Word of Salvation - January 2011

 

Tried and Tested - by Rev. Dr. Steve Voorwinde

Text: James 1: 1 – 12

Scripture: Romans 5: 1 - 11; James 1: 1 – 12

Introduction:

What makes for a good minister? What kinds of qualities and gifts should such a person possess? What should a church be looking for?

 

Let me introduce you to someone really good. I want to introduce you to Pastor Jack whom I’ve never really appreciated as much as I should have. He’s the kind of person that everyone would want as the minister of their congregation.

 

Pastor Jack was a founding member of his church.

 

Over the years Pastor Jack rose up through the ranks of leadership and for many years served as the senior pastor of his church.

 

When you first meet Jack you are struck by his modesty and humility and because of that he is a great moderator and a wise peace-maker.

 

But Jack is also a man of vision. His Church is a mega- church. It has planted satellite churches all around the country. It has even planted churches in other countries, even other continents.

In fact, Jack’s church is the biggest church in the world and by the time it reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary it numbers tens of thousands of members.

 

Not surprisingly when all the churches meet at Synod, Pastor Jack is the chairman and he steers them through some difficult decisions.

 

So Jack’s career as a church leader was truly illustrious. You could say that he was the most influential and powerful church leader of his day.

 

But Jack’s leadership was not without its trials and tribulations. Early on one of his church’s deacons was killed by an angry mob. Later on one of his elders was imprisoned and then beheaded. Finally, when his church had been in existence for about thirty years and still thriving, Jack himself was arrested by the authorities and then stoned to death.

 

By now I am sure you have figured who Jack is. He is the one who identifies himself as “Jacobos” or “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”. He was the head of the Jerusalem church, the half-brother of Jesus although he never mentions it, and he is now writing “to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations.”The reference is probably to Jewish Christians. They may even have been “those who had been scattered by the persecution that followed the death of Stephen.”In Acts 11 we are told that they “travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch” - right up the Eastern Mediterranean coast. (v. 19)

 

As they went these believers took the message of the Gospel with them. In the process they reached Jews, Samaritans and Greeks. Their evangelistic efforts enjoyed spectacular success: We are told that “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord”. (Acts 11: 21)

We can’t be sure whether James was written specifically to these particular Jewish Christians. What we can be sure of is that wherever Jewish Christians were scattered among the nations, they would suffer hardship. They were a despised minority. They were despised by the Gentiles for being Jews. They were despised by the Jews for being Christians. They did it tough and endured all kinds of trials. It is precisely such trials that James addresses in the opening section of his epistle. Being the good pastor that he is, he faces those difficulties head on.

 

Verses 2 – 12 are all about the trials and tests that are likely to come the believer’s way. James’ three main points are in vv. 2 – 11 and then he concludes with a Beatitude in vs. 12. So here are his three main points:

1. How to benefit from trials (vv. 2 – 4)

2. How to endure trials (vv. 9 – 11)

3. Examples of trials (vv. 9 – 11)

 

So his points should be easy enough to remember. Their first letters spell the word BEE:

• Benefitting from trials

• Enduring trials

• Examples of trials

 

So the main points should be particularly easy to remember if you don’t like bees. For most of us a bee sting would be a bit of trial. So think of trials and bees, and you will remember James’ three points in this opening section.

 

1. So, first of all then, how do you benefit from trials?

 

1. James’s answer is simply staggering “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds”.

If James is such a good pastor, how pastoral is that advice? How unnatural would it be for someone to be happy about severe difficulties that came their way! Wouldn’t that be just a little bit crazy! Let me give you some actual examples, if examples are needed.

• In October 2003 one of our students who was coming along very nicely in his studies was cycling on a bike path. Someone walking nearby let their dog off its leash. The dog knocked the student off his bicycle. The result was a broken collar-bone and some complex fractures. That was the end of essay writing and taking lecture notes for the rest of the year. Was he to consider that pure joy?

