We've come to an important theme in this series of messages.
Our universal human experience is full of pain and difficulty
and struggle and disappointment. We all face frustration, illness
in one form or another, grief, and sorrow. For most people, life
is not as they dream it should be. We can waste tremendous amounts
of energy and material resources trying to make our circumstances
conform to the myth of the good life, the way life "ought
to be." But as followers of Jesus Christ, we have been called
out of that way of looking at life. We have been called to see
spiritual reality. There is a spiritual mystery of suffering that
all of us have to deal with, a paradox: an all-powerful and loving
God who allows suffering in our lives. Jesus is always there no
matter what. But the struggle is to believe that, to flesh that
out in our experience.
First Peter 1:5-6 reminds us that we are "protected by the
power of God through faith" even when we have been "distressed
by various trials." The power of God and the reality of suffering
go together.
On my sabbatical, Candy and I were in Germany for a week in October
visiting a dear friend named Wolfgang Breithaupt, a Lutheran pastor
who directs a retreat center near the city of Greifswald in the
north of Germany. Charlie Tucker and I visited him about six years
earlier, and he's been here at PBC with his wife. On that earlier
visit we sat in the office of the vice-mayor of Greifswald, a
brother in Christ named John. He and Wolfgang had been friends
since they were in seminary together. John had been a Lutheran
pastor for a number of years, and then had moved into the political
realm and had spend five or six years as the vice-mayor.
Now on this sabbatical, I sat with John once again, this time
in Wolfgang's living room, and John poured out a tragic story.
He had been literally run out of his position by the opposition
party, who had no sympathy for his Christian view of things. Part
of the reason that he had lost his job was because of his relationship
to Christ. He had been given a very minimal pension to live on
by the government. Even though he is only 55 years old, by German
law, at 55 you are pensioned. He can't serve in a church ministry
anymore for income. He can't serve in the political arena. And
he was living way below the standard that he had been used to
through the years. Because of the stress of all this, he developed
chronic health problems.
It took awhile for him to open up, but as Candy and I listened
he shared this heart-rending story and his discouragement and
confusion about how God could allow this to happen, his embarrassment
and sense of loss, and finally his sense of hopelessness about
the future. A relatively young man, he concluded, "I'm not
sure what I have to live for."
The New Testament letter of James, written by the brother of the
Lord Jesus, was written to first-century Jewish Christians who
were grappling with the same issues of suffering as my friend
John. One of the central themes in the book is how Christians
can respond to the harsh pressures of life. James deals with three
specific forms of suffering in different parts of the letter.
First, the first-century Christians were being persecuted for
their faith in Christ. Second, they were suffering poverty. And
third, some had the frustration of chronic illness.
Now, James' desire for his Jewish Christian brothers and sisters
was that they would be able to understand their troubles from
God's point of view, and that is my hope for us. Chapter 1 verses
1-12 offer us tremendous good news about life's trials. There
are four important points in these twelve verses: (1) Our suffering
doesn't have to cause discouragement. (2) Our suffering doesn't
have to cause confusion. (3) Our suffering doesn't have to cause
embarrassment or shame. (4) Our suffering doesn't have to make
us hopeless.
Suffering doesn't have to cause discouragement
Verses 1-4 speak to this issue of discouragement:
James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings.
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Our suffering doesn't have to cause discouragement. But we
are discouraged when we're blind-sided by unexpected suffering,
and we cry out, "Why me? Why now? Why this?"
I saw this vividly in my son Micah a year and a half ago, at the
beginning of his junior year in high school. He had played football
as a sophomore and had played junior varsity ball. He had done
well. He was so excited to play varsity ball as a junior, and
he worked hard that summer lifting weights and working out. He
endured the hot August double practice days. He got to the first
football game, and on the very first play of the very first game,
he broke his arm and missed the next six games of the season.
I remember his struggle. Bless his heart, he did want to glorify
God on the football field-so why would God allow that to be taken
away from him? We all have those kind of questions.
It's important to know what's going on in the circumstances of
suffering. The very first word in verse 3 is the word "knowing."
