James chapter number 1. We'll read verse 1 through to verse number 4. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 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. Let us pray. Father, we come to You, and we ask that You would help us by Your Holy Spirit to see the wisdom of suffering, in suffering, that, Lord, we, as we face the trials of life, might have our eyes lifted up toward heaven, might have our eyes fixed upon the truths of scripture that teach us that You are a God of purpose, and in all our suffering, You work all things together for good to them that love You. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. When I think about trials, honestly, I think they are a very strange phenomena. You know, there is something so wrong about trials. We feel like we weren't born for this or made for this, and we long to get away from it and get out of it. But then at the same time, there's something so strangely beneficial to us in this life with regards to suffering. Many of us see ourselves actually as better people as a result of the sufferings that we've experienced in our lives, and the hardships and the trials. Now, although it's not universally true, some trials, particularly ones that are not responded to well, result in some severe trauma that actually affects people's lives, you know, indefinitely. Yet, at the same time, what we understand from the word of God is that as we approach trials and sufferings well and in accordance and harmony with the will of God, they actually serve towards our spiritual growth and spiritual maturity. You know, there are no trials in heaven. That's when the trials of life will all be over. Yet at the same time, in this life, there is no true experience of heaven without trial. In heaven, trials will be no more, but now they deepen our faith and experience of God that brings us nearer to heaven in our knowledge of God. It's so strange when you think about it. The experience of trials and the subsequent joy and benefit that comes from them, and looking back in our lives of suffering and seeing how they have worked together for our good, gives us a really strange sense of the bittersweet. Sort of like the woman that bears a child, and through that, there's great trial and suffering and labor. But when she has the child and sees the subsequent fruit of that trial, she sees the joy and actually forgets the trial because of the benefit of the, the, the joy of the child before her, as the scripture points out to us. Or the man who labors so hard at work by the sweat of his brow because of the curse that has fallen upon the world. But something about eating the sweet fruit of that bitter labor drives that man to work just as hard, if not harder, the next week, the following years. And James, as we come to this text of scripture, wants us to kind of see life like that. He wants us to see that life contains necessary suffering which leads to subsequent benefit in our lives. James says something like to the effect, the whole of life is like that. And He does it by using these words in verse number two. He says, “when you meet trials of various kinds.” Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. This is the bitter, the inevitable bitter in the sweet of life. It's part of life's ecosystem that you and I suffer. You live in this world, well, then there will be hardship. The word "meet trials of various kinds" actually literally means you will fall into trials of various kinds, which gives us the impression that trials are something that is unexpected and you are surrounded by. Think of it like falling into a pit. You know, you're walking along your way, and all of a sudden you fall into a deep pit, let's say. And you're surrounded by this dark, deep hole. And that's how trials come to us in many ways. In fact, the same word is used in the parable of the Good Samaritan where it says that the man fell among thieves. You know, life is a bit like that. It's a bit like falling among thieves. That's what trials are a little bit like. You know, it's minding our own business, so we'd like to think, going from Jericho to Jerusalem. You know, on a good old sunny day, and all of a sudden, we're surrounded by thieves, or these certain trials that rob us of our joys and of our comforts, bring into our lives certain difficulties and fears and rob us of the things that bring us satisfaction. And these trials, James says, are trials of various kinds. And so He's not just talking about persecution per se, which the believers here that were scattered abroad because of the persecution were very familiar with, but He's talking about trials of various kinds, that these are many-colored, multi-faceted, manifold trials. Some are larger trials and some are smaller trials. Some are darker trials and some are brighter trials. Some are self-inflicted and others are others of other inflicted. And I think it's important to realize that because sometimes we think, I'm not going through a trial unless I'm like getting my whip back whipped with lashes, you know, for my faith. Trials, in the book of James and in the scripture, extend to all these areas of life. As one man said, "Life is a tale of various trials." And that tale is of various trials is seen in the life of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. Here is a man walking towards the celestial city who finds that the road is not as easy as perhaps some of us think. And in the Pilgrim's Progress, we see a clearer comprehension of the Christian's journeyings and the subsequent sufferings and the sudden happenings that happen to us when we are somewhat least expected, when we least expect them. He stumbles across the slough of despond. He comes across the hill of difficulty. He's there at the valley of humiliation, and there is Apollyon, the great enemy, and the giant of despair, and a host of other difficulties that come