The Weapon of Wisdom
Tom Shrader examines James 1:5-8, teaching that when trials come, believers should first ask God for wisdom to see the situation from His perspective rather than immediately seeking escape or solutions. He emphasizes that trials test both the existence and depth of our faith, and that God gives wisdom generously without reproach to those who ask in faith, trusting His character rather than demanding specific outcomes.
“I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: James (2011)
Recorded: 2011
Duration: 43 min
Themes: wisdom, trials, faith, trust, suffering, perseverance, perspective, prayer, facing difficult circumstances, going through hardship, questioning god's plan, new believer, struggling with doubt, overwhelmed by problems, seeking guidance, feeling tested
Scripture: James 1:2-4, James 1:5-8, Job 28:12, Proverbs 1:7, 1 Corinthians 14:33, Isaiah 55, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:28, Romans 4:20, Hebrews 6:19, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Philippians 3:20, Colossians 3:2, 2 Corinthians 4
Theological Themes: divine wisdom, testing of faith, sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, biblical worldview, prayer theology, faith development
Full Transcript
You have in front of you the book of James. Last week we looked at the first four verses, so let me remind you what we said. First of all, and this surprises many of you, it was chronologically the first book written in what we have that we identify as the New Testament. Written between 45-50 is the dating on it. Written by James, he identifies himself, first word James. He identifies himself this way, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was a bond slave. That was a slave who had absolutely no possessions. It was a slave who was utterly, completely dependent upon his master. He lived by the grace of his master, the provision of his master, and he lived to do his master's will and desire. We also know that this James was the half-brother of Jesus. So James' mother was Mary, Father Joseph.
The Scattered Audience
He is writing to an audience, the latter part of verse 1, where the twelve tribes, it's a nation of Israel, that is dispersed or scattered. Dispersed or scattered abroad, that would be outside of Palestine. They'd be scattered for probably one of two reasons. One, out of obedience, go and make disciples of all nations. The more likely is that they had experienced horrific persecution as a result of their conversion. So they have now taken flight. They've landed in different population areas, and it would not be as easy as maybe here.
I mean, you meet people all the time. In fact, a very common question when you meet somebody here is to say, "Where are you from?" Because we're very mobile. We're going to meet somebody from Bemidji. We're going to meet somebody from Little Rock. We're going to meet people from California, and you move with relative ease. Generally speaking, if you move here from another place, there's not a prejudice against you. There's not a language to relearn, those kinds of things.
But that would be a totally different situation. There'd be language barriers, economic barriers, racial barriers, all sorts of prejudice against them. Consequently, they're under great persecution, even when they remove themselves from the persecution, they're under great pressure. Just the pressure of surviving is huge to them.
Count It All Joy
So it makes sense that James would say, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Now on its face, that looks to be a ludicrous statement. Count it joy when you encounter trials. Here's what he's saying about those trials that we saw last week. He says, when the trials in life are inevitable, that you can't escape them. They are part of the norm of life, and they're part of the normal Christian life.
When you encounter, the word encounter implies they're unexpected. You can't predict them, and not only is the timing unpredictable, they come in all various shapes and sizes. Count it all joy when you encounter various trials. The Greek word means literally multicolored, many shapes, many sizes. So here's what he's saying, in our life will come these trials. These trials come when you least expect it, maybe in areas where you least expect it, and they come in many different ways.
The Nature of Trials
We took time last week, and we'll make the point again this week, to point out that there's the trial of adversity, but there's the trial of prosperity. The trial in itself here is neutral, it's not negative or positive, that the trial also is a testing. The idea is proving grounds, that what God is doing in our life through these trials, and through this testing, is to reveal number one, if we have faith at all, and secondly, if we have faith, the quality of the faith, the depth of the faith.
I think I have a list of 37, 39, I don't know, reasons for trials, or reasons for suffering, but let me just share this. I found this the other day, this is a paragraph, but it probably hits on some major things. God sends trials to humble us. He sends trials to wean us from the world, that's really good. He sends trials to call us to concentrate on eternal things. He sends trials to reveal to us what we really love.
