James 1:13-27
Tom Shrader examines James 1:2-27, teaching that trials are inevitable and varied but serve as spiritual aerobics to strengthen our faith. He emphasizes that when difficulties come, we should ask God for wisdom to see how these challenges serve His purposes, rather than seeking comfort only in our circumstances or odds.
“James is saying trials are the equivalent of physical aerobics - they're spiritual aerobics.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 2011
Duration: 40 min
Themes: trials, suffering, faith, wisdom, endurance, perseverance, joy, testing, facing hardship, experiencing persecution, new believer, feeling overwhelmed, going through crisis, questioning god, seeking purpose, struggling financially
Scripture: James 1:2-27, James 1:2, James 1:3, James 1:5, James 1:6, James 1:9, James 1:13, James 1:14, James 1:21, James 1:22, James 1:27, Psalm 90:12, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Job, Ecclesiastes
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, divine sovereignty, biblical wisdom, faith development, spiritual maturity, character formation
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, would you open them to the book of James? We're going to be in a little bit of a schedule crunch as we head towards summer vacation. I want to try to finish chapter one of the book of James today, tying everything together and hoping that we see a theme emerge and some really important practical truth.
The letter is written by James, the half-brother of Jesus, and he's writing to the 12 tribes who are dispersed. In all likelihood, they're dispersed for one of two or both reasons. One, out of obedience—Jesus said, "I want you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth." So they disperse for obedience. Or two, out of persecution. They came to Christ from this Jewish background. They lost all of their social network, their business network, family network, and said we could do this somewhere else.
In either case, James anticipates that they're living in a difficult circumstance. The connection to you and me is we are aliens living in this world, and it seems appropriate to be talking about trials, challenges, difficulties.
The Nature of Trials
That's what James says in chapter one, verse two. "Consider it joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials, because you know something. You know the testing of your faith produces endurance." Here's what James says about trials. They're inevitable. They're varied. There's the trial of prosperity, the trial of adversity. It's not one size fits all. It's not universal, that everybody's going to have the same test. It is a testing of your faith when they arrive unexpectedly. It's hard to anticipate the timing. It's safe to anticipate that I'll have the trials.
I think I have the Phillips paraphrase here of verse two. "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends, realizing that they come to test your faith."
The key word for me is verse three, and it's the first word: knowing. The reason that I can react supernaturally is because I know something. I know these trials are essential to the growth of my faith.
Spiritual Aerobics
I learned the last time I was here that Sandy was going to be the following day at Canyon Lake, and she had a friend who was swimming Canyon Lake. It's a four consecutive day swim, and that day was a 19-mile swim. She was kayaking for him as support, so she would have the fluids, the quick juice that he would need. Two weeks ago tomorrow, the winds in the valley were unbelievable, and at Canyon Lake, it was gusting between 40 and 50 miles an hour. So the wind was at 20 with gusts of 40 or 50, and the guy swam for eight and a half hours, and they finally pulled all the swimmers in.
They could have finished, but it was so dangerous for the kayakers. Sandy sent me some film, and it was unbelievable. They were whitecaps, and the kayakers were having a hard time. I said to her, "Is it the hardest thing you've ever done?" And she said, "No, but it was really hard, and if I wouldn't have trained, I'm not sure I could have done it." Well, the way she trained was to put herself through aerobic workout. She'd take her heart rate up, and she'd max her muscles out.
Here's the transition. James is saying trials are the equivalent of physical aerobics. They're spiritual aerobics. Someone has said that God knows the maximum elasticity of your faith, and He's going to test you, and He is going to push you. He's going to do it not because He's a sadist, but because He loves you, and you have said you want to be in this for the long haul. So He's saying that's great with me. Let's do it. If you want to be in this for the long haul, that faith has to be tested and tested again.
Asking for Wisdom in Trials
Verse 5, and this is where we left off two weeks ago. "Anyone who lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to him generously and without reproach. It will be given to him." We've heard that verse. If you've been around for any length of time, you've gone to these business meetings or planning meetings or church meetings where somebody will begin praying by saying, "God, you tell us if we lack wisdom. All we have to do is ask, and you'll give it." It's obviously this verse, and it's true that if we lack wisdom, He'll give it.
But here's what I want you to see, and this gets into the big payoff for today. The context of the asking for wisdom is in the context of trials. When trials come, the circumstances can begin to overwhelm us. He's not saying at all there's anything wrong with asking. You might be able to conclude that when you say, verse 6, "he must ask with faith, without any doubting. For the man ought to expect nothing, receive anything from the Lord. If he doubts, he's double-minded."
