Passing the Test

Is today, whether we acknowledge it or not, and he shall be in the week ahead, whatever may come.

We may trust him.

He is trustworthy, always and only faithful and good.

Many times we don't understand, many times we're wrecked with disappointment and pain, and yet we say by faith, he rules, he reigns, he is good, and he is worthy of our praise.

We trust him.

We trust him.

I'd like to have you turn, if you would, please, to a Christmas text.

Well, you won't recognize it as a Christmas text.

Hopefully you will by the time we're done.

I've chosen to stay in James.

Next Sunday, we'll look particularly at a more directly focused Christmas message.

But this is the word that God has for us today.

So I would ask you to follow along in your Bible.

If you don't have a Bible with you, there's a Bible in the pew, page 1011, I believe it is.

If you don't have a Bible with you, use that Bible.

If you don't have a Bible, take that home with you.

It's what it's there for.

And follow along as I read James chapter 1.

James 1 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at verses 12 through 15.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.

For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say in this context of trials, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Merry Christmas.

But my friends, this is what Christmas is all about.

It's not about flowers.

It's not about the tinsel.

We know that, but how easily we get distracted.

This is what it's all about, what sin does in us, what sin does through us, and the solution that is offered through a child who was born to die, to take our sins that we deserve to die for, and to die in our place.

That is the message of Christmas.

It's a message of death followed immediately by a message of hope.

It's a message of despair in ourselves and of adoration of the one who is worthy, worthy of bearing under trials, worthy of rejoicing when we know God is at work, even though we don't feel it and we don't see it.

We take it by faith because that is what God says to us.

Faith that works.

The focus on this passage today, this Christmas text, if you would open your heart to it, is that there is for those of us who love Christ and have experienced not by our doing, but by the grace of God, through personal faith in Christ, as we go through life, and much of life is beautiful and great, and there's much of life that stinks and hurts.

You know it as well as I do, and for that the scriptures were given, and for that our Savior came.

And so in the midst of all of this, we have a great positive, encouraging expectation is that we by His grace, through all of the stuff of life, might pass the test.

So I'd like to unpack that with you a little bit.

In order to help us really bring this kind of text and this season a little closer to reality, I'd like to read an email that I got a while back from a dear friend of mine.

A friend of mine who has gone through incredibly painful and is still in the midst of incredibly painful, confusing, unexpected circumstances that haven't gone away.

My friend will call him Jack.

I've known for almost 50 years now.

We were together the night I came to faith.

And Jack is just a normal guy.

He's just like you and me.

He's just a normal guy.

And Jack, twice in his life now, has experienced something that is utterly unexpected, not what he signed up for, very painful and confusing in many ways.

His wife one day walked out on him.

Full stop.

Just walked out on him.

Jack and I have what I would call a spiritual friendship.

That's a friendship that includes not only go pack go, but go, God, go.

What God is doing in our lives is part of our friendship.

I hope you have some friends like that.

I hope that's what the body of Christ in this location is.

A place where there's a few people that you connect with, at least a few.

And you can't connect this way with hundreds, but you can with a few, where the reality of what God is doing in their life and what God is doing in your life is a part of the friendship.

And so, albeit mostly from a distance, Jack and I have walked together through this incredibly painful experience.

And at one point he he wrote me the following, and I want this to set the backdrop as we look at this passage in James.

He says to me, I continue to do well daily as I travel on my journey into a new life.

It is not easy or exciting.

There's nothing easy, and there are many times in which it is not exciting as we journey through this life.

But, he says, it is my assignment.

Think about that.

My friend Jack has the spiritual maturity growing out of the scriptures to look at the circumstances of life as an assignment from God.

And that makes all the difference.

And I am strong in my belief that the Lord will take me where he wants to, and as he wants to, as I travel hand in hand with him.

The Father knows best, and I'm in good hands with him.

Don't you agree?

Don't you agree that you're in good hands with God?

That's why we keep saying, He's good, he's trustworthy, he rules.

We are in good hands with our Father, and it comes most obvious when everything around us is falling apart, and we are desperate for Him.