So we say Jesus is Lord, let's find out. We say none of this matters, all that matters is You, well let's take this away and see if it's true. He sends trials to teach us the value of God's favor and blessing. He sends trials to enable us to help others in their trials, so He gives us trials, so now we can reach out to others and share with them, it's 2nd Corinthians 1, to comfort one another with the comfort with which we've been comforted.
The Power of Shared Experience
Just take the issue of what we looked at with abortion, the most powerful connection is when you have a lady who's been through this, who God's brought through this on the other side, you hook her up with a lady who's on the front end of that process, and there's like an instant connection. You can say I've been there, here's what God did for me in the midst of that. He sends trials to develop in us a greater strength for greater usefulness. I now am more fit to be in the potter's hands. He sends trials sometimes to chasten us for our sin and to push us toward perfection.
The Goal of Maturity
Now when he says perfection, that's what we saw in verse 4. Let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So what he's talking about here is maturity. John Stott writes, the great goal of all of life is Christian maturity. Toward this end we are bend all our efforts. Life's pleasant paths are made all the sweeter as we keep in mind that they lead to this greater spiritual end. Life's grim moments are to be endured patiently, remembering that patience and persistence turn sorrow into stepping stone.
When J.B. Phillips paraphrases James chapter 1 verse 2, he writes, "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, brothers, don't resist them as intruders,"
but welcome them as friends. How can you welcome these as friends? Verse 3, you know something. You know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
The way that you endure, the way you face all that life brings at you, is you have this great pleasure of looking back and seeing the faithfulness of God. Not just in the scripture, though that's powerful. So often the Jews were called, remember, remember the Lord, remember how we parted the Red Sea, remember what He did. Well, we can say it to you, especially you that have been around for any length of time. Remember how you've seen God work? Remember that circumstance that you were in?
Maybe it was a circumstance you didn't think there's a shot in the world you'd get through it, but you did. So many of those things that you were firing up a prayer chain for, and you were praying about, and you were intense. So many things, you don't even remember what they were. Huge to you, God moves, God responds, God delivers you. You don't remember what they were. Highly unlikely that you ever took the time even to say thank you. But they were gigantic, I get it.
The Testimony of Trials
So that's why you come through some of these things in life, fill in the blank, and you come out the other end. You meet people all the time, and almost everybody has one of these stories where you say, I didn't want to go through that, I never want to go through it again, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Why? Because I saw something there.
What did you see? You saw who God is, you saw His faithfulness, and you saw who you are. In some instances, you saw that your faith wasn't near as big or as strong or as deep as you thought or hoped it was. In other instances, you went, oh my word, isn't that amazing? I would have never dreamt, if I was told that was going to come in my life, I would have never dreamt that I could have come out on the other end. But I did. It's not a testimony to me, by the way, it's a testimony to God's work in my life.
Two Types of Tests
So all these tests come. I made a list, and I want you to see that both of these are a test. So there's the test of adversity, there's a test of prosperity. There's that counterbalance.
So for sure, if you go into the doctor, I'll say the doctor ran tests, you go into the doctor tomorrow, and you sit down and the doctor slides the x-ray or shows you the scan, and he goes, look at this, see this right here? See this mass right here? This isn't good. This is not good. This is an active mass. We can see, see how it glows? That's active. Now that's a test, right?
Here's what I suggest. That when he says, look at this, it's clean. That's a bigger test. When it's a mass, you walk out and you're going, boy, I don't have anything for God. God, you're all I've got. What are you going to do, God? This is gigantic. I don't know. And before you hit the car, and all the way home, and all that night, and all the next all you do is pray. I've been, by the way, on both sides of this coin, so I can speak with some level of authority.
I've also been in there where they say, look it, it's clean. You might on the way to the car say, thank you, Jesus. But right after that, you say, well, where should we eat? What's on TV? I get it, typically human.
The Full Range of Life's Tests
So I make just a little list, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Just eight little things and you could make the list. I just want you to see the test. The test of loneliness, but the test of friendship. The test of sickness, but the test of health. The challenge of a young, youthful death. Some of you know the next. And the challenge of a long life, especially a sick one.