from even individuals like Obstinate and Worldly-Wiseman, things that show to us and demonstrate to us what the Apostle Paul said is that we through many tribulations will enter the kingdom of God. Or as Job puts it, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. And so this text reminds us that that it is ordinary to fall into trials as a part of our journeyings through life. And when we do, it feels like we're surrounded by this difficulty. I think the concept of suffocating is a good word to describe how we feel when we're enveloped by trials. But the text also reminds us that the adversity that we experience and the trials that we experience are not meaningless. And this is what James wants his hearers to understand, that that that you will go through trials, perhaps you are going through trials, and if you're not going any through through any particular trial, then it's just really in one way around the corner of this troublesome life in which we live. But James wants his hearers to understand that the adversity that you go through and the trials that you experience, they're not meaningless. This text is, well, the scriptures and this passage of scripture is very unlike nihilism. It's not like it at all. Nihilism is the philosophy that nothing matters, that the world is meaningless. And the point of nihilism is to help people cope with difficulties. That's part of why people adopt this kind of philosophy as well. It's atheistic worldview, of course, it is not in harmony with the scripture, but some people, and perhaps even us from time to time, try to cope with hardship by removing meaning out of everything so that we reduce expectation. And then basically, we don't be so, we're not so disappointed. Does that make sense? When you hope for something and it doesn't come to pass, you feel disappointed, right? And that's like a trial, right? It kind of it kind of throws you off. So what you do is, I hope for nothing, I believe in nothing, the whole world is meaningless, the whole world is purposeless. So when bad happens to me, I just categorize it in that and I'm okay. James wants us to see, and God wants us to understand that's not the way to deal with hardship in life. There is true value and meaning to suffering in our lives, and Christianity is fundamentally opposed to nihilism in this sense. And the key words in the Bible that show us this is the word faith, hope, purpose, or we could just simply say God. Because the reality is, the fact that there is a God who exists, who is all-wise and purposeful, means that nothing befalls us in this life as meaningless. It comes from a God who has purposed it, who has plans for us in our suffering. And James wants us to understand that there is hope and purpose in trials, that this is all not random, and this is not all meaningless. There is a great significance that trials serve us not only in the life to come, but actually in this life in which we live now. And He does this by showing us the the work of trials, the fruit of trials, and the purpose of trials. And He shows us its work by helping us see in verse number three, where He says, “when you meet trials of various kinds,” He says, “for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” The work of trials is to function as a test to our faith. Now, it is important for us to understand that that this is working like fire does to metal. This is the idea of testing of our faith. That when fire, when when the metal is put into the fire, it does two things: it tests the fire, it tests the metal to see what sort it is, but it also refines the metal, the true metals. And so the primary work of of of trials in this passage of scripture, and as we should understand them, is positive. It's actually towards refinement. And what I mean by that is, God's not there saying, I'm going to send a trial in this life because I really want to kind of see what if this guy's a really real believer or not a believer. James doesn't want us to think of trials this way, as God's trying to get you with a gotcha kind of moment, you know, and see, "Ah, got you, I've exposed you." That's not exactly the purpose. When people put metal into the fire, they primarily put it in there for refinement, so that the metal becomes stronger and better as a result of the fire that it's placed into. It's like heat in pottery. You you you put the clay into the oven and and it becomes hardened and strengthened. And so God's not attempting in our trials to expose us, but rather to strengthen and refine us. That is the primary purpose of the fire that God brings into our lives. And so the work of trials is to, even though as a subsequent, you know, thing, it does test to see whether we have true faith or not, but its primary purpose is intended to produce something good in us, to refine the faith that is there. And which leads us to the next sense way in which trials help us in this text of scripture, is not only that it tests our faith to refine our faith, but it actually produces fruit. And this is what it says in verse number three, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. See, the intended outcome of trials and the testing of our faith is the positive fruit of steadfastness. And steadfastness means fortitude or staying power, stickability. You know, it's the idea of of of a constant, a strong constancy. And what James wants us to understand is that when God allows and sends testing into our lives, it tries and tests, trials in our life that test our faith, but that testing of our faith produces steadfastness. And steadfastness is actually an active word. As one commentator said, "It is not a meek, passive submission to circumstances, but a strong, active, challenging response in which the satisfying realities of Christianity are proven in practice." Meaning that the steadfastness that is produced in us as a result of trials and the testing