The Truth About Trials

Sucked in, washed up, and blown over. There's a story. I don't know how many

of you have ever read Max Lucado's books.

Max Lucado is a pastor from Dallas area, and he's also a speaker,

and he's got a book titled In the Eye of a Storm, and there's a reading in there,

reciting in there, that goes like this.

Chippy the parakeet never saw it coming.

One second, he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next,

he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.

The problems began when Chippy's owner decided to clean Chippy's cage with a vacuum cleaner.

She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage.

The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She barely said hello when Chippy got sucked in.

The bird owner gasped and put down the phone, turned off the vacuum cleaner,

opened the bag, and there was Chippy, still alive, but stunned.

Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced him

to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippy under the running water.

Then realizing that Chippy was soaked and shivering She did what any compassionate

bird odor would do She reached for the hairdryer and blasted the pet with hot air,

Poor Chippy never saw what hit him.

A few days later, after the trauma, the reporter who'd initially written about

the event contacted Chippy's owner to see how the bird was recovering.

Well, she replied, Chippy doesn't sing much anymore.

He just sits and stares.

It's hard not to see why.

Sucked in, washed up, and blown over. That's enough to steal the song out of

any of Bravest's hearts. I want to read to you from James 2, verses 2-12.

James 2:2–12

Consider it pure joy, chippy, no, pure joy, my brothers and sisters,

whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of

your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without

finding fault, and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts

is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position,

but the rich should take pride in their humiliation, since they will pass away like a wildflower.

For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant.

Its blossom falls, and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way,

the rich will fade away even while they go about doing their business.

Blessed is the one who perseveres unto trial, because having stood the test,

that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Sucked in, washed up, and blown over.

That just about sums it up for all of us at times, doesn't it?

It describes a certainty of trials and feelings of powerlessness that trials bring.

James reminds us of the reality that even in the Christian life,

we will have troubles and have trials, a song that we sang in church last Sunday.

Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don't worry, be happy.

In every life, there comes some trouble, but if you worry, you make it double.

However, the Christian does not have to be a victim of a circumstance,

but can have victory even in times of trials and testings.

James tells us that no matter what the trials on the outside,

we can experience victory through faith in Christ. There are four things we

need to possess to gain victory over trials.

That is a joyful attitude, an understanding mind, a surrendered will,

and a heart that wants to believe in Christ. So the first thing we need to have

is we need to have a joyful attitude.

We need to consider it or count. We need to consider pure joy,

my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

Now, I don't know how many of you, when you're facing a trouble,

facing trial, you just think, thank the Lord. This is pure joy.

But we counted a privilege to serve the Lord. Paul did that.

Count or consider is an accounting term. It means to take stock or to investigate, to set a value on things.

I think this may have been the verse that inspired the song, Count Your Blessings.

What James is saying here is that we are to consider pure joy when we face trials.

What he means is that we can see trials as valuable to our faiths and brings us joy.

Consider the facts about trials. James does not say if trials come,

he says when trials come.

And they will come. We need to expect them because they will come.

We will experience them. Everybody does in this life.

Notice that just because we are believers doesn't mean that we're exempt from

trials or troubles. That's part of life.

The Proverbs tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

Satan fights us, the world opposes us, and makes this life full of trouble.

James also says that we will face trials of many kinds.

One of the translations calls it diverse kinds.

This can refer to two things. First, it can refer to types of our trials.

We can face emotional trials. We can face trials at work. We can face physical trials.

We can face financial trials, even trials with our health.

Or it can refer to the source of our trials. Trials generally come from one or two sources.

They're the trials that we experience as a result of living the Christian life.

In fact, this is probably what James had in mind when he was talking to those in the letter.

He was referring to the troubles that come when we are Christians professing

Christ. His audience was the 12 tribes, as he referred to, scattered throughout the earth.

He was addressing the Jewish believers who had been uprooted from their homes

and the families just because they were believers.

Even today, there are still many in our world who are experiencing persecution

and tribulation for their faith.

Just ask them in some of the third world countries and ask them in China and

ask them some of the creative access countries that we support missions in the Middle East.

In some restrictive nations in the Middle East, to become a Christian is an

automatic death sentence.

And if you become a Christian, it is honorable for your Muslim family to execute you.

That is what happens in some of those countries. And we dare not trivialize

their suffering and persecution.

For the most part, however, we have it pretty good here in the Western world.

Our trials come from another source. Yes.

They are the unknown, unexpected experiences of life.

For the most part, people do not have control over such experiences.

There's a lot of things that happen to us that we can't stop.

But it seems that in these days of isolation and shelter, American Christians

seem to view this as a trial.

And it's true that one of the greatest joys for followers of Jesus and the Bride

of Christ is to be free to meet together as a family. But when we have troubles

with sicknesses and all that going on, sometimes it's difficult to do that.