That's an important word. It means experiential knowledge. When
we understand and internalize spiritual reality, then we can respond
to pain without discouragement. I'm not just talking about having
a good, well-thought-out theology of suffering. What we need is
God's perspective, and we're never going to have that without
a relationship of loving intimacy with him, one that engenders
trust in him. Verse 12 talks about the hope we have of eternal
life, which God has promised to "those who love him."
Out of a relationship of love with our creator God comes an understanding
that there is inevitability in suffering and that there is purpose
to it. These are two things that we can know from God's heart.
We see that suffering is inevitable in the first two verses of
the paragraph. In verse 2, James writes, "Consider it all
joy, my brethren, when [not if] you encounter various trials...."
Literally, it's "whenever you encounter trials." Suffering
is not an elective in life's curriculum; it's a required course.
The apostle Peter made the very same point in his first letter
to the Christians in Turkey when he wrote, "Beloved,
do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes
upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening
to you...." (1 Peter 4:12). Suffering in the life of the
believer is normal, not abnormal.
One of the important reasons for the inevitability of suffering
in our lives as Christians is because of our identification with
Jesus Christ. The Jewish Christians who originally received this
letter were suffering terribly because they believed in Jesus
as their Messiah. That's hinted at in verse 1 of the paragraph.
He writes to those "who are dispersed abroad," literally
"scattered." That term "scattered abroad"
is always used in Biblical writing of people who have been dislocated
because of their religious faith. They are really religious refugees.
The apostle Paul wrote from a Roman prison to the Christians in
Philippi, "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake,
not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake"
(Philippians 1:29). In the last message we heard exactly the same
principle in Colossians 1:24: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings
for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His
body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking
in Christ's afflictions."
Last week I thought about the various trials, to use James' language,
that many of us face here in the body of Christ at PBC. There
is tremendous diversity in our suffering. Some have suffered harassment
or demotion in the work place, or even job termination because
of refusal to violate Christ-honoring standards of ethics and
morality. Some suffer with chronic illness that doesn't seem to
have an end in sight. Some suffer the pain and difficulty of a
failing marriage. Some suffer the anxiety of unemployment and
uncertainty about being able to make ends meet. Some suffer the
unexpected death of somebody they loved very much, who was central
to their life. Some have a rebellious child who has brought great
suffering into their family. Some are in love with somebody who
doesn't love them. Some have depression that they just can't shake.
But verses 3-4 tell us it doesn't have to be discouraging, because
God has a purpose in the suffering: "...Knowing that the
testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have
its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking
in nothing." It's easier to go through difficult times when
we understand that there's a point to it. James is summarizing
God's plan for growing us up in faith, for maturing us and ultimately
perfecting us. The simple truth is that pain develops character.
It's spiritually productive. "In this [the absolute certainty
of our salvation] you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little
while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which
is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result
in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
(1 Peter 1:6-7) Suffering, James and Peter are saying, is like
a refining fire, proving us, testing us, assaying us, purifying
us, preparing us for something. Suffering purges the impurities
out of us just as fire purges impurities out of precious metal.
There is a consistent image in the Old Testament of God as the
refiner, or sometimes the refining fire itself. God says to Zechariah
(13:9),
"And I will bring the third part through the fire,
Refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested."
Later in Israel's history, the prophet Malachi writes about God
(3:2), "For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers'
soap. And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and
He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and
silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness."
He will refine them until righteousness is fully developed in
them. It's purposeful preparation for his glory. It's part of
the process in which God is conforming us to his very character.
This is not an image of God standing over the bubbling pot with
us in it, fiendishly rubbing his hands and saying, "I wonder
if they'll get purified." We will; that's an absolute certainty.
God is using suffering to purge fleshly dependencies and sinful
elements out of our lives, leaving increasingly pure faith in
us. In this process he needs to separate God-confidence, or pure
faith, from self-confidence and confidence in the things that
we hang onto on our own terms to make life work for us. Perhaps
it's confidence in material wealth, retirement plans, savings
accounts, or investments. Perhaps it's confidence in some human
relationships that give us worth and value and identity. Perhaps
it's our own intellect. You get paid good money to be really smart
in this valley. Planning, preparation, our backgrounds, our education,
manipulation of other people-when God turns the heat up, all those
ugly dependencies come floating to the surface, and then God can
skim them off the top. We can see them for what they are and repent
of them.