• A young couple have a four year old girl. For a while she doesn’t seem herself. She isn’t active. For a young child she has no energy. So they take her to the doctor. Her diagnosis is leukaemia – a death sentence for such a little girl. What do you say to the parents? “Consider it all joy”?

• On May 27, 2001, two missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, are enjoying a well deserved holiday at Dos Palmos resort on Palawan Island in the Philippines. That morning they are rudely awakened and kidnapped at gunpoint. For the next year they are held as hostages by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. The whole experience is a living nightmare. Were they to “consider it pure joy”?

• If Martin and Gracia Burnham, the parents of the girl with leukemia, the student with the broken collar-bone were to tell me their troubles, and I were to say, “Consider it pure joy, when your face trials like this”, wouldn’t that be a heartless response? Wouldn’t you sympathise with them if they clobbered me over the head? Wouldn’t I have been totally insensitive to their problems? Wouldn’t I have just made things worse?

 

2. Of course, if we take James out of context like that, it does sound like a harsh piece of advice. But he doesn’t stop there. His reasoning goes on: “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

 

• How do you know how genuine your faith is, if it is never tested?

• How do you know the quality of pure gold, unless it has been refined in the fire?

• How do you know that a student is an “A” student, unless you put him through his paces with deadlines, tests and exams?

 

If gold needs to be refined, if we are to know its quality, if a student needs to be tested if we are to know his ability, then is it any surprise that our faith is tried as well? How else would you develop the quality of perseverance?

 

But what precisely is perseverance? Some have defined it as “fortitude”, “staying power” or “heroic endurance.”

 

It is the quality that Christians need as they face adversity. Christians are to exercise patience towards difficult people, and perseverance in response to difficult circumstances.

 

3. But James doesn’t stop with perseverance – important as it is – he goes on: “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”(v. 4)

 

Perseverance is not a stand-alone virtue. It must finish its work. It must have its complete effect. And I would suggest there are at least two ways to prevent perseverance from doing its job so that it doesn’t have the desired effect:

 

1. You go through trials with a stoical attitude. You grit your teeth. You keep your chin up. You just grin and bear it. You tell yourself “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”But that’s really not the kind of perseverance that James is talking about. That attitude makes a person hard, rather than strong. It makes them callous and unfeeling to the needs of others, rather than sympathetic and compassionate.

 

2. Another wrong way approach to trials is to short-circuit the whole process. You can pull the metal out of the fire too soon. If you short-circuit the trial you live through the suffering in vain. And what a common problem this is:

• The marriage is too difficult and so we opt out, rather than working at it to bring the relationship to a higher level.

• The university course becomes too demanding, so we drop out.

• The job is too unpleasant, so we look for easier alternatives.

• Church going is not as rewarding as we think it should be, and so we make the effort less and less and eventually stop going all together.

 

So both of these are wrong responses to trials. You don’t persevere if you short-circuit the process and you don’t persevere if you simply grit your teeth and act the stoic.

 

4. So then how do you let perseverance finish its work? You do it by realising that God is using this trial to shape Christian character. He is allowing this difficulty in your life so that you will be a well-rounded and mature Christian.

Trials produce perseverance and perseverance produces maturity.

 

Trials produce perseverance. Perseverance produces maturity. Have you ever met a mature Christian, and once you dig a bit and probe a bit, you don’t find someone who hasn’t had a fair share of trials and difficulties? Have you ever met a mature Christian who’s been on easy street all their lives? I’m not sure I have. God usually uses trials to shape people like that.

 

It’s been my observation that people who become Christians in later life often undergo severe trials soon after their conversion. I’ve often wondered why this is. The most remarkable example was a middle-aged woman. Her conversion was a wonderful, joyful, glorious experience. Within two weeks she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Why does God allow this to happen? Could it have anything to do with trials, perseverance and maturity?

 

And here’s another personal observation for what it’s worth. I have noticed that theological students often go through great trials (you could take that the wrong way!) either at College or soon after graduation. Illness in the family, a sudden crisis, or a personal disappointment – none of these things were in the RTC curriculum. But is God using these experiences to raise up mature Christian leaders who will endure the rigours of the ministry?