So in a sense, this time of isolation is a trial for us.

It's also a trial for those who may have contracted the coronavirus or other

kind of diseases and those who may have died from it.

Yet these are troubles that we face. It's easy to tell people halfway around

the world who are in persecution for being Christians to count their trials as joy.

But when the trials get close to home and more personal, it seems difficult

for us to count it as pure joy.

Then James says we should consider our response to trials.

He says, count it pure joy when you face them.

Count your blessings, name them one by one. Oh yeah, count your trials as blessings.

The apostle Peter also says, dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery

trials you are going through as if something strange were happening to you.

Instead, rejoice, because these trials will make you partners with Christ in

his suffering, and afterward, you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his

glory when it's displayed to all the world. Paul said this too.

I consider joy that he suffers with Christ, not for Christ, but with Christ

in all that he was going through.

When trials come, don't pretend.

Don't try self-ethnopolisism. Simply look at the trial through the eyes of faith.

This is for the building of my faith. How is it possible to rejoice in the midst of trial?

We need to know. We need to have an understanding mind.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many

kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

This testing is going to cause a stick-to-itiveness. What do we as believers

know that makes it easier to face trials and benefit from those trials?

What do we know that helps us get through? Well, maybe we should ask that. Who do we know?

Last week, we talked about being a people of faith and not to worry and not to fear.

But the thing that we have to understand is that faith is always tested.

And James says it is to increase our faith. The reason our faith is tested is to increase our faith.

The more we put faith in Christ, the more it'll be tested, the more it will

be rewarded with greater faith. You can't have great faith by itself.

It doesn't just come automatically. You can't just look in the Word of God and

say, I want faith, there it is.

You do need to read the Word of God, but faith comes by living in times of trials.

1 Peter 1, verse 7 tells us that our faith in the face of trials proves the

1 Peter 1:7

genuineness of our faith.

The many trials that we may face, even this trial of the sicknesses that we've

had, only works to test our faith. Our faith is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold.

Can you think of that? Has anybody seen gold purified?

They heat gold to an extremely high temperature.

And what happens when they do that is all of the non-gold elements float to

the top of the vat, and they call that dross.

So anything that's not pure gold is scraped off the top of that.

And that's kind of the way it is with our faith. we are tested and purified as gold.

All that is not pure gold is scraped off by the Holy Spirit of God and washed away.

So if your faith remains strong after being tested by fiery trials,

you can be assured that it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on

the day that Jesus is revealed.

God's approval of our faith is precious because it assures us that our little faith is genuine faith.

Trials work for the believer because God approves of our faith and then he builds us through it.

Facing trials also helps us to mature in our faith.

That's what it talks about. He calls that maturity of faith as perseverance

or endurance, the ability to keep going when the going gets tough.

According to James, the only way God can develop patience and character in us is through trials.

When you ask for patience, he's going to give you something to be patient about.

When you ask for success, he's going to give you something to overcome to be successful.

When we go through trials, when we trust God and obey him, the result of his

patience and character.

And this is how we can face trials with a positive attitude.

I consider it pure joy because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

And then we need to let, we need to have a surrendered will.

In James 1, verse 4, and then also 9 through 11, it says this,

James 1:4

let perseverance finish its work.

Now, perseverance is longstanding. It's suffering.

It's stick-to-itiveness. And now here it's saying, let that stick-to-itiveness

finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position,

but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wildflower.

And then he goes on to say that even if you look at nature, everything falls,

everything fades, but blessed be those who look at what their kingdom worth is.

God cannot and will not build our character without our cooperation.

He's a gentleman, and he's not going to push, prod, or pull,

or drag us against our will.

He's going to give us opportunities to grow in our faith, but if we resist him,

the natural consequence will be his chastisement.

However, when we submit to him, then he can accomplish his work.

God's goal for our lives is maturity.

It would be tragic if our little children remained little babies.

Now, I know it's kind of sweet to hold them and feed them and not to change

their diapers, but we enjoy watching them grow through the various stages of life.

But we can't watch them. We can't keep them from all the dangers of sin.

And they can't keep them from all the dangers of lies. We can teach them, we can train them,

we can help protect them as much as we can, but when you say don't touch the stove,

the reason you say that is you don't want them to burn themselves,

but you know experience tells you that someday or another, just like you did,

you're going to reach out and see if it really is hot.

How's that working for you? There are times when naturally we'll want to shelter our kids,

and many Christians make the mistake of trying to shelter themselves from the

trials of life, and as a result, they

never really grow up in their mature Christian faith. How can we tell?

Because they keep experiencing the same trials over and over.

They keep committing the same sins over and over.

They keep doing the same things that they've always been doing because they

never want to get up out of that and be matured.

Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10 says this, For it is by grace you have

Ephesians 2:8–10

been saved through faith, and this not from yourself.

It's the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God has prepared in advance for us to do.

