Understanding God's Purpose in Trials: James Lesson 4

 We are going back to the first part of James 1 today. Read James 1:1-4. We are learning how to honor God in the way we respond to the trials and troubles that are an inevitable part of life. We saw in verse 2 that an attitude of joy was essential if our response is to glorify God. We are to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials. Last week we looked extensively at what it takes to be able to respond to various trails with supreme rejoicing. Our evaluation or estimation of the many trials we encounter in life is that the arrival of trials is cause for all joy, supreme joy. This is the attitude required to respond to trials in a way that honors and glorifies God.

 There is a lot to learn from what James writes to us. There is also a lot to learn from the examples of New Testament Christians who did exactly what James tells us to do in this passage. One example of a couple of men who considered it all joy when they encountered trails is Paul and Silas. Acts 16 gives us the account. They were on a missionary journey to Macedonia. Why Macedonia? Because Paul had a vision. In his vision Paul saw a man pleading with him to come and help them. Paul rightly concluded that God was leading him to Macedonia to preach the gospel.

 Their first stop was in Philippi. They found some whom the Lord opened their hearts to believe. Soon, a demon possessed girl began to follow them around who brought her masters much profit because of her fortune telling deceptions. She kept crying out about Paul and Silas that they were servants of the Most-High God, who were proclaiming the way of salvation. She did this day after day. Paul finally got tired of the harassment and commanded the demon to come out of the woman and it did. This did not set well with the girl’s masters because when the demon left so did her power to deceive and they lost the potential for income.

 These angry men incited a riot. Paul and Silas end up having their robes torn off and being beaten with rods with many blows. Then they were thrown into prison and put in stocks. This would have been a dark, damp dungeon and the stocks would have caused a great deal of discomfort. These men encountered a variety of trials. This would have caused us to be really careful about the next vision we saw. What did Paul and Silas do? About midnight they decided it was time for the worship service to begin. Their hearts were filled with such joy that they started singing hymns of praise to God. If you don’t know what happened after that, go read Acts 16. That’s all I’m going to tell you. It is a fascinating story. There is an example of someone who had an attitude of joy when they encountered trials.

 An attitude of joy is critical if we are going to respond to trials in a way that honors God. There is another critical thing to see in this passage. Understanding God’s purpose in trials is important if our response to trials is going to honor God. In fact, it is this understanding of what God is doing that is really the reason we can rejoice. We can consider it all joy, brethren, when we encounter various trials because we know that the testing of our faith produces endurance, and endurance is moving toward a perfect result, which is spiritual maturity.

 Having an understanding mind is essential if we are going to honor God by considering it all joy when we encounter various trials. This is the essence of what James is saying in verse 3. The word “knowing” conveys the idea of full understanding of something beyond mere facts. It describes the understanding that comes from personal experience. The endurance that is produced by the testing of your faith is something that every true follower of Christ will come to understand by experience.

 This is a present participle which expresses continuous action. We will continuously acquire new understanding from each new experience of trails. We never stop growing in our knowing. We never get to retire from the experiences of encountering various trials, so we never get to stop acquiring the understanding of what it means to grow in endurance as our faith is tested.

 All of us have had the opportunity to develop this understanding. We have all encountered various trials. We need, no, we must be able to look back on the past trials and see that those times of trials have been the times of our greatest spiritual progress. The greater the severity of the trial, the greater the opportunity for growth. If we value the spiritual progress more than personal comfort, we will be able to consider it all joy when we encounter these trials. God is using them. God is causing them to work together for good.

 Some of us have been doing this Christian life thing for a long time. Some of us have been doing it together here in this church for over 30 years. We have been doing it long enough that some have finished your working careers and have retired. Some of you are looking forward to that in the near future. None of us should begin to think that we will get to retire from the testing of our faith. We can expect that we will continue to encounter various trials and that those trials will be designed to test our faith because God wants to continue to produce endurance of faith.

 When I look at the biblical examples of men who were greatly used of God I find men who faced their greatest tests in the later stages of life. Moses was 80 years old. He had “retired” to a place called Midean. He was happy watching the flock and living life away from the problems of his people in Egypt. God appeared. The attitude of Moses was at first one of “leave me alone, send someone else.” God would not leave him alone. At 80, the greatest trials of his life were ahead of Moses. The Bible gives a commentary on the life of Moses that explains to us what he understood, or what he knew. Read Heb. 11:23-29. Moses knew, he understood that the testing of his faith was producing endurance.

 Consider Abraham. He was a hundred years old when his promised son Isaac was born. If his understanding had been shaped by the culture of today, he would be thinking it was time to sit in the rocking chair and watch the kid grow up into manhood, take a wife, and start having those promised descendants. Then, Abraham encountered one of those trials. It was, perhaps, the greatest trial anyone has ever faced. Genesis 22 tells the story. God told Abraham to take his son, his only son, and to go and sacrifice him in the land of Moriah.

 This was a trial like no other. The nature of this trial was hard to understand because this was not consistent with God’s character. God did not require human sacrifice. This was not consistent with reason. If this child dies, so does the promise of God. There are no descendants from a dead son. This made no sense. Abraham loved his son. Yet, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, there was no hesitation, no argument, no questions from Abraham, only obedience. Again, Hebrews offers a commentary on this event that is helpful. Look at Hebrews 11:17-19. 

 These are a couple of examples of men who had understanding minds. They knew that God was working in the trials to develop and perfect their own faith.

We can glorify God by responding with joy when we encounter various trials because we know that God is testing our faith with the trials. We must also know that tested faith becomes triumphant faith. We know the value of our faith is proven through the tests. None of us wants to ride on an airplane that has not been tested. No one wants to stand before God in judgment with a faith that has not been tested and proven to be genuine. Job said in Job 23:10, “When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” We can have that same level of confidence because our faith has been tried, tested, and proven. The trials are used of God to test our faith.