of our faith is a pursuit of God more fully by faith. The testing of our faith should drive us to further faith, or steadfastness of faith is the idea here. James is not saying what Friedrich Nietzsche said when he said, "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger." He's not saying that. We shouldn't read James that way. James is not primarily concerned about how trials make us rock solid as a human being necessarily, that we have the willpower now to grit our teeth through whatever difficulty comes because I've I have built up a resilience that has come from from just bearing this trouble and now I can bear that trouble. This is not the idea here. That is an atheistic approach to this issue. James sees this as primarily as a steadfastness of faith, so that the faith that is tested now becomes a steadfast faith. And what faith does is not merely grit it, but what faith does, it lays hold of God in its weakness and derives its strength from God. Meaning that for the believer, we should not really have much strength apart from the strength that comes from our faith in God, or the part that strength that comes because of our dependence upon God. This is about the grace of faith that causes us to abandon ourselves to God more fully and to surrender ourselves to God more fully, so that when trials come into the life of the Christian, it tests our faith, but it tests our faith so that we can be driven to a steadfastness of faith that lays hold of God and doesn't let go of God in the midst of a storm. So that the strength is not necessarily inherent in us because we've learned to grit our teeth and say that everything's meaningless, but rather it comes to us through the grace of Christ as we lean upon Him. And this is seen very clearly in Paul's trial in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. When he has this thorn in the flesh that comes to him, a messenger of Satan to buffet him and afflict him, and he hears the words of the Lord Jesus who said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Then Paul says, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." You see the difference? He's saying this strength is the grace of Christ that I lay hold of by faith, which trials throw me into and thrust me into. And then I find that in my weakness, I am strong, not that I no longer experience weakness because I've been made strong because of trial, as if the strength comes from me alone. And so the purpose then of trials is spiritual maturity and contentment. So, it produces this fruit of a steadfast faith, it tests our faith and drives us to deeper faith where we lay hold of God more fully, but then it has a purpose, and the purpose of trials is spiritual maturity and contentment. Which means steadfastness of faith is not the end goal of trials, but it says in verse number four, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Steadfastness is not an end in itself. Steadfastness should have its full effect, or its completed work, or its mature end. So as you as your faith is tested, you are deepened in your faith, and now you lay hold of God, and as you continue to lay hold of God, God works in you and strengthens you and makes you more spiritually mature and more like Jesus Christ. So that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. The goal of trials is Christ-likeness. And the Christ-likeness in view here is not merely the outward conformity, but true spiritual maturity that looks like a contentment in God. It's almost like an unshakable satisfaction in God. You see, your faith is tested, you then get thrown deeper into the well of God's grace and you trust Him more and hold on more. And then as you hold on more and hold on more, you become weaned more and more from this world and more and more satisfied in God, so that nothing around you seems to matter anymore because you've come to find Him who is your life. This is the idea of what's happening, a spiritual maturity, a a a kind of a Christ-likeness of spirit. It's a sort of satisfaction in God that was demonstrated in the Lord Jesus Christ as He walked here upon the earth. You remember what Jesus said? He says, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done." There you have it. There's the Christ-likeness of spirit in the midst of trials. Resolved to the will of God, despite what it may cost. And not only that, but Jesus also said in John 4:34, He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work." And so what you have in Jesus is this utter dependence upon God, His Father, a desire to fulfill His will, no matter what it may cost Him. This is the kind of faith-matured or the spiritual maturity and contentment that comes to us as Christ-likeness through our trials. And this is the goal of it. It reminds me of what 1 John 2:14 says when John says, "I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning." You know, it's beautiful. It's saying, "I write to you, fathers, you who have been in the faith long enough and have gone through trials long enough, and have been tested in your faith long enough, and now you know Him who is from the beginning." The one who transcends time, the eternal God, you know Him, and you have a relationship with Him that is deep and and strong, and there's a sense in which you, when He says that you know Him who is from the beginning, it's it's almost like you're satisfied in Him who is from the beginning. The fathers. That's looks to me like a matured faith that has gone through the fire. And here you have more and more of the perfect man. Here you have more and more of the spiritually mature man, the one who is now content in God. And so then, how do trials work in our lives? Let me just illustrate this as we as we come to the end of this text. Trials are a little bit like pathogens or an infectious disease that tests your immune system. So, you have this, you leave church perhaps