Trials Sermon

Date 26^th March 2009

Andy Doust

Trials

 – James 1 vs1 to vs12

Please stand and open your bibles to James chapter 1 and we read with me James chapter1 vs1 to vs12, you can find this on page     in the New Testament.

History and overview

This is a very rich and practical portion of God’s word brought to us through James. James’s epistle was probably the first one of the New Testament books to be written. It was probably written somewhere between 45 and 48 AD. James the writer of this book was the half brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, James’s name in Hebrew is actually Jacob, which when translated into Greek becomes James, now Jesus had several half brothers and sisters who are referred to in the gospels. We find the book of James deal with real practical issues, that Christians in James’s days in the very early years were struggling with and these issues can relate well to ways which we also struggle with today.

Read James 1

Jam 1:1  From James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: Greetings to all God's people scattered over the whole world.

Jam 1:2  My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way,

Jam 1:3  for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure.

Jam 1:4  Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Jam 1:5  But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all.

Jam 1:6  But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind.

Jam 1:7  If you are like that, unable to make up your mind and undecided in all you do, you must not think that you will receive anything from the Lord.

Jam 1:8  (SEE 1:7)

Jam 1:9  Those Christians who are poor must be glad when God lifts them up,

Jam 1:10  and the rich Christians must be glad when God brings them down. For the rich will pass away like the flower of a wild plant.

Jam 1:11  The sun rises with its blazing heat and burns the plant; its flower falls off, and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way the rich will be destroyed while they go about their business.

Jam 1:12  Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him.

James chapter one deals with the Trials which we face on a daily basis. As we go through difficulties we must always remind our selves that this, this trial is accomplishing something good in me.

There are many passages of the bible which are introduced as Blessed. One of the most memorable to me is the passage of Deuteronomy 28vs2  .. where the Israelites are told that if they walked in the ways of God Blessed would be their lives, that their fields would be blessed by God, that they would be blessed with rain from heaven etc.

Deu 28:2  Obey the LORD your God and all these blessings will be yours:

Deu 28:3  "The LORD will bless your towns and your fields.

Deu 28:4  "The LORD will bless you with many children, with abundant crops, and with many cattle and sheep.

Deu 28:5  "The LORD will bless your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.

Deu 28:6  "The LORD will bless everything you do.

Deu 28:7  "The LORD will defeat your enemies when they attack you. They will attack from one direction, but they will run from you in all directions.

Deu 28:8  "The LORD your God will bless your work and fill your barns with grain. He will bless you in the land that he is giving you.

Notice how further on God’s Blessing changes to cursing.

But if they turned away from God they would experience his curses,

and it reads 

Deu 28:15  "But if you disobey the LORD your God and do not faithfully keep all his commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these evil things will happen to you:

Deu 28:16  "The LORD will curse your towns and your fields.

Deu 28:17  "The LORD will curse your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.

Deu 28:18  "The LORD will curse you by giving you only a few children, poor crops, and few cattle and sheep.

Deu 28:19  "The LORD will curse everything you do.

Isn’t it strange that Jesus would pick up the same focus during His sermon on the mount. Where he says Blessed is the peace maker ….We find Jesus speaking to the Pharisees and He said you are a cursed people Jesus calls them a bruide of vipers. You see Blessed is the happiest condition that a Jewish person could experience was to be Blessed by God, to be cursed by God was the worst condition that a Jewish person could experience. So when James says that Blessed is he who perseveres under trials this is really a great statement and a wonderful thing to have happen to you, to be Blessed is the best thing which can happen to you. If you preserver under trial, the same Greek word is translated

One of the charistics of our day is that people run from their problems, there are so many people getting divorced these days, people chose to run from problems where as in the past people put up with a lot in their marriages. Most people have decided to not endure the trial but rather to escape it. James says that we will be Blessed if we persevere in all trials.

You see we are promised the crown of life which is the ultimate end as we go through difficult circumstances in life in which we are temped to turn away from the will of God, we need to remember in our minds that there will be a great reward waiting ahead for those who will preserver that is the Crown of Life. Well we might ask what is it the Crown of Life.

Some have concluded that it is literally a metal Crown with words LIFE written across it that a person who preservers will receive when he or she goes to heaven.

