James Part 2 - When The Lord Brings Trials

Andrew Grey continues our series on the book of James, in chapter 1v2-12.

This sermon is from Sunday 15th March 2026.

Transcript

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Let me pray. Father in heaven, we pray that this word you have for us here would do us good. We pray for the ears and our heads for understanding. We pray also for the ears and eyes of our hearts, for a willing receiving. Where we receive hard things from you, we know they come from fatherly care, and we pray that we would receive it as such. For our maturing, for our perfecting, for our wholeness, and through that for the glory of your Son, who loves us and who gave himself for us, and in whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. So James chapter 1, verses 1 to 12. Let's hear the words of Almighty God. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. 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. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that's driven and tossed by the winds, for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flower falls and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Well, thanks be to God for his word to us today. I would like to talk to you about weightlifting, uh bench pressing and all that. Now, children, children, as you look at me, do you think I am an expert in weightlifting? Or do you think? Am I an expert in weightlifting? Very happily, uh, my Elizabeth says she prefers that I do not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The point of lifting weights is to grow muscle. So imagine for a moment you are lying on your back on the bench. You are holding a bar which has weights on it. Now, if we were in outer space, that would be easy, wouldn't it? There would be no gravity pushing down. However, gravity pushes the bar down, and you have to push back up, and that's the key point. That is what creates muscle. And here is the thing before us: God places weights upon us. God places weights upon us. In today's passage, we read that little word trial. Verse 2, you meet trials of various kinds. Verse 12, he remains steadfast under trial. In our trials, God puts us under pressure. Now, different ones of us right now I know are under. That is to say, you are pushed down by various kinds of trials. I thought of listing the kinds of trials under which different church members are suffering. I actually think the list is probably too long. And I think that is the point here. Various kinds, many kinds of trials. So many, you can fill in the blank. It is this which is pushing down upon me. And for the Christian, this is very perplexing. I know that God is good, I know that God is powerful, and through Jesus, He has become to me my Father in heaven. So, Lord, why are you giving this to me? What are you doing? Suppose for a moment that a person is an atheist, so they live in a world where they think there is no God. Now, one of the most bitter fruits of that creed is that it makes suffering pointless. It's just what happens. It's DNA doing what DNA does, it's the survival of the fittest, and there is therefore no logical reason to complain, and it's a bitter place to be. And I always say to someone who's not yet a Christian, who's pressed down, it is just so much better to suffer with Jesus than without Jesus. So much better. But even for the Christian, it is perplexing. If we're Bible people, we know that the suffering of Christian people is always under the providential hand of God, and He only wants what is best for us. And so we find ourselves saying or praying or crying out, you know, things like, Why are you giving this to me, Lord? How long is this going to carry on? And actually, the Psalms wonderfully encourage us in that. It is okay to ask such questions of the Lord. Now, this part of God's word before us here in James chapter 1, verses uh 1 to 12, it addresses our trials from two angles. First, from God's end, that's how we're going to approach it. Firstly, from God's end, what is he doing as he loads more and more weight onto each end of the bar? And then from our end, as we hold that bar, as we are underneath it, what do we think? What do we feel? What do we do as the bar gets heavier and heavier and heavier and harder to resist? Now I pray this will be helpful to us. Those of us who are very obviously under pressure, but also others of us, you know, children, younger people, maybe, it will there is preparation work to be done for the life of faith, for the life of walking with Jesus, when the Lord brings trials into our lives. And it is a when, not an if. So, trials. What is God doing? Trials, what is God doing? Very simply, the Lord uses trials to make us whole. Now, children, quick spelling moment. Whole W H O L E. Whole. And this is one of the most important things that God's Word in the book of James would have us wrap our heads around. We started last week looking at James. It is a book for divided people. People who, verse 8, are double-minded, double-souled, split in two, and that does include Christian people to a greater or lesser extent. We are split in two. We love the Lord and we love other things, and the