I say that in the business of life, the mechanics of life, the details of life, where faith works, if it doesn't work there, it doesn't work at all.

And so Jack says in the mechanics and details of life, I'm doing very, very well.

Each day, every week, seems to have an abundance of little big blessings and miracles.

Pretty amazing when you go through incredible pain to be on the lookout for blessings.

Somebody put a large uh wall hanging, a plaque.

Actually, in my office, I don't have it raised.

It says there is always, always, always something to be thankful for.

And we can focus on the hurt and the pain, and it's there.

We don't deny it.

Jack doesn't deny it, but he looks and he sees what God is doing, and that makes a huge difference.

Each morning I begin my day with a devotional from Streams in the Desert.

Anybody here familiar with Streams in the Desert?

If you're not, I thought in the first service, I think we ought to order about 400 copies of it and leave it in the pews.

It's an old daily devotional, 365 devotionals in this little book called Streams in the Desert, and it is worth its weight in gold.

Every morning I begin with a devotional from Streams in the Desert.

Then I go to my den for my private prayer time.

I always begin, listen, with tearful thanks to the Lord.

Tears and thanksgiving go together in the life of the believer.

If there isn't room for the reality of tearful situations, pain and hurt and joy to all go together in your life, you're not understanding what faith at works really looks like.

I always begin with tearful thanks to the Lord, for I can always see blessings in yesterday.

Then I confess to God my helplessness, my powerlessness, my total need of him.

That puts us in a position where we ought to be.

I ask him to give me his thoughts and his wisdom, his eyes, his ears.

I tell him that I just want to say what he wants me to say and do what he wants me to do.

It is a daily surrendering of myself in tears.

It's this faith that works.

Then I share with him my sadness and my loneliness following my loss of Kate.

Next, I express my desire for patience as I persevere along the long road of recovery and renewal.

This is a faith that is real, a faith that works.

This is the walk of faith.

This is what it's about, my friends.

Then I get up and take on the day.

I keep quite busy with school and fellowship groups and other activities during the week, but eventually, eventually I have to stop and be alone with my thoughts and memories.

Usually the sadness comes back.

And I have to go through the above prayers again and again and again.

My journey is definitely a journey, not just a 45-second roller coaster ride in the park.

If you signed up for anything other than a journey, if you signed up for a roller coaster ride in the park, you were misled.

That is not what life is about, and that is not what the life of faith is about.

But my emotions and my spirit are improving in time, and I still have confidence in my future with the Lord.

If only we could know ahead of time how our suffering will work out for good in the end, but then it wouldn't be faith, would it, Walt?

Now, John, Jack, Fred, whatever his name is, is really just a very normal guy.

If you had meet him, you would not know he was this abnormal.

To live and walk in this way.

Just a very simple guy with strengths and with weaknesses, nothing impressive about him that you would see.

But I want to suggest to you that my dear friend, who is a great encouragement to me, is someone who is passing the test.

And that's exactly what this passage is talking about.

So let's try to unpack it with that kind of reality of life and a walk of faith in mind.

So let's look at verse 12.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.

That's almost, not quite, but almost as shocking as verse 2.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

You see, things are not as they seem.

And with the eye of faith and the reality of faith, it's possible to see the good things that God is doing in the midst of horrible situations.

To have a deep joy to be blessed.

Blessedness in this sense is not the superficial happiness of the good life, as it were, but rather a deep inner satisfaction and contentment and joy of someone who is experiencing God truly and profoundly in the midst of the stuff of life.

Happiness is the circumstances, is one of the reactions to the circumstance.

Joy is the experience of the reality of God, who he is, what he has said, what he has promised, his goodness, his sufficiency in the midst of the trials and difficulties of life.

So that we become so focused on God that the circumstances, while they don't go away, they don't characterize us.

Because we're so truly focused and satisfied with what who God is.

Blessed is that man, and that man or that woman or that student or that child, when he has stood the test, will receive the crown of life.

It has been said that life is a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment.

I think that sums up so many themes throughout the scriptures.

Life is a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment.

We know it's temporary.