The challenge of unemployment, but the challenge of work. The challenge of a marriage that's vibrant and alive and then the challenge of a divorce. The challenge of being an orphan and the challenge of having parents. Challenge of a large family, the challenge of being childless. The challenge of being married and the challenge of being single. You get the rhythm there.
So that's what James is saying. Count it all joy when you encounter these unexpected, various testing moments in your life. They come in big shapes and sizes. They come in little things. They come in way, I personally think that many of us are being tested often. It's not a matter of pass or fail. We don't even realize there's a test. How should I respond to this?
He says, here's what I want. The testing comes and now that produces endurance in your life.
The Prayer for Wisdom
Verse five, let's read verse five, six, seven and eight. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach and it'll be given to him. But he must act in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord being a double-minded man and unstable in all his ways.
He said, if you're someone who lacks wisdom, now look at the context. Verse five is not a standalone verse. So I've been in lots of meetings that start like this. Father, we have decisions to make tonight. We have big decisions to make, important decisions to make. You tell us if we lack wisdom. All we have to do is ask and you will give it to us. Now, obviously that's true. And clearly that prayer is fine. I don't think it's detrimental.
But that's not what he's talking about in the context here, right? The context is in the midst of trials. Why am I praying? Why am I asking? Because God, I'm in the midst of this and most often these trials are huge and they have a tendency to even overwhelm me. And the beginning, depending, I guess, on the size and the quality of the character of the trial, it's like a punch right in the gut. And sometimes it just takes my breath away. Sometimes it causes me to say, why me? Why this? Why now? Why? Right?
So those things come and those are natural responses. God, here's this. And even if it's not a why me, what should I do? How do I respond?
How do I live this way? Well, I can't figure it out. So He says, ask. Petition. Pray. It's okay to speak honestly to God, especially in the midst of a trial.
I do this regularly. Not daily, but regularly. God, I'm in this situation here. I don't want to be in this. I don't like this. Here's what I think You should do. But ultimately, that's what I think You should do. And I mean this, God. I'd rather have You do what You know is right than what I want. Because this is about You as much as I want to make it about me. So God, You show me. You clarify it. You give me wisdom. You quiet my heart. You give me rest.
Paul's Example of Honest Prayer
It's Paul with his thorn in the flesh. He feels compelled to tell us he had a thorn in the flesh and he prayed about it three times. Now, my gut tells me that he probably prayed or referenced it more than that, but on at least three occasions, he asked it to be removed. God decided He's gonna leave it. It doesn't matter to me what the thorn in the flesh is. I'm grabbing the principle. The principle is he didn't want it. God brought it. Paul said, fine, I'll accept it because ultimately I know it's for my good and Your glory, however You're gonna use this.
God's Generous Response
So you're in the midst of this and you ask. Here's the thing that separates maybe God from us among other things, is that He gives generously and without reproach. You ask and He will give. He will give to you generously. You lack wisdom and He will give to you unconditionally. He'll give it to you without reproach. He's not gonna remind you how unworthy, how undeserving, what a minuscule little finite creature you are.
That's hard for us to think of giving this way. There's not a parent I know who at some point in their life doesn't feel like a human ATM. The kid's just coming, can I have, can I have, can I have? It's as though you can see them, and you're spitting out $20 bills and they're walking away. Even if it doesn't bother you—yes, I want to give to you, yes, I want to give—but then they come back. Admit it. When they come back a second and third time, there's something in you that says, haven't I already given?
It was a Saturday Night Live skit where this guy pulls up to an ATM. He gets it out: "Hello, good morning, Bob, how are you?" "Fine, what would you like?" "$50." "Here you go, Bob." Then it goes the next day. Bob comes up: "Hello, Bob, what would you like?" "$50." "Bob, didn't I give you $50 yesterday? Bob, what have you done with that $50 since I gave it to you?" Well, that's that idea of reproach. I've given to you, how have you used it?
Here's what He said: God will never be overdrawn at the wisdom bank and He encourages you to come and make withdrawals all day, every day because He wants to transfer His wisdom from Him to you.