 I have used this illustration often and I come back to it because I think it is good illustration of how God uses trials in our lives to test our faith and produce godly character in our lives. The refiner purifies the metal with fire. The fire melts the gold, or silver, and the impurities float to the top. They are skimmed off. The impurities are called dross. Dross is worthless. As the dross is skimmed off the surface of the molten gold or silver, the reflection of the refiner is seen on the surface of the metal.

 Our lives are full of dross as a result of our fallen nature and flawed character. God saves us and immediately starts the work of sanctification. He uses trials as the source of heat. He is purifying us so that He can skim off the dross. He wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son. The trials of our faith are producing good results. The Refiner wants to see the reflection of Himself in us as we are melted in the refiner’s pot. It is the trials we encounter that bring this spiritual progress to pass. 

 We want what we read in our Scriptural call to worship to be true in us. We expect to be distressed by various trials, as Peter wrote. We want to see the proof of our faith. We must know that our proven faith is more precious than gold which is perishable, because proven faith will be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When we truly value the product, we will respond to the process with joyful attitudes. We know that the testing of our faith produces endurance.

 The product of tested faith is endurance. This is the Greek word “hupomone.” It describes the bearing up under the weight of difficult trials. It denotes the idea of remaining under the weight of a trial until God brings relief. It is a refusal to surrender to the difficult circumstances. Tested faith produces the ability to resist the temptation to look for the easy way out. Tested faith produces the ability to stand faithfully in the face of difficulty and consider the trials all joy.

 If you are following a similar Bible reading plan to the one I use, you just this week read of the life of Joseph. He is one of my favorite Old Testament characters. Joseph exemplifies the understanding mind that James tells us is required if we are going to glorify God in our response to trials. Joseph must have had a firm grasp on the New Testament truth that Paul wrote about to the Romans in 8:28. “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Joseph’s trials were as varied as the colors of the coat his father had given him as a young man. You know his story. His brother resented him and hated him enough to sell him into slavery. Most of them really wanted to kill him.

 He journey from the pit to the prison that ultimately took him to the palace lasted for thirteen years. He endured the trials and in the end he was able to look his brothers in the eye and say to them, “what you intended for evil, God intended for good.” In Genesis 45:7-8 he told his brothers, “it was not you who sent me here, but God.” He acknowledged that God had sent him there before them to preserve a remnant. He was in God’s place every step of the way.

 Joseph’s trials made him better. If we have a right understanding of God’s purpose for trials, our trials will make us better. If not, they will only make us bitter. They make us better because they are producing endurance. 

 There is another important requirement found in verse 4. We are to “let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  The instruction here is a present imperative active voice verb. This is the mood of command and requires an act of our volition. It is in the active voice, meaning that we are responsible for the action of the verb. The present tense means that this is to be happening continuously. Any time we encounter trials, we have a duty and responsibility. We are to let the product of endurance produce the perfect result.

 We must have a submissive will if we are to “let endurance have its perfect result.”

 This means that we patiently endure the trial until God decides it is time to bring the relief. Too often we look for an escape hatch as soon as the heat starts to rise. We don’t always cooperate with God in the trial and let Him teach us to endure through the trials. There is only one God-honoring way out of trials and that is to go through it. The only way to go through them with a joyful attitude is to embrace the fact that God is using them for His glory and our good. He is producing our endurance, which is moving us on to the point of maturity, completion, and spiritual wholeness.

 That is the goal. James describes for us the perfect result. God is using the trials to make us perfect and complete, lacking nothing. “Perfect” does not mean sinless. It is the Greek “teleios” and it means something that is finished, having reached the point of completion. It is the idea of something that is fully developed. 

 Synonymous with “perfect” is “complete.” The Greek word here describes something that is whole, having all its parts. This is emphasized by the use of the words “lacking in nothing” at the end of the verse.

 What James is describing is spiritual maturity. The follower of Christ who matures in the faith is the one who will consider the trials all joy when they are encountered because he or she understands that God is using the trial for a good purpose. God is using the trial to produce endurance and the product of endurance is spiritual maturity. We are not to be like children in our understanding. We are to grow up in all aspects into Jesus Christ. We are, according to 2 Cor. 3:18, “being transformed into the same image (that is the image of Christ) from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

 We are all going through a process wherein we are being conformed to the image of Jesus and this is what we should treasure. Can you imagine anything more tragic than a baby who never matured beyond infancy? Maturity is a desirable thing. Sound, complete, mature faith is proven faith, something Peter tells us is more valuable than silver and gold. Peter also says this in 1 Peter 5:10-11, “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

 There is no avoiding God’s work of maturing in Christ. No one who embraces Christ by faith and is truly born again will remain in spiritual infancy. He who began a good work will perfect it. God will use trials to do the work of perfecting and maturing. Because He is the God of all grace, He gives us the grace to consider all encountered trials as all joy. We can do this because we know that He who has called us to His eternal glory is perfecting us, confirming us, strengthening us, and establishing us. He does this because He alone has dominion forever and ever.

 I want to close today by asking you to turn back a few pages to Hebrews 11. In the middle of verse 35 we begin reading about “others.” Read through the end of the chapter emphasizing the trials. Read 12:1-3.

 The true measure of spiritual maturity is the ability to look to Christ in our trials rather than to focus on ourselves. Immaturity is best characterized by selfishness. Babies are all about themselves. When we have been made to become spiritually mature, perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, we will have come to the place where it isn’t about me, it is about Christ being formed in me.

 Let’s pray.