 

So that’s James’ first point. Trials bring us benefits that could probably come no other way. They produce perseverance and Christian maturity.

 

2. But then how do we endure these trials? How do we persevere without short-circuiting the process? How do we hang in there without becoming stoical about it all?

 

The answer is very simple – we need wisdom. Look at vs. 5. A promise that comes in a context of trial: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him”.

 

Now of course we all need wisdom every day of our lives. But the need for wisdom becomes particularly urgent when we are going through trials. Nancy and I have just finished reading Gracia Burnham’s book, “In the Presence of My Enemies”. It’s all about the year or more she and her husband Martin had as hostages with the Abu Sayyaf. Those two needed wisdom for situations that hopefully none of us will ever face:

 

• With an armed terrorist behind him Martin would have to give a message for the media on the radio or television. What do you say at a time like that?

• Or one of the other female hostages would tell Gracia that a terrorist wanted to have her as his mistress. What advice would you give?

 

That’s when you need God’s wisdom like never before. And James promises that it will be there. And it will be there in good supply, because God “gives generously without finding fault”.

 

Isn’t that reassuring!? I must say that I’ve often asked God for wisdom in all kind of situations, and He’s never said: “Oh no, not you again! You asked me for that only yesterday!”And he’ll never say, “Why should I give wisdom to you? You’ll just blow it”. With God there is no criticising, no complaining, no mixed motives, no reluctance. His giving is generous, and abundant. You can have all the wisdom you need. It’s there for the asking.

 

There’s only one condition. You must ask with confidence. Look at vv. 6 – 8. “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

 

The person who asks and doubts is like a wave on the open sea that is tossed to and fro by the wind. It shifts and moves, and does not have the same appearance from one moment to the next. A person like this is thrown back and forth between faith and doubt. One moment they trust in God, another moment they cast themselves back on their own resources. James doesn’t have any kind words for the doubter: “He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

 

Now it is ever so important that we understand this illustration in its context. James has just promised that God will give wisdom to those who ask him, and when God has promised something, we can ask for it with the utmost confidence.

 

• If we ask for wisdom, He will answer.

 

• If we ask for the Holy Spirit, He will answer.

 

• If we ask for greater love for our fellow Christians, again He will answer.

 

Why? Because He has told us specifically in Scripture that He will. He has promised wisdom, He has promised love and He has promised the Holy Spirit.

 

But what about the things He hasn’t promised? Yes, we can pray for them, but at the same time trust Him to do what is best.

 

After two years of battling the disease the little girl with leukaemia died, but not before her parents had been a wonderful witness to God’s love in the hospital.

 

Grace Burnham survived her ordeal as a hostage, but Martin was killed in a shootout between the Philippines army and the Abu Sayyaf. But in that year as hostages they were given much wisdom and even the ability to love their captors and lead some of their fellow hostages to Christ.

 

So God doesn’t promise that your trial will be short or easy. There may be no quick fix and the ordeal may last a long time. What God does promise is the wisdom you need to endure it.

 

So what has James taught us so far in these first two points?

1. You benefit from trials because they produce perseverance and maturity.

2. You endure those trials because God promises to give you the wisdom that you need.

 

So that’s B & E. We now have one more E to make the message complete.

 

3. In vv. 9 – 11 James gives two examples of trials.

 

1. The first example is poverty and we read about this in vs 9: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.”

If James’ readers had in fact been scattered by persecution, then most of them would have fallen in this category. With the likes of Saul the Pharisee hot on their heels, they would have fled Jerusalem with little more than the shirts on their backs.

 

Were they refugees, displaced persons, asylum seekers? Who knows? But if they were, their lives would have been rather spartan. They would hardly have arrived in welfare states, and some of them would have had to endure the kind of grinding poverty you see in the Third World today. Some of this is almost beyond our Western imagination. Recently I saw documentaries on poverty in Nigeria and the Philippines. All the housing these people could afford were flimsy structures built over polluted waterways. The stench and the squalor were overwhelming.