Wisdom vs. Knowledge
So what He wants me to do—this whole idea—it's not knowledge, by the way. Knowledge is good, knowledge is important, knowledge is ever increasing. Let's say if we take everything in the world that we know, let's say it's a foot high, that foot high amount of knowledge is doubling, we're adding another foot to it about every five years. So knowledge, accumulation of facts, it's not that. It's wisdom. It's what to do with this. It's to be able to see God's purpose, God's goal in the midst of this.
Where do I find this knowledge? Job 28:12 said, "Where oh where will I find wisdom? Where does insight hide?" The psalmist cries out over and over again, "Let me know Your way." Solomon writes in Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." First Corinthians 14:33: "For God is not a God of confusion but a God of peace."
Getting God's Perspective
So here's your life that's in confusion. Here's what I need. It's not that I need a remedy, it's not that I need it fixed. Before I get to that point, I just need to be able to see it. I need to be able to see it as God sees it.
So Isaiah writes in Isaiah 55, "My ways are not your ways, says the Lord. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." Every year at Christmas, Haley and I go to the Nutcracker. We've done the same thing since she was in like third grade. We go to the Nutcracker, we have dinner now, so we go down, go to the Nutcracker, have dinner and then come home. Sarah, we do something different every year and this year we took, which I thought was kind of a cool idea, we took a helicopter ride to look at Christmas lights.
So we went around town but we hovered because Sarah lives right—I think I'm still pretty well grounded here—Sarah lives that way about a half a mile and Susan and I live as the crow or pigeon or whatever flies, we live about a mile that way. So we went over and we're over Sarah's house. Timmy came out, had Reagan with him and you could just see it really clearly. Then we went down, we looked at our house and then we had this view where we were up and you could see the whole really East Valley. Of course the higher we went up, the more we could see. As you drive along through the streets, you have one view but now I get up above it, I have a whole different perspective.
So, here's what God is saying. "My ways aren't your ways, says the Lord. My ways are higher than your ways." In essence, I want to get you up so that you can get My perspective on life. So that you're not bogged down in your trials and your testing and your hardship. I want to be able, not to necessarily remove them, but I want to, in a sense, like an out-of-body experience. I want to lift you up above it. I want you to be able to see things as I see them. If anyone lacks wisdom, all he has to do is ask. I'll give it generously to you. I'll give it without reproach. I'm not gonna reprimand you. I'm gonna hold it loosely.
The Qualifier of Faith
Now, here's a qualifier. He must act in faith. Hebrews 11:1, let me read it to you.
Read it to you from one of the translations and a couple of paraphrases. Speaking of faith, it's probably the best definition of faith that we have in the scriptures. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
One of the paraphrases: "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is a firm foundation under which everything in life becomes worth living. It's our handle, our grip, our understanding on what we can't see."
Another one of the paraphrases: "Now, faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope and a conviction of reality of things we do not see."
What Faith Is Not
So when I'm to ask, I'm to have faith. Here's what it isn't. It's not faith that God's going to do what you want Him to do.
I was watching, and I don't know why, but I was flipping through. College football over. Saturdays are long, and I miss it. And so I'm there yesterday. Lessons kind of figured out. And I'm there. It's not baseball season, although golf has started. I'm watching, and I hit one of the Christian TV stations, and this guy's talking about prosperity, money, God wants you prosperous.
And here's what he said. "If you already have enough money, I'm not the preacher for you. If you already got plenty of stuff, I'm not the guy for you. God's given me, I can't explain it, I don't understand it. God's given me the ability to get money, to have money, to give money, to just have all sorts of money, and the people that I teach have all sorts of money."
I don't even have a file for that. I don't even know where to put that. I can tell you what that is not. That is not God.
God's True Purposes
Because I'm telling you, God may want you poor, and God may want you sick, and God may want you suffering. Why would He do that? We just looked at it last week in the beginning of this week. For your good and His glory. He may test you in this area.
Now I believe, and I mean be clear, repetitive but clear, I believe prosperity is a testing. I believe we as a city, state, nation, were tested heavily five, six, seven, eight years ago with the prosperity, and we didn't do very well with it. Why would God take some of that away? Because you weren't listening. Because you thought you were a spiritual giant.