God is not saying to you and me this: don't ask me questions. He's saying my heart is not to clench fists. Why God? Why this? Why now? Why are you doing this? The asking of God is in the context of saying, "God, I love you. I know you love me. I understand that that's true. Help me understand what in the world is going on."
Letting God Be God
In speaking about this, John Stott writes this very simple sentence: "In a word, you need wisdom, the wisdom that sees all of life as serving the purpose of the Lord."
I started a little book last night that was written hundreds of years ago by a guy by the name of John Calvin, and it's kind of a subset of his more famous work, and it's called Christian Living, a little dinky book. In this book, and I'm only a quarter of the way through it, what Calvin is saying is you have to let God be God. If that was true 500 years ago, it's really true now. Our tendency is to shrink God down, to create Him in our image.
I want to take you through how this fleshes out practically. This is one of the best illustrations that I found in years, and I came across it again the other day. It slows us down, but it drives this point home.
In 2006, February 15th, John Piper wrote an article titled "Don't Waste Your Cancer." You can Google this: John Piper, Don't Waste Your Cancer. I think they printed it finally as a book, but I want to take you through this. This is probably an ineffective way to do it, but let me pique your interest, and then challenge you to go get the article.
Ten Ways to Waste Your Trials
He gives 10 reasons. It's the night before he's having his prostate cancer surgery, and he says don't waste your cancer. Here are 10 ways you could.
**Number one**: you waste your cancer if you do not believe it's designed for you by God. That God either causes or allows it. Why would He do that? Well, because He's got something that He wants to accomplish in this. We may not know exactly what it is, but God's not asleep at the wheel. God doesn't have a bandwidth. World population is 7.6 billion, and we're getting close to it, and pretty quickly He's not going to be able to manage all of this. When you have an adversity, in this case cancer, it doesn't mean that God's lost or impotent or doesn't care. You waste your cancer if you don't see God's in it.
**Number two**: you waste your cancer if you believe it's a curse and not a gift. You know this from your own experience. It may not be cancer, but you know how God has used things in your life—adversity in your life, tough business situations, relational situations—and in some ways they become the basis for a whole ministry that you operate or oversee, a whole sphere of influence. I have all sorts of friends who have become the pied piper in their little individual areas so that when somebody has a problem with their wife, they'll say, you need to see Bob.
Seeking the Right Source of Comfort
**Here's the third thing**: You waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God. It becomes really hard when you go. I had a urologist who was an odd little guy. It occurred to me that if you've chosen this as your discipline, you're probably a little odd little guy before you start, and then by the end of your first week, you're an odd little guy officially.
I went in when I went through this, and he said, "Here's what we got," and so forth. My PSA was 37, so that's high. He said, "I'm guessing something's going on, but we need to do a biopsy." I don't know if you ever have a great biopsy story—it's not good for this—but he explained to me, "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to be laying on your side, and we're going to insert this long instrument, and you're going to hear this pop, pop, pop, pop. We're going to have to do 12 of these." Twelve cuts. So they take the prostate, they quarter it, take three cuts from it.
So I'm there, and pop, pop, pop, pop. He said, "Oh, my gosh, I've lost count." I said, "Seven." He goes— He said, "Everyone remembers the count," so I think it's an old joke for him. But he said, "You know, here's the prostate, and here it is, and here's the picture of it, and it's quartered this, and it's 50% there, and a third percent there, and if we do this, it'll have this effect, and this, it'll have this effect."
Well, you know, you can get all hung up on that. Like, I had a whole bunch of people—and you may be one of those, and some of it's personality driven—but I had all these people just sending me files and files of stuff on prostate cancer, and then finally the definitive book that's written. I mean it, it's bigger than my Bible. And I'm thinking, why? I don't need to know all this. He's the doctor. I'm not. Now, I'm not diminishing that, and I'm not saying be a fool, but I can study and study and study, and sometimes I can study God right out of the equation.
Confronting Our Mortality
**Here's the fourth way**: You waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death. I met with a gentleman the other day. I had— I've spent probably the last 10 days, and I've tried to stay in bed, drink a lot of fluids, stay in bed, but I had a guy, and he said, "I need to meet," and I said, "Well, maybe in a week," and he said, "I need to meet right away. My dad's dying, and he's in a state back in the Midwest, and I'm heading back, and I'm going to have to speak at the funeral, and I don't know what to say."
I said, "Well, didn't we do this once before?" He said, "Yeah, that was my mother." I said, "Well, just say that." He said, "No, they'll all remember that." Obviously he hasn't done this very often. People don't remember much. So I said, "Here's what I would do." I met him. I said, "Here's what I would do. I would say every one of these occasions is a time of celebration, but it's a natural time to review your own life and mortality."
