Count it all
joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the
testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its
full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
What would hinder you from serving the Lord as considered in the verse 1? Trials! As soon as tough times come our way, the automatic response is, 'WHY?' Why do you face trials?
Undoubtedly
we all are enduring some trials – you may be feeling very frustrated with your
husband or perhaps you are very annoyed with your children. Or it could be that
you are going through a season of serious financial challenges with unending
demand for more. Or you are emotionally drained, lonely and depressed – you would
like to be married but no one is coming your way. It could be that your friend
has betrayed you. It may be that you’ve been jobless for long; or it might be
you just lost your job or that your contract is about to come to an end. It may
be you are battling a chronic illness, or you can’t have more children.
These and many other trials is what James is
talking about when he writes of trials of
various kinds. ‘Various kinds of trials’ means that they are ‘many-coloured,
variegated… diversified, complex, intricate’, to describe. That is, ‘any and
every kind’[1].
Trials are sent by God in order to make a person stand. However the word used
here carries both that positive meaning but it can also be translated ‘temptations’
– those trials that are sent by Satan to make a person fall. For this sermon we
will use the positive sense but James employs the same Word in verses 12, 13
which is translated temptation. Faced with all sort of trials, the question
that seem to fill your mind is, “WHY GOD?” In these three verses, the Lord God,
our loving heavenly Father provides us with the answer.
How are we to respond to trials?
Before James answers the WHY question, he
addresses the HOW to face to trials question. It is noteworthy that this is
where he begins with, for our problem is not that we lack the answers to the
WHY question. Our great need is not lack of knowledge, our need is right response.
Our greatest need is HOW we are respond. It
is of primary importance that we respond Biblically and not simply emotionally.
We more often than not simply respond as per the dictates of emotion – yet the
two, emotion and Biblical objectivity are not mutually exclusive. Because the
Biblical response here is both emotional and objective!
a) Respond with
joy
When trials of any and every kind come, and
they shall come, you should count it all
joy. ‘Count’ refers to the importance which we give something - it is a well worked calculation. It is to
consider and render a careful rational judgment. The significance and rational
judgment of all kinds of trials by biblical standards is joy. A few examples
here of how the Apostles of the Lord uses this word ‘count’ in comparing the
significance of one thing to another – Peter encourages us to count the seeming
delay of Christ’s return as the Lord’s patience that leads to salvation (2 Peter
3:15). Paul counts everything as loss in comparison to the excellence of
knowing Christ (Phil. 3:7-8). In the same breath, you should appraise any and
every loss, any and every pain, any and every frustration, any and every
calamity, any and every pressure, any and every distress as pure joy! In other words, do not waste any trial, any cancer, any sleepless night, any frustration. This is what our Master did – who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross (Heb. 12:2).
All is joy is pure joy. James is emphasizing that Christians must consider their
trials as wholly, completely, entirely and utterly joyful… it should not have even
a drop of sadness mixed in their libation of joy.[2] It is not to say that you just smile or
employ worldly, temporal happiness, or administer the so called ‘holy
laughter’ or other religiously coated worldly methods. On the other hand James
is not calling us to seek and pray for trials as a means for our joy. Neither
is James encouraging us to celebrate in our trials – something like what Kent
Hughes describes:
James was not commending that we
exult upon hearing that our career position has been given to our secretary, or
that the neighbour’s children have leukemia, or that one’s spouse has become
adulterous.[3]
Instead, James is calling us to a spiritual,
enduring and complete joy in the Lord who is sovereign over all things. It is
to trust His Word that He is working out all
things for good (Rom. 8:28) including all types of trials. This means you
look at the trials in light of their eternal value for your life and that of
someone else. We are to consider that our present sufferings are not worth
comparing with the eternal weight of glory that will be revealed in us (Rom.
8:18). We can only have joy in the midst of pain and loss when we know that God
has not only ordained it but is in it! Yes, Mr. Selvaggio is right when says,
The tears of our trials are part of the divine ink God uses to
write the glorious redemptive story of our lives. Our trials are evidence that
He is working on us in His heavenly workshop.[4]
Is this the way we respond when different
types of trials come? I think, because we expect pleasant experiences only in
life, we fail to appraise the experiences with the correct dose of joy. But we
must never forget the wise counsel of John Calvin,
We certainly dread diseases, and want, and exile, and prison, and
reproach, and death, because we regard them as evils; but when we understand
that they are turned through God’s kindness unto helps and aids to our
salvation, it is ingratitude to murmur, and not willingly to submit to be thus
paternally dealt with.[5]
Clearly, our gracious and loving heavenly
Father is using our temporal earthly trials to make us meet for our heavenly
home and so we rejoice with joy inexpressible! Yes, we rejoice and are glad even in the midst of severe persecution
because we have an assurance from our Lord and Saviour that "great is our reward in heaven!" (Matt.
5:11-12). This is what the disciples did in Acts 5:21: Then they left the presence
of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for
the name. May the Lord help us so that like Paul we may say, ”In all our affliction, we may be overflowing with joy”.