 

To Christians in situations like this James tells them to take pride in their high position. It sounds like an oxymoron. Here is a person who is way down on the socio-economic scale, a marginalized member of society, but James is inviting him to consider his true status before God. In the next chapter he asks the question: “Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised to those who love Him?”

 

If you are poor in the eyes of the world, no status, no power, then remember you have blue blood coursing through your veins. You are royalty. An heir of the kingdom, a son or daughter of the King! “And don’t you forget it,” says James, “no matter how poor you are.”

 

2. So poverty is obviously a trial and Christians who have to endure it need to remind themselves of their true status. But the next example is not so clear: “But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.”

 

Some commentators really struggle with this one. They say James isn’t really talking about a Christian at all, but about rich oppressors – and he’s being sarcastic. But is he? The context gives every indication that he is addressing a rich Christian brother. And make no mistake about it, wealth can be a trial every bit as much as poverty. Didn’t Jesus say that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God?”

 

James would no doubt have been familiar with this saying of Jesus. He would also have been familiar with the prayer of the wise man in Prov. 30: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God.” (vv. 8 & 9)

 

To the spiritually aware, both poverty and riches have their pitfalls. James really does view wealth as a trial to be endured. But how? Listen to the pastoral advice James gives to the rich Christian in vv. 10 & 11. At first it may sound unusual, but upon reflection it is ever so realistic and down to earth: “But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position.” And what is his low position? He will pass away like a wild flower says James. And then he elaborates by expanding the illustration: “For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant, its blossom falls and its beauty destroyed. In the same way the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

 

Like Jesus before him, James often takes an illustration from the world of nature around him. In Israel there are wildflowers that bloom beautifully in the morning. But then the sun rises and the hot wind blows in from the desert. As the day warms up the wildflowers droop, wither and die. By evening the impressive blooms are gone, never to appear again.

 

The wealthy person is the flower that looks so impressive. To us it may seem that the rich have everything going for them – power, prestige and success. But from heaven’s perspective things look all together different. “The rich man will fade away even as he goes about his business.” The rich will go down to the dust like any mortal. Slowly their monuments will crumble and their very memory will disappear.

 

That’s James’ sober assessment. The rich man is like a wildflower that blooms in the morning and by evening it’s gone.

 

Let me just test the truth of this observation on you. Hands up if any of these names ring a bell:

 

• Charles Schwab

• Richard Whitney

• Arthur Cutten

• Albert Fall

• Jessie Livermore

• Leon Frazer

• Ivan Krueger

 

They are hardly household names, are they?

 

In 1923 these men met at Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. They were some of the world’s largest money magnates. Together they controlled more wealth than the United States Treasury. 25 years later the story of their success had changed dramatically. Let me read a report of their fortunes.

 

“Charles Schwab went bankrupt and died living on borrowed money. Arthur Cutten died on foreign soil, insolvent. Richard Whitney served a term in Sing Sing Prison. Albert Fall was pardoned from federal prison so that he might die at home. Jessie Livermore, Leon Frazer and Ivan Krueger committed suicide.”

 

Who said that wealth wasn’t a trial? James was right. Here were seven fabulously wealthy men who ended their lives in shame, tragedy or sorrow. Riches are a test and the only way to pass that test is to follow James’ advice: “The one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wildflower.”(v. 10)

 

Conclusion:

In closing James rounds off this section with a wonderful beatitude: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.”

 

That is the ultimate incentive – the victor’s crown at the end of the race. Just as Jesus persevered to the end, to the very death, so we are called to endure, for the reward is great. Spiritual maturity now and the crown of life hereafter. Those who persevere are doubly blessed – first in this life and then in the next.

 

What is your trial? What is your difficulty? What crisis are you going through? Make sure that with God’s wisdom you endure it, and press on to maturity and to the crown of life!

 

Amen