They say All sunshine and no rain makes for a desert. That’s the way it is in our lives as well, sometimes we complain about our trials but they are the rain which seems to bring fertility, fruitfulness, richness, lushness to our experiences. These trials are sent to make us flourish, these are good things for us. We are told to consider it all JOY when we encounter trials of all sorts and difficulties we are also told to remember that when we are tempted to depart from our Faith we must endure the trial so that we will become Christian who endure trial so that we may become complete as a Christian and lack nothing. You see endurance is only the short range blessing which comes form enduring trials. If we continue to bear up under the trials which is the meaning of the word of endure. It will have its desired results in us God will be able to produce what He wants to produce in us through that trial. That is perfection. The biblical concept of perfection is maturity in the Christian faith, it is not to be sinless ness but rather it is a mature condition.

Everyone of us goes through life we begin it as infants we become children we go through stages of immaturity and finally reach a stage of adulthood a condition that we class as a condition of maturity and that is what we can find James is trying to put across to us when he speaks of perfection he is not talking of sinless perfection but rather he talks of condition of Christian maturity. If we endure our trial rather than caving in to them we will arrive at maturity and he describes that maturity in two ways.

1.It is a manner of completeness

The word complete, whole, absolute, entire, fullness, looks at the maturity a level of adulthood. All of us have seen adults who are adults by their age but they are still immature. Maybe you know a person or people like this, some people just never grow up. This can be for any reason or another, it can be for a number of reasons. This is a tragic thing when an adult is not really a mature person in the bible. You see the God requires us to be mature.

2.It is a manner which lacks nothing.

Lacking in nothing looks at the parts of this experience because all of us have tendency to be mature unevenly. We may be mature in our emotional life, but maybe we are found to be immature in our social life, or our social relationships might not be good as they should be etc. James says God wants us to be mature in every thing, in all areas of our life, he wants us to look mature in all the areas of our lives.  James wants us to be real Christian grown ups.

So how does God mature us, through allowing us to endure a trial

Story

Some of you have probably gone to the sea and perhaps while you were at the sea. You have noticed that the rocks the little pebbles on the sand where the waves break all time. Strange how those pebbles are usually smooth and round, but if you go into an area where the waves do not break where the water is always calm. We can find the rocks tend to be much more sharp and jagged isn’t that is the way it is with the trials of life. We may say are Trials not intended to smooth us out as Christians. Don’t those trials take off all the rough edges. James says the trials take the rough edges of life off us as we endure them. This is one of the values of facing a trial. The trials make us placid, good-natured, composed people, we become a well rounded individual, and so we could say that God uses all of the difficulties that we face for this purpose to smooth out our rough lives.

3. Trials require wisdom

If you lack wisdom James tells us to ask of God when you are facing the trial. We normally experience a trial, we don’t know why this is happening to me. We can find our selves asking why do these things constantly happen to me? God I can’t figure this out. The way we get wisdom on that is when we ask of God. We need to turn to God, or God’s book which will give us wisdom of how to cope with the trial.

We can also find references to wisdom in proverbs. But we must remember that God only gives us wisdom if we are faithful to him.

It is not always easy to be so faithful as our brother James. Yes trials do come to all of us during our daily walk with God. So we might ask how do we handle those trials.

How do we obtain that wisdom

4. Pray for wisdom and believe God will give it to you.

James encourages us to pray for the wisdom. So how do you get wisdom you need to get on your knees. But there is a special requirement to receiving that wisdom. Just like obtaining earthly wisdom. Earthly wisdom requires hard work and learning. God’s wisdom requires us to never doubt that God will give us the necessary wisdom. James says we are not to doubt the abilities of God. We mustn’t put limits on our God. God can help us witht the Trial he is there with us in the trial. God will give us the wisdom required to deal with the trial.

So to recap

Firstly we need to act like a mature person a person of completeness.

Secondly always remember that we are to lack nothing in all areas of our lives.

Thirdly we need to ask God for His wisdom on how to deal with the trial.

Fourthly we need to pray for wisdom and never doubt that it will be given.

If we do this it wont make the trial stop, it wont make it go away, but we will be able to cope better with the trial that we are in.

Lastely lets remind our selves in a trial as James says in vs 12

Jam 1:12  Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him.