You thought, and everybody does it. I've been around a bunch of people like it. We make money, and then we say God is good, and He gave it to us, but in our hearts, we're saying why wouldn't He? Look at how cool I am. But are you going to give it to that guy? Look how smart I am. Look how clever I am. Look how much smarter than everybody else I am. And by the way, all that may be true, but even that is a gift from God. So you have no reason to boast. No reason to boast in your riches. No reason to boast in your health.
True Faith Defined
I ask for wisdom. I have faith. What's the faith? The faith is in God and who He is, not necessarily what He will do. My faith is that He's in control of the situation.
I made a comment in Priority Living this week, and so Priority Living, I have a lot of people in and out. Like the church, you have new people every week, but most of you have unfortunately had to sit through all of this many times. But I made the statement that you would yawn through as a no-brainer. I said everything in our life is either caused by or allowed by God.
So you've heard that, what do you think? A billion times. So there's a guy that came up after us and said, "Wait a minute, I'm going to challenge you on something." I said, "Perfect, I probably am wrong." And he said, "I'm going to challenge you. Can you give me the Bible verse that says God causes or allows everything?"
And I said, "I don't know that I can find a verse that says He causes or allows everything, but take something like Romans 8:28. 'And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.'" For that to be true, we know it's true, for that to be true, He has to be all-knowing, He has to be all-powerful, He has to be able to move things around so that for Him to work all things together for good, everything in my life either has to be caused by Him or allowed by Him.
Faith in God's Character
So my faith is in Him. It's in His power, in His might, in His majesty. My faith is not that He's going to go ahead and ultimately do what I want Him to do unless what you want Him to do is what will bring Him the most glory.
So I have no problem saying this. If you're sick, God may want you there. I'm not sure for what reason. But at the very least, to test you so you can see if your faith is real and it's deep.
It may be so that you become a beacon to the people around you, let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works, they see you respond, they see you in the midst of the most excruciating circumstances and they look at you and say, "That is amazing. How do you do it?" And you get the privilege of saying, "I really don't know other than it's God, it's not me. I don't know how He does it, but He does it in me."
Elijah finally rebukes the listeners and says, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. If it's Baal, follow him."
Asking Without Doubting
So He says, I want you to go ahead and ask and ask in faith, we're in verse six. "Ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by wind." Over here and then over there.
In Romans chapter four verse 20, Paul writes speaking of Abraham and he said, "Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God." That's what we're talking about. God's promise to your life. He'll never leave you, He'll never forsake you. He won't allow any test, trial, temptation to come into your life, but such is common to man. And He won't allow anyone to overtake you, but He'll give you
The power, the strength to endure. The author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews chapter six verse 19 that hope is the anchor of our soul.
So we pray, we pray for wisdom. I'm not sure, God I don't know. There is a why perhaps to it. There's a why me, why then, why now, why? But even in the midst of that, God, here's what I do know. This is why I don't have to doubt. I'll doubt about my strength. I'll doubt about some of the information that's around me. I'll doubt about certain things, but here's what I don't doubt. God, I don't doubt Your greatness, Your holiness, Your might, Your power, Your faithfulness, Your love, Your care, Your majesty. I don't doubt Your judgment. I don't doubt Your reproof. I don't doubt that You're God.
When Tests Come into Our Lives
Rather than me give you an illustration, you provide your own illustration at this point. You're in the midst of something. Think about it. Make it a big something. It comes into your life. It's not something you want. It's not something you desire. You'd put it in that category of test.
It comes into your life, and if you're really honest, there's that side of you where you're going, I'm not really sure. I'm not sure what's going on here. I'm not sure what to do. How do I discover what God wants me to do in the midst of that? The very first thing, He's saying this is your reflex. The very first thing is to pray for wisdom because you just got done saying you don't know what to do. You don't know how to respond. The reality of this moment has the potential to overshadow you, overwhelm you.
So you start humbly saying, God, I want to see it as You see it. I may never see it that clearly, but until I do, God, I want You to know I'm coming in faith.