(2Co 7:4)
b) Respond with
patience
This will be considered later under chapter 5:7-11
but it is the second way in which we are to respond to trials. For now, I pray that trials will teach you more patience, and more patience as you wait a few more years for this passage to be considered!
Why do you
face trials?
a)
To test your
faith
The first reason why God sends us a package
of trials constantly is to test our faith! Remember that as far as our
spiritual lives are concerned, there is nothing more important than our FAITH.
God has to keep on keeping it on check through trials. And so James in this letter is very concerned
that we may have a real, genuine, living faith. As much as testing is necessary
to establish the quality of gold that perishes, so is the testing of our faith
which is far more precious than gold so that this faith may be found to result
in praise and glory of honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:7).
Simply put, James is saying here that God will neither reduce nor remove the
testing of your faith because He is interested in a glorious, praiseworthy and
honourable faith – our faith must be proved genuine!
You have seen Christians who have gone
through terrible times in their lives. Some have as a result of these trials
ended up rejecting God and so shipwrecking their faith. Others have
successfully waded through trials, and have endured to emerge even stronger
Christians. The trials of Daniel left him a better servant of God and of men in three different governments. The trials of his three friends made the seeming power of idolatry nothing. The trials of Nehemiah left Jerusalem a better city. What legacy will your trials leave behind?
Trials are a very effective means of testing our faith. When under
trial our faith is somewhat shaped – so that our experiences confirm what God
has said about Himself and His creation including ourselves in His Word. This
is what Alec Motyer says,
“When circumstances seem to mock
our creed, when the cruelty of life denies His Fatherliness, His silence calls
in question His almightiness and the sheer, haphazard, meaningless jumble of
events challenges the possibility of a Creator’s ordering hard. It is in this
way that life’s trials test our faith for genuineness.”
b)
To cultivate
your steadfastness
… the
testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Steadfastness is the same as endurance,
fortitude or perseverance. The picture here is of a person successfully carrying
a heavy load for a long time.[6]
This is the intended fruit of trials. It is the very quality expected by God
when He sends adversity our way.
As one
drinks from the cup of trials and eats the bread of adversity, growth is to be
seen through the continued persistence and continuance in the faith. The
progress in faith in the midst of calamity is a mark of tested faith and an
improving faith. Faith that gives up on the way is no faith at all. The
marathon of a believer running through His Christian life is the indication
that there lives a faith, a genuine faith. So we are to run with perseverance
the race that is marked out for us.
Imagine a pastor whose wife goes crazy.
Surely, this is a terrible burden to bear for them both. The faithfulness of
the pastor to care for his wife and to keep on doing it for as long as they are
both alive is the mark of steadfastness. If the man gets tired on the last
month of her life, and marries another woman to be his wife, he has fallen into
sin and this disqualify him from the ministry!
Trials have a way of revealing what we are
really made of. Are we vessels of honour or of dishonour? Trials will shortly
reveal. They show us how weak or strong we are as we carry on. Trials show if
our zeal is sloth after all. Trials reveal if our wisdom was only a wrapping over
folly. How true that, “Innocence is best tried by iniquity” (Tertullian). You
have to melt the rocks if you want the metal…the hard experiences actually
stimulate a deeper commitment and a growing personal holiness. Perseverance is
that willingness to keep running the race that is generated in the course of
the race at precisely the moment when the muscles are hurting and the lungs are
bursting.[7]
But as we carry on under the burden of trials
in faithfulness, the richness of the grace of God in keeping and guarding the
elect through faith is displayed. There is no doubt that the more weight of
trials we have, the more we are trained to pray and to keep our focus on the
Lord. This is how trials force us to depend on the Lord for grace, strength and
wisdom in the midst of trials which is for our eternal good.
c)
To ripen our
spiritual maturity
And let
steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete,
lacking in nothing (v.4). Perseverance is not the final goal of our
trials but it is the bucket of milking more benefits from the trials. Clearly
the benefits of trials can only come to the believers who respond appropriately
to them. Steadfastness has to have its full effect, that is, it has to do all
its intended work first. In other words, steadfastness has to perfect its work
so that you become perfected or matured which is the ultimate goal of the
trials. This is how Moo puts it,
“When endurance is allowed to run
its course and attain its goal, believers will be mature and complete, not
lacking anything… the word “complete” suggests the idea of wholeness of
Christian character that lacks nothing in the panoply of virtues that define
Godly character. This concern for spiritual integrity and wholeness lies at the
heart of James’s concern, and he will come back to the matter again and again.”[8]
A mature, ripe Christian is one who, having
gone through the diverse trials of life is proved to be meet for glory.
Blanchard is right when he asserts that,
God’s desire for the Christian is
not that he should stagger through life in a series of spiritual fits and
starts, flashing out with the odd bright spot here and there and then sinking
back into dullness and defeat. God’s desire for the Christian is nothing less
than that expressed by Jesus: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father
is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48)[9].
This
means that our love for God is growing steadily as our faculties are constantly
being tuned to conform to His holy will so that we love Him with our whole
heart, soul, mind and strength and we love the neighbours He brings our way as
ourselves. But even more important, is that we be conformed to the image of
Christ (Rom. 8:29)
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