You waste your cancer, or you waste your trial, if you don't stop and see—it's a verse we'll use every year in January, Psalm 90, verse 12: "Teach us to number our days aright that we might gain a heart of wisdom." Help me understand the finiteness of this.
Next Monday will be my mom's 89th birthday, and I haven't talked to her in a year and a half. She can't talk on the phone, and I haven't been back, and I might go this summer, maybe go this fall, but I think about her all the time. I mean, for her birthday, the best thing you could give her is a box of turtles. She loved turtles, and she would have a cheeseburger and ice cream every day. I think about her in that condition she's in, in the place that she's in, and I understand that I'm headed there too. I'm not the exception.
I'm always amused when the morning news starts with "the world's oldest living person died." It just happened a couple weeks ago, 116 or something. You waste this tragedy, and in this case your cancer, if you don't think about death.
The Battle for Your Heart
**Here's the fifth thing**: You'll waste your cancer if you think about beating cancer—meaning staying alive—rather than cherishing Christ. Satan's design is to destroy your love for God.
The sixth way to waste your trials is if you spend too much time reading about your problems and not enough time reading about God. The disease can become your identity in your life. I've been through several of these phases. I had a phase where anybody that was going to have open heart surgery would call because I had that, and then it was the cancer, and now it's the lupus. All of a sudden, this becomes your identity, and you read up on it.
I'm not putting that down. I have some friends - I can think of one in particular who's become a champion in advocacy for funding for the disease that he has, ALS, and he's a champion, and appropriately so. But I need to be very careful that I don't read more about prostate cancer than I do about God.
Avoiding Isolation in Trials
Here's the seventh thing: You'll waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships. I was laying in bed the other day thinking about aging, and I've been reading a ton of stuff on it. Here's the latest fact I discovered: Every 19 seconds, an older adult goes to the emergency room as a result of a fall. That's a lot of falling going on.
One of the things that happens with physical sickness or with aging is your world shrinks down. I was looking at a picture of the Last Supper the other day, and I thought, if I had a Last Supper, who would I invite? I had all sorts of ideas for Judas. That was an easy one. I didn't know about the other 11, but I've noticed in the last three months, I've stepped up aggressively, seeking out guys that have been part of my life and saying, "Let's just have coffee."
But what can happen is your economic problem, your divorce, your rebellious kid can drive you into isolation. You start to pull away. You're in a small group, and all of a sudden there's somebody, and they don't show up, and they don't show up, and they don't show up, and you say, "What's going on?" That isolation - you're wasting your tragedy if you just batten the hatches around you.
Grieving with Hope
Here's the eighth thing: You waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope. There's a grief at death. Every funeral that I've ever done appropriately has grief attached to it. You miss mom, you miss your wife, you miss your friend, you miss whatever. What we say, maybe we don't believe it: "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." We grieve, but we grieve with hope. We know we see that person again that will be in a better place.
The ninth way to waste your trials is if you treat sin as casually as before. If all of a sudden you have this moment - normally in this trial or difficulty, there's a moment where you have a mini foxhole conversion, and "I'll clean up my act, and I won't do that again, and I won't do that again, and I won't do that again" - but then I drift away from it. I begin to go right back to the way I was. I don't learn a lesson.
Using Trials as Witness
The last thing that Piper says is you waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means to witness to the truth and glory of Christ. I am around people all the time who are really hurting. I had lunch yesterday with a gentleman I used to work with. His name is Kevin. Kevin's probably 10, 12 years younger than I am. Kevin had a really severe stroke about four or five years ago. Then stomach cancer, then thyroid cancer.
Kevin's just a great guy, and I saw him yesterday, and he's got his cane and his left side not very mobile, but he radiates joy in the midst. He's held captive in that body, and he radiates joy. You just see it. Even if you can't go, "It's Jesus," you know it's something. What Piper is saying is you waste your cancer if you don't take this as the opportunity to let God use you to be salt and light in this world.
Our Desire for Comfort vs. God's Design
So I wrote this: We want to be comfortable. I want a life of ease. I seek pleasure. I want to avoid pain. I postpone a trip to the dentist as long as possible. I was at the dentist, and I hadn't been for a long time. Embarrassed by it, how long it's been.
But I went, and he said, "You don't have any cavities, you need to do a cleaning. But you need to get these wisdom teeth out." I still have my wisdom teeth. I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, here's what I know. I'm not going to let you, a dentist, pull them. I'll go to an oral surgeon. I'm not stupid. I know this will hurt." He goes, "Well, you need to get them out of there. They're causing all sorts of problems. Here's who I'd recommend." He said, "Promise me you'll get them done." I said, "I will."