My wife just called me on an area of my life in which there was
pressure. That's what God does. He puts pressure on. We look terrific
when there's no pressure. But then the heat comes, and the ugliness
comes out. And Candy nailed me in an area where I was being manipulative.
She said to me, "Do you really trust God in this?" In
times like that you have to say, "Thank you, Lord,"
because then you can see it and repent of it.
Suffering doesn't have to cause confusion
Now, maybe you can accept all this theologically, but you're
having a hard time seeing it work in your own life. Your circumstances
are too overwhelming and confusing. Suffering can be terribly
disorienting. But the good news is that God wants to give us the
calming wisdom that we need, and all we have to do is go to him
in prayer and ask for it. Our suffering doesn't have to cause
confusion. Let's read verses 5-8:
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
We can count on having the confusion cleared away in this
experience of suffering if two things are true. In verse 5, it
says we must have an expectant heart, an openness or receptivity
toward God; and in verses 6-8, it says we must have a submissive
will toward God when we pray.
Think about this issue of an expectant heart. We're called to
pray in full confidence that God will hear us, that he's eager
to respond, that he really will give us the wisdom we need.
The concept of wisdom is important in the Bible. It's different
from our modern idea of wisdom, which is that you're well-educated,
you've read a lot of books, and you have a great deal of information
at your disposal. In Biblical literature, wisdom is not really
an intellectual quality. The most uneducated person in the world
can be a wise person. It is the skill of living life successfully,
even when life is a mess, when it's out of control, when there's
horrible suffering going on. It is being able to integrate the
truth that we receive from God into our lives and live it out
so that we live in a godly way.
God is glad to give us wisdom, because that's the kind of God
he is. Verse 5 says, "...Let him ask of God, who gives to
all men generously...." Literally in the Greek it says, "...Let
him ask from the giving God...." That's his nature. James
5:11 tells us that God "is full of compassion and is merciful"
toward our suffering. He wants to give us the wisdom and the power
to make the difficult choices we face in our suffering. He wants
to give us peace, to stabilize us when everything is chaotic and
out of control. We're to ask God for wisdom with expectant confidence
that he is delighted to offer it. He isn't grudging. That's why
it says in verse 5 that he gives it without reproach. He doesn't
lecture us in the process. He is wonderfully open-handed.
The last stanza of Frances Ridley Havergal's beautiful gospel
hymn Like a River Glorious summarizes this attitude of
expectancy:
"Ev'ry joy or trial
Falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial
By the sun of love;
We may trust Him fully
All for us to do-
They who trust Him wholly
Find Him wholly true.
Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blest-
Finding as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest."
There's another issue that's raised in the middle of that
stanza: this issue of trusting God wholly or completely. Only
then will we find him completely true; only then will we find
his generosity. And verses 6-8 raise this issue that we must pray
with faith believing, not just expectantly but submissively. "But
let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts
is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For
let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the
Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
The point is that if we don't have the wisdom that we need in
suffering, it's because we don't really pray with complete abandonment
to whatever God wills for us. We hedge our bets when we pray.
The complete opposite of that is the beautiful model of the Lord
Jesus when he was in the garden of Gethsemane the night that he
was arrested, and he prayed with all honesty, "Lord, if there's
any way to get out of this suffering, if I can sidestep the cross,
let it be. But it's not my will that counts; your will be done
in my life." (See Matthew 26:39, 42; Mark 14:36.) Remember,
he did understand the purposefulness of the suffering that he
was called to endure.
Now, we know that we are not totally, absolutely free from doubt.
