Keeping the Right Perspective in Trials: James Lesson 6

 Return with me to James 1 again this morning. In this first section of James’ letter to the scattered Christians of the early church, he has been teaching us how to honor and glorify God with our responses to trials. Trials are inevitable. The trials those first recipients of this letter were facing were persecutions. They were dispersed abroad because of the hatred of the Jewish religious elite. The book of Acts tells us of the opposition faced by those first followers of Christ. But really, they were dispersed because of the plan of God to spread the gospel throughout the known world. I hope you remember that we began this study by establishing the fact that when we become Christians, we become His to do as He wants. The Christian life and the kingdom of God, really our salvation and sanctification are for His glory, not our happiness and comfort. God ordained these early Christians be subjected to persecution so that His will and His work were accomplished. This is a very different message than what is being marketed to most in the modern church.

 When these trials come, when we understand that the Christian life is for the purpose of His glory, we can respond to the trials in a way that we should. We can consider the trials all joy. We respond with a joyful attitude because we know that God has ordained the trial to test our faith. Testing proves the value and validity of faith. This is why we submit our will to the work God is doing and we endure through the trial, seeing that God is bringing us to perfection and completeness, where we lack nothing.

 Last week we saw the necessity of the wisdom of God if our response is to honor and glorify Him. This is wisdom from God which He promises to give to those who ask. The prerequisite is that we ask in faith without any doubting. Doubting reveals a problem of double-mindedness that results in a person who is unstable in all his ways.

 So, we need a joyful attitude. We need the knowledge or understanding of God’s work in testing our faith. We need a submissive will so that we remain under the trial and see the spiritual progress being produced by the trial. We need God’s wisdom to know what He is using the trial to accomplish. We need unwavering faith that is free from doubt.

 There is one more important element or aspect to this. This is what we find in verses 9-12. Read these verses. Our translation of these verses seem a little awkward to me. In fact, my translation has a new paragraph starting with verse 12 and going on through verse 15. In reality verse 12 goes with verses 2-11 because it is still talking about trials. Verse 13 will begin the next section dealing with temptations. We will get to that in a couple weeks.

James is continuing his instruction on how to respond to trials and these verses give us the last part of his instructions. These verses instruct us regarding the need for a proper perspective in the midst of trials. They teach us to keep our focus on the right things. James is instructing us on the importance of keeping our focus on the things that really matter. If we are going to honor and glorify God with our response to trials, it is critical that we are able to sort out the things that are truly important from the things that are not. It is important that we understand what constitutes a true blessing. It is vital that we focus on those things that are really blessings, not those things that are counterfeit blessings.

 There is a good reason James taught us about asking God for wisdom before he teaches this. This is really the essence of the wisdom which God gives. When we are in the midst of trials, and we need wisdom to understand how God is using the trials for our spiritual progress, the most important thing we need to be able to do is to focus on what really matters. We learned last week that this wisdom was the ability to skillfully manage the affairs of life. Skillfully managing the affairs of the trials involves keeping the main thing the main thing. Wisdom in trials is being able to keep what really matters in our sights. Verses 9-12 are wisdom illustrated and exemplified.

 What is wisdom for the poor man? It is to make his high position the object of his perspective. What is wisdom for the rich man? It is to make his spiritual humiliation the object of his perspective, not his riches.

 Verse 12 tells us what really matters. What really matters is that we persevere under trials and gain God’s approval and receive the crown of life which has been promised to those who love Him. This is to be our focus. This helps us keep a proper perspective on the trials.

 We want the blessings of God, but too often we want to be able to define what those blessings are to look like. We consider ourselves blessed if we are healthy and happy and well supplied. We consider a secure neighborhood as a blessing. We look at our nice vehicles as blessings. Our blessings include our retirement accounts, our homes, and our possessions. Are these the things that God would count as blessings? Are these the things God is most concerned with us having?

 Who does verse 12 tell us is blessed? From God’s perspective, who is the one who is blessed? In the middle of our trials, we need to focus on that which God says is the real blessing.

What is the real blessing in your mind? Is it poverty or being wealthy? Which of those is the blessing? In our minds we think of the wealthy person as the one who is blessed, but that isn’t what James says here. The fact of the matter is that the one who is blessed, his blessings have nothing to do with how much money he has. Verse 12 is the verse that contains the word “blessed” and it tells us that the one who is blessed is the one who perseveres under trial. In our passage we cannot find that the wealthy person is blessed because he is rich. In fact, the rich man faces the real risk of fading away in the midst of his pursuits, just like the flower fades when scorched by a hot wind. This means that he does not persevere. This means that he misses the real blessings completely. This means that he was unable to sort out what really matters. He did not understand God’s perspective on what constitutes a true blessing.

And the poor man isn’t to consider his humble circumstances as a curse. In fact, James seems to indicate that his humble circumstances are irrelevant. His poverty isn’t an issue at all. In fact, financial consideration isn’t even a factor in being blessed. The poor man isn’t to make his poverty his focus because his focus is to be on his high position. God’s perspective on the poor man’s life is that his financial status is not what really matters. His lack of wealth does not mean he is without real blessings. His high position in Christ is the true blessing.

Honoring God in our response to trials requires us to understand God’s perspective on what constitutes the true blessings of life. If we don’t have a right understanding of what God considers the real blessing, we will not honor God in our response when trials impact what we wrongly assume are blessings.