Lord wants to repair that. He wants to mend us, he wants to make us whole. And that's what that word perfect in verse 4 means. It is not talking about sinless perfection, but it's talking about loyalties that are no longer split in two. You know, a love for the Lord from a whole heart which reveals itself in obedience to the Lord's commands. That is the wholeness of which this speaks. Christian people, that's what we long for, isn't it? When we're in our right minds, we all feel that internal tug of war, love for the Lord, love of self, love of the Lord, love of the world and the flesh. We want to go the Lord's way and we want that kind of split soul to be healed. And the unwelcome message of God's word today is this that there is no wholeness without soreness. That's how David Gibson puts it in his book. There is no wholeness without soreness. The Lord uses trials to make us whole. Because as our faith is tested, we are made steadfast. You can imagine a road here in those verses, verses two, three, four. There are trials and testing which produces steadfastness, and at the end of the road, wholeness. Now that word for steadfast, steadfast, steadfastness, it is the idea of remaining under. That's quite literally what it means. Remaining under. So you are being pressed down, you are under something, but you are remaining. That is to say, you are bearing up under the weight which is pushing down. So here are trials. You don't have to be steadfast in non-trial situations. You don't have to be steadfast in your, I don't know, enjoyments and your pleasures. Steadfastness belongs to trial. They push down, you are pushing up. This is where it's obviously like the bench press, isn't it? Um our muscles become strong when they face resistance. Or think of the athlete, uh, training, running, working out. There's sweat and tears because at the end of it all, there is a victor's crown. And Christian people learn faithfulness to the Lord over the long haul when we face difficulty. It grows muscle, it grows spiritual muscle, it grows this thing called steadfastness, remaining under. Now, what James says here, it's not an unusual truth in the Bible that the Lord uses trials, that he brings trials into our lives. You know, Romans 5, 1 Peter 1. It's part of the strange providence of God, you know, no accidents in his universe. And the word of God tells us that those seasons of trial are like refining. So gold or silver, it is refined in a fiery furnace, it is made pure. Other bits are burned away. So our loyalty to the Lord, do we want it to be less fluctuating? Our obedience to him. Do we want it to be less kind of all over the place? Well, here is the Lord's way. He brings into our lives pains and griefs. And we might think to ourselves, you know, where is the fatherly hand of God in this? Life seems a mess. My prayers seem unanswered. Lord, what are you doing? And the answer is the Lord wants to use that trial to make you whole. It is possible for that trial to be useful, to be used by the Lord to grow you in steadfastness and wholeness, to grow you in loving Christ and obeying Him. So an encouragement and a prayer would be that each of us would learn in our trials what the Lord's trying to do. Is there a sin that he's trying to kill through this thing he's doing? Is there something he wants me to be less attached to? Is it just that he wants you to love Christ and holiness and heaven more? Now, if we're honest, we probably say to God, if we if we honestly encounter verse 2, verse 3, verse 4, we probably say to God, Doctor, why does the medicine have to be so nasty? Yeah, why does the treatment have to hurt so much? It it feels like an amputation or a chemotherapy, doesn't it? And the answer would come back, I think. Do you want to be better? Do you want to be like Jesus? And it is the way he went, isn't it? He endured the cross. He was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. So that is what the Lord is doing. As he's loading weights onto the bar of our lives. What about us? What is the Christian then to do? Now, woven into our passage are four commands, four imperatives. We're going to look briefly at each. Here's the first. Think. Now, what do I mean? There are some things that make no sense the first time you hear them. Verse two feels a little bit like that. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. Now just read that verse again and just process it. Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. Now, on first reading, that feels like James is saying, Mount Everest is a very small valley, or Manchester United is a cricket team, or my car has one wheel. Trials, count it as joy when you meet them. The key thing there is actually that word count. Really, it means think, consider, reckon. This is not something that happens easily or automatically. Think. We need to wrap our Christian minds around this. We need a revolution in our minds. We do also need to think accurately about it. Now we all know that in different bits of life a small error can have disastrous consequences. Take a war, you fire a missile, that missile is out by 50 feet. Well, just think of the disaster that can result. So we need to be careful and actually quite precise in our thinking. James does not say, and the Bible does not say, count your trials as being a joyful experience. Pain is pain. Pain is not joyful. We're not meant to deny reality. We live the Christian life in a veil of tears. The Lord Jesus, he wept at Lazarus's tomb. James does not say, count it all happiness in your trials. As if in the midst of suffering a Christian should have a kind of permanent grin on his or her face. So here is what the Lord wants for us, for you, for me, that I would count, consider, think that in my trials there is joy to be found because of what the Lord is doing. That is where the joy is. In my trials, there is joy to be found because of what the Lord is doing. So there is joy there. Now that's not the same as happiness. Joy and tears can coexist in the same moment, in the same breath. Joy, it is a deep and settled conviction that God is in this for my good. Joy says, whatever my God ordains is right. It says, together with the Heidelberg catechism, He will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul, and he will turn to my good, whatever adversity he sends me in this life of sorrow. He's able to do this as Almighty God, and He's willing as a faithful father. I believe that, and in that I rest. That is joy. Now, preparing our minds to think like that, trusting our minds rather than our feelings, filling our minds with the goodness of God's word, James would say that is task number one when we face up to our trials, when the weight is pressing down. Second, persevere. Persevere. Some things happen automatically, some things do not happen automatically. We've got two cars. One has got an automatic handbrake, one does not have an automatic handbrake. It's very old. When you're on a hill, you do well to remember which car you are in. Now, this process which the Lord is working using trials to make us whole, there are things for us to do in that process. It's not what you'd call an automatic process. It is not take a Christian, add trials, and you automatically get a whole Christian at the end of it. Now we know that. Let's be honest about that. You can take a Christian and add trials, and you might get a bitter Christian. Not a better Christian, a bitter Christian. You might get someone who says, I used to believe what you do, but then my daughter died. And that's just being honest and real about it. And so God comes to us in his words, verse 4, and says, And let steadfastness have its full effect. Let steadfastness do its full work, its complete work, that you might become whole. So there is a benefit here, there's a treasure actually, there is gold here, but it is for Christian people who respond in the right way. And what it boils down to is persevere, staying Christian, remaining Christian under the weight of trial. It means things like continue to love the Lord and keep on worshiping Him. Continuing to serve the Lord, walking in obedience, all the while that crushing weight is pushing down on me. It is not saying, I will worship and love and serve and fellowship when life gets better. And it's not a passive thing. I hope you can see that. There are trials we can't remove, and we submit ourselves to the Lord, and He gives us things to do. Let steadfastness have its full effect. So under the weight of the bar, press. You have to press. And in the Lord's hands, such perseverance, and we by the way, it often feels so feeble, doesn't it? I feel in my persevering, sometimes my muscles are very, very, very puny. But as we press, such perseverance works something. It builds a character that's full of love for the Lord and obedience to his commands. And it works. It is real. Different ones of us will be able to picture different Christian people who are whole, not perfect, but they love the Lord, they are obedient to Him, they are joyful, and they suffer. And that is not an accident that those things go together. Whenever I come to a scripture like this, I always think of the same person, very dear lady, a friend called Rachel. Lifelong pain and the greatest Christian joy. It works. Think, persevere, ask. So there we are on our backs, and they feel like that the weight is unbearable. And then we are to ask. If any of you lacks wisdom, verse 5, he wants us to be holy, wants us to lack nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. In the Bible, wisdom is not primarily about life decisions. You know, should I marry Mary? Should I marry Martha? Biblical wisdom is about fearing God and walking in his way. And that is so hard, it's doubly hard when we are under pressure. And we feel our lack, and so we ask. I can't do it on my own. Give me what I need. And there is a cast-iron promise here. He will give it. Verse 5: He gives generously. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is an undivided God, and He gives in an undivided, supergenerous, wholehearted way. It is a prayer. He delights to answer. Now, just a couple of little things to be clear on. These are a couple of areas where we might go wrong. First, it is okay to pray for trials to be removed and to be relieved, but the Lord likes to use them. And that is just a fact. And I shouldn't imagine that growing in godliness will make my life suffering free. It's only false teachers and heretics that promise false that promise health and wealth and prosperity. Second, what do we make of the warning in verse six? I experience doubting. What do we make of this warning? Well, uh the opposite of faith, so let him ask in faith, the opposite of faith is disloyalty. It's double-mindedness. That's where that sentence ends up. Christian people do have wobbles and doubts. I do. When you read the Bible, you'll find that Abraham did. And yet his life still showed that he trusted the Lord. Whereas there is a person you could imagine who might be on his knees praying, you could call him the double-minded man. He says he's a Christian, he's going through the motions of praying, but so split is his soul that he has no intention of going the way of the Lord. He's entirely split. And to that person, you know, the heavens are like brass. So think and persevere and ask. And lastly, this might feel like a funny one. Boast. Boast. Verse 9. Let the lowly brother boast. Boasting is not always wrong. There's actually a kind of boasting we ought to be doing a whole lot more. Depends what you're boasting about, doesn't it? Verse 9, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich brother in his humiliation. So we were to imagine two Christians. Here is one Christian who has basically no stuff. And here is another Christian who has loads of stuff. And we might think, well, hold on, I get that. But why are you suddenly talking about money, James? Well, in every trial, so when the when the weight gets loaded on, it can test our faith and grow faith. But our hearts might also become more split, not less. And, and this is the point here, poverty and riches might just be the greatest test for Christian people. And it's not just about the money in our wallet, but it's about which God is ruling our hearts. So Jesus talked about this so much, didn't he? Think about what he said in Matthew 6. You can't serve two masters. And what does he, where does he go when he wants to talk about that? He said, Well, you cannot serve God and money. So of all of the gods that might grab our hearts and split them still further, here is one of the most terrible. So here are these two people. It's not a random example, this. Here is a poor person. You profess faith, but here's the danger. You obsess about the money you do not have. Maybe you steal, and you resent the Lord for not loving you properly. And over here is the rich person. You profess faith, but you indulge yourself, or you have confidence in life because of your pension or your private health care, and not because of the God who holds you. So there's this really dangerous trial, poverty and riches. And the answer is boast. It seems peculiar, doesn't it? But this is how to undo the danger and go the way of wholeness. Boast. Boast in your exaltation, lowly brother. So I guess that sounds something like this. So when I feel my lack, I will tell myself, I am an adopted son of the King of Kings. By the grace of God, I've been joined to Jesus. I have little now, but there is a crown to come. You know, Jesus' crown of life. So I will say with Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, and because I've got him, I have all that I need. And here's the rich brother. You know, in the face of that equally terrible danger, well, actually, I rejoice that the gospel has taken me from up here, as the world would have it, and brought me down here, where I really am. It's put me on a level pegging with all of my brethren, and that is a joyous place to be, because there I have been given Christ. So there we are on the bench. Uh we're pinned down by the bar. Uh there are heavy weights on either end. Uh will we remember that the Lord is at work? The Lord is at work and he loves us. Now I wonder if I could just ask the musicians to come up and get ready to lead us to sing in a moment. Uh come up now, please. Before I pray, we are going to read together some lines from the Heidelberg Catechism. You'll see them in your order of service, and we are going to confess our faith in the God who works all things for the good of those who love him, even painful trials. So let me ask, what do you believe when you say, in the words of the creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth? And together we reply, that the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and all that is in them, and who still upholds and governs them by his eternal counsel and providence, is for the sake of Christ his Son, my God and my Father. In him I trust so completely as to have no doubt that he will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul, and will also turn to my good, whatever adversity he sends me in this life of sorrow. He is able to do so as Almighty God, and willing also as a faithful father. Let me pray. Father, we do need wisdom to embrace your ways, and so we ask for it. We pray for grace to persevere. We pray that by whatever means you might make us whole. We thank you for your fatherly care and your wonderful promise that as we draw near to you, you will indeed draw near to us. And we pray in Christ's name. Amen.