We are wracked by all sorts of misgivings and apprehensions. Does
this verse mean that if we have any doubt whatsoever, our prayer
doesn't mean anything? No, the word for doubt here is a very strong
word. It means in our heart of hearts not really believing in
God's goodness and not really being willing to do what God shows
us. Augustine wrote about this double-minded prayer. He said when
he was an adolescent boy his prayer was, "Lord, make me pure,
but not yet." And we often pray with this double-mindedness
that makes it hard for God to respond. So these verses mean we
are to pray, with all of our misgivings and doubts and apprehensions,
"Lord, show me what your will is in the hard decisions of
my difficult circumstances." God can give his wisdom only
to people who really want all of him. Remember Jesus' words in
the beatitudes, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew
5:6). We must have a hunger, a thirst, a desire to do whatever
God wants us to do.
Are you willing to accept whatever God generously provides in
response to your request for wisdom? What if it means staying
in a difficult marriage? What if it means staying in a frustrating
job? What if it means accepting singleness for your life? What
if it means living with physical debilitation that will never
go away? Are you sure you want God's answer? If so, the promise
here is that you'll receive all the grace you need to untangle
your present confusion.
Last week I got the following in an email from an old friend,
Ed Donahue. (Ed was an elder at PBC Cupertino for a number of
years.) The author is anonymous.
I Asked For
I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom, and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity, and God gave me brawn and brain to work.
I asked for courage, and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for patience, and God placed me in situations where I was forced to wait.
I asked for love, and God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for favors, and God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted; I received everything I needed.
My prayer has been answered.
Suffering doesn't have to cause shame
In verses 9-11, we're told that our suffering doesn't
have to cause embarrassment or shame if we cultivate God's perspective
on circumstances.
But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; and let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
My friend John in Germany was feeling a tremendous sense of
shame and embarrassment at the loss of his position and the privilege
and prestige that went with it. I told you he was experiencing
great loss financially, now that he was pensioned. Suffering always
has some sense of deprivation and loss. Remember, this letter
was written to a suffering community. Poverty was their reality.
Most of them had lost material resources. The temptation for all
of us is to evaluate our circumstances from a worldly perspective,
and the world says that identity and worth and value come from
whom we know and what we have and how we're viewed. Suffering
diminishes our status as worthy human beings, while health and
wealth and success are the true measures of self-worth and value
in this world.
But James states bluntly that God doesn't see things that way,
and neither should we. Living with obvious limitation and loss,
we can have God's gracious perspective on our suffering. We can
learn that true satisfaction comes from the inside, not the outside,
and it comes from God and God alone. The person of faith suffering
in his poverty can say, "How incredibly wealthy I am because
of the riches in Christ and the tremendous spiritual blessings
I have in the Lord Jesus!" And the Christian who has been
blessed with wealth and health and powerful presence must say,
"But I am a sinner saved by the grace of God, and God can
strip away all my valued earthly attributes and resources in an
instant." Both the wealthy person and the poverty-stricken
person have to learn how to echo with Job, "Blessed be the
name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). In plenty and in want, God's
blessing is consistent.
It's hard to live that way, because when you have much, you start
believing that the credit belongs to you, and that somehow you're
protected from suffering. In your heart of hearts you're saying,
"Blessed be the name of hard work and whatever else accomplished
this." And if you don't have anything, if you're poverty-stricken
and you live with a sense of deprivation, it is really hard to
say, "Blessed be the name of the LORD." But the goal
is to see circumstances from God's perspective so that we don't
live with shame and embarrassment.
I've told the story before of a woman I met when I was in junior
high school. She lived about four doors down the street from us
in Seattle, Washington. Her name was Helen Hayworth Lemmel. She
was in her nineties. She had been born and raised in wealth in
England, and was well-known as a songwriter. As a matter of fact,
Mrs. Lemmel probably wrote seventy or eighty Christian hymns and
gospel songs that were popular in the 1920s through the early
1950s. Mrs. Lemmel had married into nobility; her husband was
a lord. But she was stricken with blindness as a very young woman,
and her husband divorced her because he didn't want to be married
to a blind woman. I don't know all the circumstances, but somehow
she ended up destitute in Seattle, Washington, a ward of King
County, living in a tiny room in a home where the rent was paid
by the county.
You probably know the most famous song that Mrs. Lemmel wrote:
"Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace."