That was three years ago. But I promised him I'd get them done. I just didn't put a time frame on it. Every time I think about it, I think, "Well, my heart's going to give out before these teeth are going to give out." I want a life of ease.
But if God wanted me to have that life of ease, He would have given it to me. But He didn't. To me or you or us. He gave us difficulties for our own good. What James is saying is don't run from this, run to this. By running from it, you waste the opportunity. You waste the lesson.
We know that. We've never done it, though we could, if we take a microphone and pass it around the room and say, when did you see God work most dramatically in your life? Almost always, it's in a time of difficulty and challenge and hardship. In fact, you don't even think of Him when things are going good.
I've gone to the doctor waiting for the results from the scan. And if he says the scan is clear, we say, let's go. When are we going to have lunch? If he says there's a spot on that scan and we're going to need to operate, the conversation is totally different and the appetite is gone and the dependence upon God is great in the midst of that.
Rich and Poor in God's Eyes
Verse 9, but the brother of humble circumstance is to glory in his high position. The rich man to glory in his humiliation. And here's the key. It ties right into what we just looked at for eight or nine weeks in the book of Ecclesiastes. Flowering grass will pass away. The sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass. And its flowers fall off. And the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So too, the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. Will die at the desk. It will just fade away.
It's not designed to demotivate you. It's designed to give you a perspective. It's not designed to take away your ambition. It's designed, the thought, is that this is fading away. I came with nothing, I leave with nothing. Job, Solomon, Paul. Over and over again. That when I can get that, all of a sudden, it doesn't take away my drive. It allows me to enjoy successes, and if you will, the failures as well, in their proper perspective. What's God teaching me?
Lessons from the Baseball Field
One of my favorite things to do is to watch my two grandsons play baseball. I watch them play football. I don't enjoy that as much. There's too much, I don't know. I like the baseball. And this week, Yale had a game Monday, Brayden Tuesday, Yale last night, Brayden tonight. And I just can't go and sit down the third baseline in an absolute bucket of dust, when I can't breathe, and I'm missing these games. And I love to watch them, because I love to watch the lessons the boys learn. I love to watch their personalities.
I might have told the story two weeks ago, I don't know, but Yale was pitching and got himself in a pretty big jam. So the guy came to take him out, and Yale said, I don't want to go out. Yale's nine. And not disrespectful, he just said, I don't want to go. He said, what's my pitch count? Because they're all on a pitch. In my day, you could throw six innings a week. Now you can throw 60 pitches. So he said, and Yale said, well, I got 17 pitches left. Let me finish this inning. And I'm seeing the guy, and I'm thinking, what the heck? And so he said, all right.
So the next guy grounds to short, and he strikes out the next guy, and he gets out of the inning. And I thought, wow, let's see how he handles this. Because Yale can get a little cocky periodically, which will probably make him good at what he does. And he came over, and I said, hey, good job, bud. He said, thank you. None of this.
I wasn't there Tuesday night, but it's the first game this year that Braden didn't have a hit. And I don't know what happened, but I know I talked to his mom the next day, and she was still frustrated with how we handled that. How do you handle that adversity? Everybody in here has dealt with that, the equivalent of going 0 for 3, equivalent of going 0 for a week of cold calling, losing the big verdict or the case or whatever it might be. And what God is saying is, that's all part of life.
The Eternal Perspective
2 Corinthians 4, 6. Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because God looks not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen, because the things that are seen are temporal. This is all temporal. The things that are unseen are eternal. And God is saying to us here in the book of James that the poor man is going to glory in his riches and his position with Christ. He's going to come strongly against favoritism and bigotry here in a weaker self. But He's saying in the midst of all of this, we can tie it together and say, God's at work.
God Doesn't Tempt Us
Verse 13. Let no one say when he's tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil. He Himself does not tempt anyone. So God doesn't tempt you. When these trials come, the intention is for your growth and development. Satan comes with temptations and his desire is to destroy you.
The Autopsy of a Sin
What happens? Here's the process. Verse 14. Each one is tempted when he's carried away and enticed by his own lust. And lust is conceived. It gives birth to sin. And sin is accomplished. It brings forth death. Here's the autopsy of a sin. Something internal is attracted by something external.
Years ago, and I have no idea why, I'm watching an infomercial for flies that are used in fly fishing. And these flies, according to the announcer, is going to revolutionize fishing. It's the most real fly that's ever been produced. That when they put it in the water and they showed you the real fly, which one's the real fly? Which one's the produced fly? And you couldn't tell the difference.