Like that, it's gone.

That passage last week was very clear about that.

The sun rises with its scorching heat, and the flower falls, and the beauty fails, perishes, so also the rich man will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

The poor man will as well.

We all fade away, we all disappear.

This life is impermanent.

There's a pine box waiting for every one of us.

And we push that thought so far away.

Well, it is a temporary assignment.

John knew it was an assignment.

It is also a trust, it's a responsibility, it's a stewardship to whom much has been given.

And my friends, we all have received much, to whom much is given, much is expected.

And the way we live our lives has an impact on others, and it has an eternal impact.

But the focus here is on life being a test.

And the idea of a test here is not what I remember from fourth grade with Mrs.

Anderson, my teacher, or sixth grade, Mr.

Wareham.

Now, I was not a particularly good student or particularly motivated, but I learned early on, at least I thought I learned, that the teacher somehow or another took a bit of pleasure in pointing out my failures.

Now, that was a childish, immature, incorrect approach, but there's something within us that we think when God puts us to the test, he's just waiting for us to stumble and then he's going to smash us.

That is not the test that is being spoken about here.

For when he has stood the test, the picture of those words, those very words, are used to describe the process of purifying noble elements like gold and silver and platinum and all other kinds of things, which are normally in nature not found in their pure form.

They are normally found mixed together with impurities, oxides, silicates, sulfides.

But there is a way for the pure metal to be separated from the dross.

The dross are those impurities.

And so in the ancient time, in biblical time, as well as today, the process of smelting, where you take the impure and the pure, which is all mixed together, and you put it under intense heat in a crucible, for example.

A crucible is a ceramic or a metal pot, in effect, in which the ore that is a mixture of pure and impure stuff together, you put it in there and you subject it to intense heat, and it begins to melt.

And what happens is the dross, the impurities rise to the surface where they can easily be skimmed off, and what is left is pure gold.

Now that's what he's saying happens to us when we experience great trials, if we will seek and find God's good purposes in it.

God is not doing something to us, he is doing something for us.

It just feels like it's Mrs.

Anderson or Mr.

Wareham.

Gold being tested by fire.

At the end we're going to sing how firm a foundation.

I love this part of it, that old hymn, I hope you know it.

When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie, says God, my God's grace, all sufficient, shall be your supply.

The flame shall not hurt you, my only design, your dross to consume and your gold to refine.

There is no other way in a broken, sinful world to have those impurities removed.

There is no easy way.

If you think you signed up for an easy way when you made some kind of a commitment to Christ, you were misled.

There are moments of great joy and deep satisfaction, and we revel in those.

And he who is wise, although he or she hates the process of purification when tried by fire, also revels not in the pain, but in the good thing that God is doing.

God loves us enough to tailor make fiery trials for us.

Not to cause us to stumble, but to cause us to shine, to cause the impurities to be taken away.

There is no easy way.

No pain, no gain, no purity without fire.

It's just the way the Bible presents it.

And it's just exactly the way life really works.

So Jack was understanding that.

He hated the loneliness, the despair, the sense of confusion.

It shouldn't have ought to have happened.

He didn't sign up for it.

He hated that, and hates that yet today.

And yet sees the good hand of a loving God doing good things in and through bad things.

That's what the book of James is all about.

That's why we keep saying he's on the throne, he's good, and he's trustworthy.

And we need that not in our best moments, we need that in the most difficult moments of our life.

And so we.

We recognize and we confess that God is doing some good things.

The second half of verse 12, in the first half he used the uh the illustration of being tested by fire, bringing out the pureness, getting rid of the dross.

Now he changes the image and he says, for when this person has passed the test, when this process is complete or well on its way to completion, then there is envisioned coming ahead kind of a graduation ceremony.

The picture, the word picture here is a laurel wreath.

This is not a metal crown for royalty.

The specific word that is used here was the word which those who excelled in academic competition or those who won the marathon, they would receive this woven woven laurel wreath, and it would be placed upon the heads, multiple heads of the winners.

Because, and it was used in the marathon, the ancient marathon.