And so we see that it tells us, this passage tells us that for us, this is salvation.

Jesus completed his work on the cross.

In us, we are his workmanship or literally his masterpiece.

God is painting a masterpiece and you're it.

And through us, this is our service.

He has created us for good things that he planned for us long ago.

So at the close of every service, we say, now go and serve a world that desperately needs Jesus.

That is what we are to do. It is God for us and in us and through us as we go

and experience this world.

God doesn't work in us without our consent. He's not a bully.

We must surrender our will to his. If we face trials without a surrendered will,

we're going to remain immature infants, and we're going to ask,

why did God abandon us? Well, maybe we abandon him.

James 1, verses 9-11 explores this truth with two classes of Christians, the poor and the rich.

James 1:9–11

He says those in humble circumstances, us, the poor, should take...

Pride in their high positions, and the rich should take pride in their humiliation.

This doesn't seem to make any sense, but in light of James's admonishment to

consider it pure joy when we face many trials,

maybe seeing that both those who are in humble circumstances and those who are

rich can take joy in knowing their faith is not based in them or their position,

because those positions are only temporary.

Their faith is built on the immovable rock called Jesus.

And there's a song we used to sing that goes like this, on Christ the solid

rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand. God's testing has a way of leveling us all.

It is not our material resources that are going to keep us through the trials

of life, but our spiritual resources. It's how much we have in Christ.

Sometimes God uses a trial to pose a question to us.

Which do you love more, this world or me?

And that's what we need to answer. And finally, we need to have a heart that wants to believe.

In chapter 1, verses 5 through 8, it says, If any of you lacks wisdom,

you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault,

and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts

is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. And that person should

not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Have you ever watched the waves on the ocean or a lake when it's windy?

Can you tell where they're going?

No. They're going every which direction. It's like they don't even know.

They aren't controlling themselves.

They're being controlled by another force. That's what it is with a person with

a double-minded and unstable.

They are being controlled by something else and someone else.

When the unexpected trials of life land on our doorstep, how are we supposed to respond?

How are we to pray? What should we ask God for? James gives us the answer, pray for wisdom.

Wisdom is more than knowledge. Someone has said that wisdom is the ability to

take things apart, or excuse me, knowledge is the ability to take things apart,

while wisdom is the ability to put them back together.

Anybody can take something apart All it takes is a screwdriver and a hammer

And preferably a big hammer.

But wisdom is the ability to put it back together. Wisdom is using knowledge in the right way.

Why do we need wisdom when we're going through our trials? Well,

wisdom helps us to see these trials and circumstances for our good in God's glory.

Find out what is it in this trial that God's gonna use to help me grow.

One day a farmer's donkey fell into a well.

I'm gonna leave the story right there. Let you think about it.

Actually, no, I just need a drink. One day a farmer's donkey fell into a well.

The animal cried pitifully for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided. The animal was old and the well needed to be covered up

anyway because it wasn't worth anything, so it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

So he invited all of his neighbors to come over and help him.

They all grabbed a shovel and began to shove shovel dirt into the well.

At first, the donkey seemed to realize what was happening and cried out horribly.

Then, to everyone's amazement, the donkey quieted down.

A few shovels full later, the farmer finally looked down in the well and was

astonished at what he saw.

With every shovel of dirt that hit the back, the donkey was doing something

amazing. He would shake off the dirt on his back and step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal,

he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone is amazed as the donkey stepped up over the top of the well and trotted off.

So here's the moral we can learn from that story.

In every life, there comes some trouble, but when you worry,

you make it double. No, here's the story.

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt.

The decision you have to make is what you are going to do about all that dirt

that's being shoveled on you.

The trick to getting out of the well and the predicament that you are in is

to shake off that work and the dirt and step up.

Each one of us faces troubles and trials. By faith in Christ and in looking

at the pure joy of being rescued, we can shake off those trials and dirt on

our backs and step up out of our circumstances.

James tells us what to pray for. Wisdom in overcoming our trials. When life starts...

Dishing dirt on your back. Get wise and step up.

He tells us how to pray confidently, specifically, and unwaveringly in faith.

Shake off the dirt, pray, and get out of your hole.

When we do, God promises to answer generously to all without finding fault,

so there's no need to fear.

God's anxious to answer us. James says, consider it pure joy.

When you face trials and tribulations of many kinds, shake off the dirt,

step up, and walk out of the well. God is faithful in his promises.

James closes his encouragement to the believers with verse 12.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test,

that person will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Are you willing to shake off the dirt and step up and walk out of your grave?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we close this service, we thank you for those who were able to make it.

We thank you for the opportunity to read your word and to learn from it.

Father, you know, if we just read it, that's not good enough.

We have to internalize it, and make it something, not just a matter of knowledge,

but a matter of wisdom and how to live our lives, how to be impacted and transformed

by the Word of God. In Jesus' name, amen.