Every time we would visit her or she would come to our home,
we would ask her how she was doing, and she would always say,
"I am fine in the things that count." That's a godly
perspective on things that could be embarrassing or humiliating.
Suffering doesn't have to cause hopelessness
Finally, in the very last verse of our section, which is a
summary of what we've been looking at, our suffering doesn't have
to result in hopelessness if we cultivate an eternal perspective
on happiness. What is true joy in life? Remember in verse 2 he
said, "Consider it all joy...." Now in verse 12 he says,
Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
This is like a beatitude. We rejoice in the fact that there
is an end. The suffering is not interminable, even though it's
inevitable. There is an ultimate eternal goal when every tear
will be wiped away. There is the glorious light of eternal day
shining at the end of the tunnel. The darkness of suffering will
finally be vanquished, and we will experience perfection, wholeness,
completeness. We will be eternally with the Lord.
So right now, whether we're rich or poor, healthy as a horse or
struggling with chronic illness, surrounded by loving friends
and family or living a solitary life, the truth is that the best
is yet to come. And the good news is that this eternal life that
we're looking forward to has started right now. The crown of life
that we're promised here, we receive when we come into relationship
with the Lord Jesus. We can live as victors. There is tremendous
joy to look forward to in heaven, but we can live above the circumstances
here.
The promise in verse 12 is certain; there are no conditions. When
you look at the way the phrases are connected grammatically, there's
a sense of sequence but not of condition. We could read it accurately,
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for once
he has been approved, and he will be approved,
he will receive the crown of life...." It will be a completed
process.
Again, it's because of God's nature. He finishes what he starts
in people. James 5:11 says, "Behold, we count those blessed
who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen
the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion
and is merciful." He is a God of activity. Compassion and
mercy are not passive attitudes. Compassion involves itself. Mercy
is a resource, in God's case a supernatural resource. And who
needs mercy? Helpless, paralyzed, hopeless people. The promise
is that this God of mercy will move in and provide resources that
neither we nor any social agency has.
One final thing about Helen Lemmel: she had in her room a little
plastic organ on a table. It was like a child's chord organ. She
would play that and cry and sing. She had this vision of getting
to heaven and having a mighty, thundering pipe organ. She didn't
see the little plastic organ as a disadvantage. It was just a
foretaste of glory. This was a down payment on what God was going
to do for her, and she counted on that. Another of her sayings
was "I can hardly wait!"
Are you discouraged because of suffering? Know that suffering
is inevitable and that it does serve God's purposes in your life.
Are you confused, overwhelmed, disoriented by suffering? Consider
the attitude of your heart toward the Lord-is it expectant, receptive?
And are you willing to submit yourself to his desires for you
in the midst of the suffering? Do you feel ashamed and embarrassed
by the suffering in your life? Try to look at it from God's perspective,
how he defines worth and value and significance. Finally, do you
feel hopeless? The reality is that the best is yet to come. Cultivate
an eternal perspective on happiness.
Our own Joanie Burnside wrote, "Would you trade in circumstances
in your life that have brought you closer to him?" The most
important thing in life is your love relationship with Jesus.
If suffering has deepened that, strengthened it, enriched it,
how could you challenge the suffering? Would you have wished it
away if you could? Or in hindsight, was it worth the ground gained,
the experience of knowing him on a level you never thought possible?
What does suffering make room for in your life? Where will you
allow it to take you? How will you allow God to use your suffering
to comfort and connect with other people? Remember Paul's words,
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake...." (Colossians
1:24).
The Scripture quotations in this message are
all taken from New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962,
1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 The Lockman Foundation.
Used by permission.
Catalog No. 4601
James 1:2-11
4th Message
Doug Goins
January 24, 1999
Copyright © 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. This data file is the sole property of Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. It may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice. This data file may not be copied in part, edited, revised, copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial publications, recordings, broadcasts, performances, displays or other products offered for sale, without the written permission of Discovery Publishing. Requests for permission should be made in writing and addressed to Discovery Publishing, 3505 Middlefield Rd. Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695.