on a Sunday, you go home, Tuesday you're feeling a little bit, hey, how you going? I'm a bit unwell. Someone gave me a holy kiss, and I wonder who passed that on. And your immune system is being tested. And the test and trial of sickness produces an immune cell response that is suited to that pathogen or to that infectious disease. And our immune system goes into an active fortitude mode, a steadfast mode, if we can put it that way, which works hard to deal with this pathogen. And once the work and the test is complete, and your immune system has produced a good response and has fought, held you steadfastly through this and and fought this battle of your of your body, and has produced cells to fight this pathogen, what you end up with is an immunity to that pathogen, or an immunity to that particular disease. You end up with a sort of resilience and a settled state of protection against that same pathogen because your immune system has become more matured as a result of it being tested through the pathogen that has come into your bloodstream. And trials are very much like that. That's why some of you parents, you have your kids sick, but you're not sick because you've probably had something that they've had. And I think with Christian maturity, it's like that, isn't it? We meet other people that are going through similar struggles that we've gone through, but they seem to have a sort of immunity to that particular thing. But God is developing them with a trial in this area of their life so they can be more weaned of this world and more strong in their in their convictions and laying hold of God in their trials to realize the same God that brought me through this one can bring me through that one. And then you have some Christians who we must be tender with and understanding of that that they've experienced the trials perhaps for the first time or this is something they're not used to, and then they're being, they're really like sick in the bed because of this thing that you'd be like, "What's wrong with you?" Well, no, this is part of the journey. The journey we go together. We all fall into various trials of different kinds. And and when we do, we must understand what God is trying to do. And and the point is not to slap people over the head, as it were, and say, "What's wrong with you?" but to help them realize the purposes of God in trial. That, don't you see that this is working for your good and for God's glory? Come and let me show you what God is trying to do here and and let us stop and and and let us rejoice a little bit in this time of affliction. Let let us let us have a sense of hope that can come from this suffering that you are going through. And that's why James can say here at the beginning of his text, chapter 2, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials." For you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. It gives sense to the command, "Count it all joy." Joy is not possible by focusing on pain. Understand that. You will never have joy by focusing on the trial. That's not what James is saying. As if we're meant to be sadistic and deny what's actually before us. We are suffering, we go through hardship. But what James says is I just want you to lift your eyes just a little bit higher. I just want you to look at that trial and look through it just a little bit more and see that there is a God who reigns over all, that is working this for your good and for His glory. A God that has has purpose. There is meaning in this. Can you just lay hold of the meaning and see the value that will come as this storm passes? And that is only possible through having a heavenly conviction about suffering in this life. You know, the pathway to Christian maturity and contentment is one of many thorns. You know, we want to be weaned from this world, and we want to behold Jesus only. Don't you? Well, James tells us not without the fellowship of His sufferings, because if you want to be that man who lacks nothing, you need to behold Jesus in a way like you've never behold Him before. Well, God says the way that we're going to get you to that point is through trials of various kinds. We want to be satisfied in God alone, to hunger less and less after the things of this world. And James reminds us, "Well, not without a cross." We want to be a Christian that has strong faith and a staying power that is used of God and able to weather the storms that come our way and to help others in their trials of affliction. Well, not without drought and not without strong winds. You want to be a deep-rooted Christian whose life is rooted deeply in the truth of God, like a strong tree? Well, how do trees get their strength? Through trial. You know, it's when there's drought in the land that the tree has to send its roots much further into the ground to try and find some water source. You know, when when when there's when there's strong winds that are that are blowing against the tree, the tree then produces stress wood to help itself stand firm in the midst of that. And that tree that you see in that forest that is so glorious and so large and so strong, and you look at that and say, "Wow, how beautiful is this." You know what it's been formed under? Trial. That tree is like the perfect man, or the tree is like the mature man, the spiritually mature one that lacks in nothing. That tree, look at it, it's so sufficient that the birds make their nest in it. We want to be Christians like that, right? That are strong and able to bless others. And James says, okay. Well, when you fall into trials of various kinds, just remember God's making you like that tree. And that's why you can rejoice. That's why you can glory. That's why you can stop and say it is well with my soul that I go through hardship because God is making me more like Jesus and I want to be like Him. We sing, we cry, we pray, "Lord, make me more like