They said, watch it work. So I got an underwater camera. And this guy would cast, and that fly would hit, and this fish would come along, and bop, he'd hit it. Bop, he'd hit it. And I thought, well, I don't know anything about fishing. I don't even like fish. But I got a great illustration for James 1, verse 14.
Satan just takes this, and he just throws that out there, and it looks like the real thing. It looks like this will make you happy. It looks like this will make you satisfied. We've used the phrase all along. Sin is always going to take you further than you want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay. But it looks so good. She looks so good. And he knows. He's a master fisherman. He has almost an
infinite number of flies that He just plops out in front of you. And if that doesn't work, that's okay. He'll reel that in, and He'll pop another one, and He'll pop another one.
I get carried away. I lose track. It's interesting, again, in the context of talking about what's real. I lose track, and I hit that fly. I go for that deal, that girl, that guy, whatever that is. I go for that. And the production of that is death.
For the unbeliever, it's eternal death. For the believer, it's a relationship with God that's just strained. Some of you, my suspicion would be, have experienced that in your life. That's why when the psalmist writes, "return the joy of my salvation," it's that sin that rots it away. You want to see an unhappy Christian? See one that's involved in sin, unrepentant sin. And the joy, the joy of my salvation, the joy of my relationship with God is taken away. It's gone.
God's Word as Our Lifeline
I have to highlight where he's heading here. He's saying for us that every good thing is from God, and therefore, in verse 21, "put aside filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. In humility, receive the Word implanted that's able to save you." God's communicated to you His thoughts, His mind, and He's done it through His Word. Receive that Word. It's implanted in your heart. It's the thing that becomes your lifeline.
And then, verse 22, key verse of the whole book: "prove yourselves doers of the Word, not merely hearers who dilute themselves. If anyone is a hearer of the Word, not a doer, a man who looks into the mirror, sees his natural face, but once he gets away from it, he forgets what it's like." Here's what we're saying: As Christians, our lives are to be different. Not odd, but different.
Living Differently in Everyday Moments
The difference is bigger than this. It's not just that we are obsessively in church on Sunday or neurotically at a Bible study on Thursday morning. It's that we treat and value people differently.
Sandy and I have had this conversation, trying to have a conversation every night, and we're talking about just different things, and we're talking about being in line at Fry's. I don't know why we keep going back to that and how easy it is to mistreat the person that's checking us out.
Well, I, years ago, perfected self-checkout at Fry's. I'm so proud of myself. I loved it. I scanned my card, and it says, "Welcome, Fry's shopper." And I feel like I'm in an elite group here with this card. But if I have produce, I don't self-check, because you've got to weigh it. I can't read the code. Stickers are wrong. I always end up with the alarm going off, and they cuff me and take me to the back or whatever they do.
I go to the store to get grapes. I got plums. I got cherries. I got strawberries. And I'm leaving, and I'm saying, "Gosh, I came here for something." I didn't get it until I got home. Grapes. But I've got all the produce, so I'm checking out. I pick the shortest line. I get behind a lady who has maybe four or five items, and one of them is a pineapple.
And apparently there's some dispute between the computer and a coupon on the price of the pineapple. And so the lady gets the bill, whatever it is, and she said, "That's not right. The pineapple on the screen, it should be 29 cents, and it's 59 cents." The lady said, "No, it's 59 cents." And now they're really going after it.
I can feel, I can feel me wanting to come in and go, "Listen, this is 30 cents. Here's a dollar. Go get yourself a Coke and get out of the way." And the checkout guy's watching me, and I make contact with him. I contact, and I smile. And we've gone through.
The lady finally said, "You're going to have to go over there to customer service, and they'll give you your 30 cents or whatever it is." So I came up, and I said, "Hey, I know that was really hard. I hope you're having a good day." And it changed the whole conundrum, because this lady was ready to explode.
Now, I'm not saying aren't I a good guy, though if your takeaway is Tom's a good guy, that's okay. I'm not saying that. I'm saying I had a chance to alleviate a whole explosive situation just by being nice. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. And what James is saying in this word is if you're a Christian, it's going to affect the way you live.
Caring for the Vulnerable
Verse 27: "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God is to visit the orphans and the widows in their distress, to keep oneself unstained by the world."
To us, he's saying, there are vulnerable people around you, and you ought to be sensitive to them. There are people that are hurting all around us. There ought to be something in our heart, James is saying, that breaks for those that are in our culture that are most vulnerable. And we ought to lead the way in that.
I'm going to leave that hanging. We'll pick it up next week.