And there are many winners of a marathon.

In fact, I know some of you compete in marathons.

I stand in awe, truly.

But I doubt there's anyone here who really expects to be first in the marathon unless they happen to be of Kenyan descent.

Because it seems like the Kenyans just walk away with first place in the marathon.

But the point for normal human beings of running the marathon is not to be the first across the finish line, it's just to drag this old decrepit body to the finish line, and that is a victory.

And everyone who came across the finish line would receive this laurel wreath.

It was like a graduation ceremony.

It was a time of celebration, a tremendous encouragement.

And faith that works results ultimately in that kind of honoring.

For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, the crown which consists of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Tremendous encouraging words.

Yes, a lot of life stinks.

And yes, God is always and only good.

And as we trust him, and as we look for his good ways in the midst of bad things, and as we persevere, we have before us, we should have before us, an image of dragging this old decrepit body across the finish line and having a wonderful celebration.

Graduation cum laude.

Instead of talking about tests and trials, all of our translations use the English word temptation.

I wonder why that switch.

Well, James must have used a different word.

He actually didn't.

The word for test and trial is the same word for temptation.

For in English, we have two separate words for it, but they're like two sides of the same coin.

It's the same phenomena.

And in the language in which the New Testament was written, there's one word for both.

And it's either a test and a trial, or it is a temptation.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Now, here is a reality that whether something proves to be a situation, a difficulty, a problem, whether that proves in your life and in mine to be a test which shows and brings to the surface the noble gold, as our dross is consumed, our gold is refined, and we begin to shine, it'll either result in that, or it will have proven those same circumstances to be an occasion for us to be enticed.

And we'll see in verse 14, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by what?

By his own desires.

So I just want to make it abundantly clear that the picture here is that one and the same set of circumstances will either result in refined gold or it will result in sin and failure, and as we continue that throughout our life, it leads surely to death.

A test is meant to show the quality of that which is tested.

That's the idea here.

20-pound test fishing line.

I'm not a fisherman, ice or any other kind, but a 20-pound test line has been tested, it's demonstrated that it is sufficient for a weight of 20 pounds.

A bridge that has a little sign on it, maximum load, 50,000 pounds, has been tested, and you can be sure, unless the government lied to you, you can be sure that a load of 50,000 pounds will not cause that bridge to fail.

It has been tested.

The value has been proven.

That's what a test.

When God tests us, then what he is doing is he is seeking to prove the reality of what he has been doing in our lives.

But then our own evil desires get lured and enticed by that same circumstance so that our natural pattern of response comes out, and those same circumstances will have been proven, will have proven to be, in that case, a temptation, a solicitation to evil.

To go back to Jack, it would be quite possible, if you knew Jack personally, you would know that his given bent, his predisposition would be to be sad, to become totally incapacitated, discouraged, to despair, to consumed with sadness in his personal circumstances.

Jack could become easily depressed, he could shrivel up, pull himself into a protective shield.

Jack could easily be someone who had become suicidal as a result of those kinds of things.

That's his natural bent.

That's not my natural bent.

If I was in Jack's situation, I would clench my fist and I would look for somebody to smash, by golly.

Because my default sin pattern would be anger and bitterness and wanting to get even and you ought to pray for Jane.

Patience of Job.

What's your sinful pattern?

What's your default pattern?

Because who we are under stress, under trials, is who we really are, and we're all different.

So Jack didn't do any of that.

Oh, he had his moments, because he's by no means perfect.

He had his moments, and he talked about it.

Just sometimes the sadness and the despair almost overwhelms him.

But then he goes back to God and gains a perspective on things.

I don't know what your pattern is.

Your wife or your husband or your parents or your kids know very well what your default pattern is.

And by God's grace, those patterns get broken as we begin to change.

The point is that whether the circumstances end up being a test that proves the value or a temptation that leads to sin, that depends really on our response, not on the circumstances.

You see, we tend to shift the blame.

We tend to look somewhere outside for the causative factor.

So I'm driving down the road, minding my own business, thinking about some wonderful message or something like that, and some absolute evil person pulls out in front of me, slams on his brakes, and I all but rear-end him.