The Problem with Misplaced Faith
I was in a small group with a group of pastors, and there was a guy in there whose wife has cancer, and so I had that cancer kinship. So he said, "I'm believing God to heal my wife." And I said, I don't even know what that means. What are you saying there? Are you saying you're believing that He will heal her, therefore He will, or He's obligated to?
See, it's a theological issue for me at that point. There are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of sick and dying people in this country and in this world that clearly know that God has the power to heal, and some are believing that He will, and He's not going to. Can you see the fallacy of this?
Ultimately, no matter what, we've got to acknowledge that if you're believing that your faith equals your healing, you've all failed because everybody's going to die. It's funny how we do this. We put it in one circumstance. Unless there's somebody here named Enoch screwing up my illustration, you're going to die.
Faith in God's Character, Not Outcomes
He tells us to believe. God is a healer. God is a great healer. He's a great provider. Could He heal? Let's keep it in, I'll keep it a ball in my court. Could He heal Susan right now? Sure He could. Is He going to? I don't know. Seems to be slow about it if He's going to. I wish He'd do it fast. I don't know.
I know this. I can't obligate Him to heal, but I can obligate Him to keep His promise, and His promise is He'll love her. He'll never forsake her. He'll never test her beyond that which she can endure. He will use this for our good in His glory. See that? That's how that comes together.
Act in faith. What? Faith for the outcome? No. Faith in Him. The object of our faith. That's who we trust. We place our faith and trust in Him, in His promises, that He is Jehovah Jireh, that He is the God who will provide. See, that's how, to me, that makes sense.
The Problem of Double-Mindedness
If I don't, I'm double-minded. You know people like that. Hot, cold, around. You've seen them. You've seen them in your Bible studies. They're there. They're there every week. They've got their books. They're reading all this stuff, and then all of a sudden they disappear.
You see a test. You see a trial. What's He doing? What's God doing? He's lifting the veil and letting you see if there's faith at all, and if there is faith, He's showing you the depth of it, the quality of it, and He's growing it deeper. And how does He do it? Through spiritual aerobics testing. That's how He does it.
So we ask. Here's what He says. A man ought not to expect that He will receive anything from the Lord who is doubting. He's double-minded. He's unstable in all His ways.
Rich and Poor Before God
So He deals with people that we would look at circumstantially. He deals with a person, circumstantially, humanly speaking, who is poor and one who is rich. He said let the brother of humble circumstance glory in his high position, and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like the flowering grass will pass away. The sun will rise with a scorching wind and wither its grass, and its flowers fall off, and its beauty and its appearance is destroyed, so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
To me, He's making the point here that we're talking about. It's not a circumstantial issue. Let the man who's poor by the world's standards, he can indeed, in the midst of all of this, he can find glory in his humiliation. Why? Because he's a child of the king.
Likewise, the man who may look around and say, look at all I have, this is mine, don't be deceived. It's the temporariness. That's what he's saying. It's the temporariness of riches.
Obedience Over Circumstances
So we said this to you last week. Larry Wright. I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering. So when I first hear that, I hear suffering and prosperity. That's really not the guts of this issue. The key words are really obedient and disobedient. I'd rather be obedient.
even if it equals suffering, than be disobedient and prosper. Why? Because I understand both are temporary. That's the point He's making. It's like the flower that withers away. It's like the plant that blooms, blossoms, beautiful, dies. That's the world we live in. To be able to see the temporariness of this. To be able to understand.
Again, and I don't mean it to be a cliche, and my fear is it becomes one for us, is that no matter how bad all this gets, it can only last a lifetime. We're not in the land of the living with a prospect of going to the land of the dying. We're in the land of the dying with a reality of being transitioned and transferred and transformed into the land of the living. That's a huge difference. When I see that, you can see, by the way, why Marx could say that religion is the opium of the people. I can see how he would get there. What God's saying is, listen, I'm going to show you things as they really are. That isn't important. That won't last. This will, this is all fading away.
