I only paid $10,000," I want to go, "You just cheated me out of $425,000." Rather than sit in that house and gloat about it, what did you learn in this? What was He teaching you? Greed doesn't work. Greed on the lender part, greed on the borrower part. This is a serious situation, but God's teaching us something. How dumb it would be to go through this and pay this extraordinary tuition and never learn the lesson.

The Valley of Vision

There's something almost paradoxical about it. There's a wonderful book called The Valley of Vision. It's a collection of prayers. One of the prayers reads like this:

"Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou has brought me to the valley of vision where I live in the depths, but I see Thee in the heights, hemmed in by mountains of sin. I behold Your glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, to be low is to be high, that a broken heart is a healed heart, that a contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that repenting soul is the victorious soul, that having nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley."

He has us in a valley. And contrary to everything we feel humanly, it's a wonderful place to be. Because it's in that valley that God does great things. I'm not asking you to say you like it. I'm just asking you to say you get it. I'm not even asking you to agree with it. But you get what I said, right? Not confusing, is it?

It's really simple. And it took me 45 minutes to say what he said in two verses. "Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials. Because you know that this testing of your faith produces endurance." And then he says that this endurance produces maturity.

Wisdom in Context

But then in verse 5, he says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously."

I go to a lot of meetings. I'm not a huge meeting guy. You can almost imagine that. Meetings are where minutes are kept and hours are wasted. Meetings are not my favorite thing. So if we're going to have a meeting, I always kind of like to go, "It would be great if we had a point."

Most often in these meetings, we'll pray. And almost every time, somebody will say, "Father, you tell us that if we lack wisdom, you'll give it to us. Father, we have all these decisions before us today. Give us wisdom. You promised that. James promised it. If we lack wisdom, you'll give it." Now, I believe that's true. But that's not the context of verse 5, is it?

He doesn't say, "If you're gathered trying to figure out whether to pave the parking lot or not, ask for wisdom and I'll give it to you." He doesn't say that, though I believe He does. When we interpret Scripture, there's one thing that's really important for us to get. What is it? Context, context, context.

The context of verse 5, the backdrop, the background, is James writing to a group of suffering Christians. And he's just told them to count it all joy when these trials come into your life. Now, when I say, "Give me wisdom," it takes on a whole new perspective, doesn't it?

That's right where we're going to pick up tonight. Right there in verse 5.

Closing Prayer

Father, we do lack wisdom. We are in the midst of suffering. Why? Because that's the normal part of life. God, thank you for this instruction that tells us that trials are inevitable, that they're multicolored, that they arrive—even though anticipated, they arrive unexpected. They test our faith. They develop our perseverance. And they require from us a proper response, a response that flows from us knowing you, who you are, what you do, how you work in our life. That you're in control.

Thank you that everything happens for a reason. Thank you that you didn't just create this and walk away and say, "I wonder how it will end." But you control every atom, every molecule, everything in the universe was created by you and remains under your authority and under your control, including your people. We resist it, we rebel. But God, when we are quiet, we understand who you are and we see who we really are.

God, thank you that in the midst of suffering and hurt and pain and hardship, we can sing and mean it that it is well with our soul.