My inclination is to say, he made me so mad.

The reality is no one makes me mad.

I make myself mad.

Those circumstances aren't the problem.

It's my inclination to sin that is the problem.

I get lured and enticed by that evil force within me, that old nature, that predisposition to this or that.

No one makes you mad.

Our kids had the fortune, I think it's a fortunate situation, of being raised in a home where we would constantly call them out saying, Did you hear what you just said?

Because we have spent almost 45 years.

Oh, now I'm in trouble, 46 years.

Helping one another.

Helping one another.

Nobody has done that to you.

Those situations, they may be sinful, but your response is not predetermined by those situations.

There is nothing within the person of God who is trying to bring out that sin.

So what he says is let no one say when he is tempted, verse 13, I'm being tempted by God.

Now, I can't imagine that anybody would blame these things on God.

Go back to the Garden of Eden.

Eve takes the apple and enjoys it for a time.

And when called to account, she says, Well, the serpent gave it to me and I ate.

Blame shifting.

The serpent gave it to me and I ate.

It comes to Adam.

What does Adam say?

This woman gave it to me.

Not me.

I mean, it's her fault.

Actually, he goes beyond that.

What he says is to God, this woman you gave me did it.

Implying that God is somehow or another behind that and culpable.

You see, that's what happens.

So we raise our fists at God.

God, why are you doing this to me?

And I get it, I get it in the midst of our pain and our grief and our confusion and our weakness.

But that may be where we start out, but that's not where we end up if our faith works.

Beyond that, we begin to see God, God is this is just because I'm made this way, just because I'm bent to be angry, doesn't give me the slightest free reign to be an angry person.

Or just because I happen to be predisposed towards depression doesn't mean I can just wallow in my depression.

As though there's nothing that I can do about it.

It's all out there.

The problem is not out there, according to what James says, the problem is here.

Let each person, verse 14, when he is lured, each person is tempted, when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

There's something within that is what the problem is.

God often tests us, and he does.

And he does always and only with good purposes in mind.

Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine, whatever else is going on, we know God takes those situations if we will but respond in the right way, and he uses them for good.

Jack gives testimony to that in these areas of his life.

If we had time, I'd love to get all stories about the good things that God has done through pain and suffering and failure, and you have them too, and as long as they exalt Christ, they're worth telling.

But do not shift the blame.

God is not tempted and he never tempts us.

The question which comes to our lips is, why are you doing this to me, God?

The right question or the right perception is God is not doing this to you.

He's allowing this for your good.

He's doing it for you.

He is for us, not against us.

We'll close with verses 14 and 15.

And the imagery here is taken from the world of fishermen.

He says in verse 14, for example, each person is tempted, when is tempted, is lured and enticed.

It's very interesting.

We've already said the enemy is within.

And that which is within is a tendency to be attracted to the bait.

Again, I'm not a big fisherman, but I have caught bluegills, if that counts.

And you put a slimy, ugly worm and you hook it on a hook, and you drop it in even an oil slick covered pond, and a bluegill is likely to be drawn to that gooey, yucky worm.

There is something within the fish that is drawn to that which could be his destruction.

Or maybe it's a bright, shiny lure with a little spinner on it that I don't understand why fish just go.

The problem is not the lure.

The problem is that the fish is enticable, is lurable.

There's something within the fish that if we only know the right bait to put out there, hooked.

Death.

Destruction.

Where's the problem?

It's not the evil fish, well, maybe it is in this case, fishermen.

No, the problem is there's something within the nature of the fish that goes after the bait.

There's something within our fallen sinful nature, that strong inner pull towards sin which has not been completely removed from us.

There will come a time when that sin nature will be excised from us.

But that time is now.

Now, Romans 6, Romans 7, we live with an internal conflict.

There is something within us that is attracted to that which is destructive.

But who can deliver us from this body of death?

Christ.

He changes us, he gives us a new heart, he gives us a new taste.

And the point is to not take the bait.

This gives us a picture, a word picture, of the dynamics of our struggle with sin.