Who is truly blessed? Is it the person who is wealthy, or the person who is poor? The fact is that it can be either, neither, or both. Either one is blessed as long as that person perseveres under the trial, and gains God’s approval and receives the crown of life which the Lord has promised for those who love Him.

Who is truly blessed? Is it the person who goes through life enjoying good health, or the person who perseveres under the trial of lost health and is approved of God, and receives the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him? The healthy person is also blessed if they persevere under whatever trials God ordains.

Who is truly blessed? The person who lives life free from persecution, or the person who perseveres under the trial of persecution and is approved of God and receives the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him?

I think that perhaps we have found the key to victory in our struggle. We have acknowledged all the way through this study that it is a challenge to respond to trials by considering them the occasion of pure joy. Verse 12 reveals to us why the trial is to be considered all joy. The trial is to be considered all joy because the trial is the pathway to becoming the blessed man who perseveres under the trial, gaining approval because his faith has endured through the trial and he knows he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

I hope I have learned something important from this passage. I have sought to obey the imperative command of verse 2 because I want to obey God’s instructions. I want to honor Him. I want to respond to trials with an attitude of joy because that is what God tells me to do in verse 2. So, to help me and equip me with the truth, I memorized verses 2-4. I did this a long time ago. I have always wanted to consider trials as the occasion of supreme joy because that is what God tells me to do.

Consequently, my joyful attitude was more of a self-manufactured, insincere joy that was really not a joyful attitude. It was a “grin and bear it” kind of approach. When the trials show up it is time to put a smile on my face and act like this is a joyful experience. After all, this is what God tells me to do, and I want to do what He tells me to do. I want to obey Him. Obedience is my duty and my desire. But I’m not sure my obedience has ever really been a heartfelt, genuine, God-honoring obedience. I say this because genuine joy is a struggle if the trials are severe.

Why? Because my eyes are focused on things below more than on things above. My perspective is too low. If we focus on the circumstances rather than the end result, we are not focused on the right things. We must incorporate verse 12 into our thinking. We must adopt the truth of verse 12 as our focus. We have to look beyond the immediate struggle in the trial to the promised reward which can only come by persevering through the trial and being approved of God and receiving the crown of life.

We must treasure the crown more than the comfort. We can endure the pain of the trial because it proves we are worthy of the promised reward. This is what has the power to transform our attitude into genuine joy. We can respond with sincere joy when we have the right perspective on the temporal trial and the eternal treasure.

What is this eternal treasure? James tells us it is the crown of life. The crown spoken of here is the crown worn by the one victorious in an athletic competition. It is not the crown of royalty. It is a symbol of the triumph of perseverance. It represents the victory of eternal life. It is the crown of life.

This does not mean that we earn our salvation by persevering through trials. It means that perseverance gives evidence of God’s approval and the crown of life is the reward given because we are approved by God. Please note that the crown of life is promised to those who love Him. It is our love of Christ that is the evidence that we have been transformed by the work of salvation. Love for Christ is the biblical definition of genuine salvation. Genuine salvation is not defined by belief in Jesus, but rather by love for Jesus. The genuine nature of salvation is evidenced by an ongoing love for Jesus Christ, even when following Him leads to times of severe testing.

Our perspective will only help us glorify God in response to trials if we are fixed on the right things. We must focus on the crown of life if we are to rejoice in the crosses of life.

I often take two fingers and point them at my eyes and then turn and point them at my grandchildren. What this tells them is that I’m watching them. They are in my focus. My perspective is fixed on them.

This focus, or perspective, is what James is emphasizing in verses 9-11. James illustrates this principle of perspective using the trial of poverty. Look at what he says in verse 9. “But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position.” This is a Christian. He is a “brother.” He is an impoverished brother. This is what it means to be “of humble circumstances.” We know this is what James means because he will contrast this man to the rich man in verse 10.

What is James telling the poor brother? He is telling him to lift is focus above his circumstances. He is to glory in his high position. What is his “high position?” It is his standing in Christ. It is the fact that he has what is described by Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-9.

When the impoverished brother lifts his eyes above his poverty and makes his high position in Christ his focus, his poverty becomes irrelevant. When a brother in bad health can lift his eyes above his circumstances and focus on his eternal treasure and glorified body, his present health becomes irrelevant. Whatever the trial, we can consider it all joy because the trial becomes the opportunity to experience true blessing. 

The same point is made in verses 10-11 with the rich man. The rich man’s wealth is not what constitutes the true blessing. He is not made happy by his riches. In fact, his riches are a potential distraction from the true blessing. His riches might make him forget that like the quickly fading flower, he too will pass away. The man will, like the flower that falls off and has the beauty of its appearance destroyed, fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

He should focus on his humiliation. He should rejoice in the trials he faces because they remind him that he is really no different than the poor man. He became a child of God by grace through faith just like everyone else. His wealth did not help him come to Christ. In fact, God was extremely gracious to him in opening his eyes to allow him to see his need for Christ in spite of his wealth. Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. This is because the rich man’s wealth is often the basis for his self-sufficiency. The rich man who comes to faith in Christ must never make his wealth his focus. His perspective, or focus, must be set much higher than that.

James is teaching us to look above the circumstances, especially the circumstances related to our trials. We need the eternal perspective. We need to understand that we are blessed when the trials come because the trials provide the opportunity to persevere under the trial and demonstrate the reality of our approval with God. This is how we know we will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

I want to close by showing you a few other places where this truth is confirmed. Turn to Matthew 10:21-22. 2 Tim. 2:8-13. Heb. 10:32-39.