The Crown of Life Awaits
Blessed, He says, is the man who perseveres under a trial for once he's been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to all who love Him. We looked on December 26th at 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verses 6, 7, and 8. "For I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. The time for my departure has come. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith and in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day." This is Paul speaking autobiographically but then he broadens it and says, "not only me but also to all who have loved His appearing."
Paul says it this way in Philippians chapter 3 verse 20, "our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transfer our body from this humble state into conformity with the body of His glory." Now while we're here we're sojourners, aliens, foreigners. He calls on us over and over again.
Setting Our Minds on Things Above
Here you go Colossians 3:2, "set your mind on the things above." Paul writing in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, "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." How? Because we look not at the things that are seen but the things that are unseen because the things we see are temporal. The things that are unseen, those issues of faith, they're eternal.
A Living Example of Faith Through Trials
The last time, and I'll give you a date, April 20th 2009, I must have been teaching something similar to this and I got an email. This is a Monday email so it was coming from the next day. "The message you brought us Sunday was a great reminder of the Lord's involvement and care over everything in my life. By God's grace I've had a chance to live some of the things you taught about. 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." This is, by the way, this is really good. "My biggest problems were taken care of when He drew me to Himself and forgave my sin. This health matter is just an inconvenience but even more it's a privilege, it's a mission. He wore a crown of thorns for me what an honor it is to wear this disease for Him."
"I'm trapped in the body over which I'm slowly losing control. But there are many who are trapped in circumstances they cannot control. Be it a troubled marriage or poor health, family difficulties, money difficulties, oftentimes things of their own making. The Lord has given me many chances through this to tell them that there's a God who cares and each day He gives strength to match the difficulty and life is good. I can say as one who's been trapped like them that I live where they live."
The Gift of Suffering
"Humanly speaking I have a certainty of an unhappy ending but in Him we exalt in our tribulations." He talks about the abundant life. He talks about the possibility of even being healed. He said "I would welcome the chance to have a normal life but as strange as it sounds if I do get well I would miss having the disease. It gave me common ground to share the gospel with those who have no hope."
"Through the Lord, He has demonstrated His faithfulness to me every day. I would miss having the gift of Parkinson's, but if health does return, you'll never hear me say, I have my life back. Abundant life never left me. I've had a life that this whole time in the truest and greatest sense of the word because I've always had Him. I am just an ordinary guy under the care of an extraordinary God. The Lord is true to His word. I want to draw attention to Him. It's God who sustains me. It's His truth that I can live in, healthy or diseased."
Responding to Trials with Wisdom
That's what the trials are all about. So they come and now we see how we're going to respond to them. I have a choice how I'm going to respond. And He says, here's the first thing I want you to do. Ask me for wisdom. Ask me for insight. I'll give it to you.
The trials are coming so that we can endure them, so that they can reveal who He really is, who we really are, whether our faith is real at all or the depth of our faith. And it may be a trial of success, it may be a trial of failure, it may be a trial of adversity, it may be a trial of prosperity. I ask Him for wisdom, "Father you show me how to respond because I don't even know. I don't even know. But God help me see the temporariness of this stuff."
The Five Year Rule
There was an article in the newspaper a few weeks ago, an interview with Tex Earnhardt. He was talking about being in business here 50 years. And he was talking about inevitably there's disputes and he said, how do you handle those? And he said, "I try to advise people on the five year rule. Five years from now, is this going to make any difference?" Boy, that's what we need. That's what I need to get.
Of this stuff looks so big, so important, so necessary, so urgent. And in reality, it doesn't really matter all that much. In fact, the things that really do matter sometimes never even show up on the radar. So God says, I'll put it on your radar. I'll get your attention.
All of that response is possible to those of us who know Christ, who are indwelt by His Spirit. We come back to that week after week as we come to our time of communion.
So if you're in the conference center, Neil will be there in just a second and he will close your time of worship. He is here now. He'll lead us in communion and then in worship and then we'll adjourn.
Father, help us see these truths, apply them to our hearts as the world crowds all around us and circumstances and life pushes in on us. Give us the ability to see things as You see them, to be wise, to be concerned about Your agenda, not ours. Father, we pray this to You in Christ's name, amen.