And I don't suppose any of you can relate to a struggle with sin.

You know, you've all got it together.

You look so good this morning, you've combed your hair, you've probably brushed your teeth.

The fact of the matter is that each one of us is drawn not just by something out there, that's just the occasion, that's just the baited hook.

The problem is our taste.

The passing pleasures of sin for a season seem more desirable than the joys and glories of who Christ is.

And they really do, in the short run, for a season.

And the dynamic of the spiritual life is to have our tastes changed.

To have our tastes changed.

So that we no longer have the same taste for the things that we once did.

Or far more seldomly are we drawn to that which has in itself the seeds of destruction and death.

The inner dynamics of our struggle with sin.

And I want to close with that.

The problem is not the bait, but our delight in its taste.

This is from Matthew Henry, old-fashioned English.

Worth its weight in gold.

Listen, the dynamics of our struggle against sin.

The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies.

And listen, put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits the hook.

Now that's old-fashioned English.

The joy of the Lord, a satisfaction in who God is, an understanding of his character, an experience of his goodness, begins to help us deal with the assaults of the enemy, and it puts our mouths out of taste.

Translate that to our language?

It gives us a different set of taste buds.

It causes us to want to taste something quite different.

And so when the things that would be used to lead us into sin are dangled in front of us, we don't have to take that bait.

And part of our dealing with sin is to be so focused on who God is, to begin to see the world through a different lens, to see different values, to become to come to enjoy the taste of very different things.

John Piper says, I know of no other way to triumph over sin long term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.

Bingo! Bingo! I know of no other way, no other way to triumph over the long-term matters of sin than to gain a distaste for it by developing a superior satisfaction in God.

My friends, that requires a lifetime to unpack and to experience.

That's how I try to deal with sin in my life.

And I want to suggest that's what James is talking about as well.

A superior satisfaction in God.

We begin to so see Him as desirable, as the most, the greatest treasure in our lives, that we go after that which is of far greater value, because that's what we have a taste for.

Not because we have to, not because we're driven by guilt, but because that's what tastes good.

And the awfulness of the fact is that I still have a nature that makes sometimes the passing pleasures of sin look like they're going to taste pretty good.

And they do for a very brief second.

But there is something far more for us, and that developed desire for who God is, that joy of the Lord, that long-term superior satisfaction in God is God's solution to our struggle with sin.

That in its core form is what Christ came to do.

He came to die for our sins, and he came to justify us and to sanctify us.

And he came to take us home one day.

We live now where we have mixed desires.

We can feed the one or we can feed the other.

My friends, the Christian life involves learning to feed the desires of godliness.

And the Holy Spirit dwells within, and the Holy Spirit gives us a taste for that which is good.

That really is part of the message of the babe in the cradle.

So I want to say, in your struggle with sin, Merry Christmas, truly.

Because the solution is in God and understanding and relishing and cherishing God more than we cherish our sin.

It's really that simple.

It just is a long process.

And if you signed up for a 45-minute roller coaster ride, then my friends, let me put you on the right road.

And the right road is a long journey.

And it's a journey that has great sorrow and incredible joy.

And the joy begins to swallow up the rest of it.

It doesn't happen overnight.

It's a long journey.

But James lovingly, graciously unveils for us here the dynamic of how to deal with sin in our life.

It's nobody makes you mad.

You begin to develop a greater joy in other things.

We need to pray.

Heavenly Father, these are personal matters.

These are deep matters.

They're not simple.

I thank you for my brother Jack, who is a vivid reminder for me of someone who comes very close to going across the graduation platform.

Cum laude.

Or Magna Cum Laude.

Or summa cum laude.

Lord, we will turn all of those honors and praise around to you.

Just help us, I pray.

Help us in our struggles.

Help our faith to work in the pain and the darkness of this life.

For Christ the Savior is born.

Behold, I bring you a message, good news of great joy that is all to all the people.

And may we not go through this Christmas season without developing a deeper sense of the joy of God as He overcomes sin and takes us step by step home.

It's nighttime, Lord.

Let us get home before dark.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you all.