Jesus." But we whine and complain when God begins to take the chisel and chip away at the areas of our lives that are very unlike Jesus. You know, holiness comes at a cost. We must not complain about the bill when we're the ones who made the order. You ordered holiness? You came to Jesus and said, "I want you, Jesus, all of You. None of this world. You saved me by your grace. I love You. I love You. I love You. I love You. I want to love You more." It's so glorious. And God says, "Okay. Here's an oven, my clay pot. Come with me. Come." We started at 60 degrees. We work our way up. But you'll be the stronger for it, my son, you know? Yeah, but I think it's important to realize that, right? And it's so hard for us to look at that hard conversation that we've had, or that death that's happened in our lives in someone that we know, love one, or or or that struggle that we're have having at work, or that injury that we've experienced. We we look at it's so hard for us to see that as as as fulfilling this, as working towards this. And this is why James reminds us, this is what it's about. We look at our trial of spiritual drought and all of a sudden we're like, God, am I saved? God's like, you know why I've taken you through the wilderness? Because I want you to know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I want you to know that I provide for you, even though you have no intimate experience of Me in this very moment. Will you still trust Me then? Will your faith be steadfast when you have no no no manifest, tangible presence of God's joy in your life? Will you still hold on to Me? We want to be like Jesus. We want to be holy, we want to be mature, and God says, "Well, the pathway to such maturity is through trials." You know, Jesus endured many trials and many afflictions in His life and in His death. He was tempted in the wilderness by the devil for 40 days. He was despised and rejected of men. He was called by the prophet, a man of sorrows, and one who was acquainted with grief. He experienced not only trials and afflictions in His life in terms of, you know, His suffering on earth, but He also had legal trials where He was brought before magistrates and falsely accused and and obviously led to His crucifixion, which was absolutely torturous event. Beyond that, there was this desertion from the Father when He cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" at the deepest, darkest trial of any night that could ever be imagined as He bore our sins in His own body upon the cross. But you know what's interesting about the trials of Jesus and the sufferings of Jesus? They were not to make Jesus the perfect man, but they were to prove that Jesus is the perfect man. Jesus went to the fire and there was no dross. Jesus went into the fire and the gold was brighter than ever. Jesus went into the fire and there was no purification process that needed to happen. All the fire that fell on Him for us was to cause us to trust in Him who is the perfect man, so that our faith might rest in Him. So that when it's when our when our our faith is tested and we need to have steadfastness of faith, it's all that we can lean more fully upon Him that He walk walked the road of trials and proved Himself to be all that I ever need. Jesus, be my righteousness. Jesus, be my joy. Jesus, be my faith. Be my strength. Hold me up. You who went through the fire and came out just as pure as you went in. Hold me up as you remove the dross from my life and I look like you. You know, and Jesus did it all with joy. It proves to us that what James is saying here is not that the joy is this necessarily big smile on his face. He cried and wept as he went through his trials of affliction. But once again, his perspective was divine. His viewpoint was holy. And in Jesus' affliction, the Bible teaches us that that he had the joy that was set before him. In the book of Hebrews chapter 12 puts it this way, when we go through our sufferings, that we go through our race, he says, "Look to Jesus, the founder, the perfecter of our faith, for the joy that was set before Him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him, that is Jesus, the perfect man, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary nor faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.'" And the author of Hebrews is saying, "Your suffering, look to the one who suffered and keep your eyes on Jesus because He is the one who knows how to suffer and He did it for the joy that was set before Him, which was you." You were the joy set before Him. Not so he could become the perfect man, not so that he could could be better in life. He was already that, but so that you might be redeemed and know Him as your Lord and Savior so that you might be forgiven from your sins and have eternal life. Christian, if He did that for the joy of saving us, should we not count it all joy in suffering just to be like Him? The joy that James calls us to is one that says, "It is well with my soul." We'll sing in just a moment these words, "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, 'It is well, it is well with my soul.' Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul." There is cause for rejoicing in your suffering. Let us behold the wisdom of God in His word. Let us pray. Father, we come to You in our weakness. We come to You, Lord, in our fear. We come to You, Lord, as those that have been, as it were, dropped into a pit, and feel, as it were, suffocated by the troubles of life. We come, Lord, asking that You would help us, first and foremost, to see Jesus, the perfect man, which You are patterning us after. And Lord, secondly, that You would help us to rejoice in sorrow, knowing that to be like Jesus is to do and to fulfill the will of God. It is to have the great purposes of God fulfilled in us. We ask that You would help us, Lord, in our suffering, in Jesus' name. Amen.