Finding Joy in Trials: A Call to Be Slaves of Christ

Good morning. Here at Dillingham Moravian Church, our focus is to train disciples

of Christ as we learn the Word of God together.

My name is Pastor Simon, and welcome to the preaching ministry of Dillingham Moravian Church.

I would like to tell you this morning of a miraculous story that happened during

Napoleon's march to conquer Europe.

Napoleon was determined on conquering the known world at the time and was working

his way from France through Germany and into Austria town by town.

And on this particular instance, Massena, one of Napoleon's generals,

suddenly appeared with 18,000 men before an Austrian town which had no means of defense.

The town council had nearly decided to surrender when the old dean of the church

reminded them that it was Easter and begged them to hold services as usual and

to leave the trouble in God's hands.

This they did, and the French, hearing the church bells ringing joyfully,

concluded that an Austrian army had come to relieve the place and quickly broke camp.

Before the bells ceased ringing, all the Frenchmen had vanished.

The entire army encamped before that town, and they had fled.

My point with using this historical account is that the slave of God does not

rely on his or her own power to joyfully persevere through trials,

but rather the slave of God relies completely on his or her master, Jesus Christ,

who is the Lord Almighty and who has already overcome the world and is living

in and with His much-loved bond slave.

Let's pray. Father God, we come before you today, and we plead with you,

Lord, to show us Yourself.

Show us that in the midst of trials, in the midst of struggles that have come upon us,

that you are God, and particularly you are our God, who loved us so much in

Jesus Christ and through His sacrificial death on the cross and His glorious resurrection.

Thank you. Teach us today, use us, and may you speak through me with your power

and your love and your Holy Spirit.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to James 1, verse 1 through 4.

James 1:1–4

Today in James 1, we're going to focus on verses 1 through 2,

but I want to read to verse 4 to give you the context.

James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who

were in the dispersion, greetings.

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials,

knowing that the testing of your faith brings about perseverance.

And let perseverance have its

perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

In our passage today, there are two foundational truths that I would like to

bring to your attention.

The first truth I believe God wants us to know is that as Christ's followers,

we are called to be slaves of our God, Jesus Christ.

James began in this passage in verse 1.

James, a slave of God and of Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who were

in the dispersion. Greetings.

There are two aspects of verse 1 that I want to bring to your attention.

The first part focuses on James identifying himself as a bondservant or a bondslave

of the Lord, who came as a representative of his master.

So why is it important that we know James was a slave of Jesus Christ?

The Greek word for bondservant in the NASB or servant that the NIV uses literally means to be a slave.

Now, this is a very hard concept for us in America, but in the Roman and Jewish

world, it was part of everyday life.

The question is, what was entailed in being a bondslave in a Hebrew household?

A bondslave was a Hebrew slave who, after seven years, had the chance to be

redeemed and be set free. But because the slave loved his or her master.

So the slave gave up his freedom to serve his or her master.

Life was often better for the slave under his good master than it was out in the brutal Roman world.

The slave then had his ear pierced with an earring called an awl,

which marked the slave as being a bond slave for life.

There were three characteristics of a bond servant.

The first characteristic of being a bond slave was being identified with his or her master.

The slave's whole identity and life was wrapped up in the identity of his or her master.

Secondly, the bond slave joyfully fulfilled the will of his or her master.

There was no argument or complaining from the bond slave, only the privilege to serve the master.

They loved. And lastly, the bond slave's authority came from his or her master.

When the slave requested something from someone, it was as if the master was

speaking using his bond slave and with the master's authority.

Thus, the big question is, why did James put this verse at the beginning of his letter?

I believe that James identified himself as a slave of the Lord to make it clear

who he, James, served and by what authority he wrote with.

The word that James used for Lord is kurios, which is the Greek word for the

Hebrew Jehovah or Yahweh.

The word Yahweh meant the life-giver, the creator, the one who is,

the absolute and unchangeable one, the ever-existing and ever-living who is

completely self-consistent and who is the God of redemption.

Every other being needs approval by and is defined in relationship to God and

to others, but not so with God.

He gives evidence to himself. He defines who he is.

Yet the characteristic of Yahweh

that I want to most focus on here is that Yahweh means, I am that I am.

When Moses came before the burning bush, Moses asked the Lord,

who shall I say has sent me?

The Lord responded, I am that I am has sent you. This is super important.

The Lord is the only one like himself. There is no one like him anywhere.

The Lord is always in the present throughout time.

The Lord described himself to Moses not by telling Moses that I was or I will be, but I am that I am.

This is the primary way in which Yahweh identifies himself.

And this is important for James 1 because James was the half-brother of Jesus

and the chief elder of the Jerusalem church.

And if anyone had the right to be lauding his own importance,

it would have been James.

And yet James does not, or did not, let his relationship with Jesus give him authority.

But rather, James humbled himself and totally submitted himself to the will

of Christ Jesus, who is not only his half-brother, but also Yahweh himself,

the God of all creation and King of the entire universe.

It's also important to note that James did not write this letter to the dispersed

Jews under his own authority, but in his master's name and authority.

And thus God through James was asking the believers to listen to him,

not because he, James, was important by himself, but because he was speaking

with the authority of his God and master Jesus Christ.

The second part of James chapter 1 that I want you to see is that James wrote

James 1 · chapter mention

his letter to greet and encourage the Jewish Christians who were scattered amongst

the known world at the time.

One of the main reasons why the church was scattered was persecution that God

allowed to spread the Christians out from Jerusalem to obey what Christ had commanded His church.

In Acts 1, verse 8, Jesus had commanded the apostles and subsequently His church as well,

Acts 1:8

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you,

and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria

and even to the remotest part of the earth.

Acts 8.1-3 catalogued the earliest of the mass persecutions against Christianity,

led by Saul, who later was the apostle Paul before he was saved by Christ.

Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.

But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house and dragging

off men and women, and he would put them in prison.

According to one commentator, James writes his epistle to Jewish Christians

who had been driven from their homes and possessions.

He addresses people who suffer because they were exploited by the rich,

dragged into court, and slandered for believing in the name of Jesus.

James wrote this letter to encourage those Jewish Christians in the Christian

churches around the Greek and Roman world who were suffering as a result of

their faithfulness to Christ.

But James was also addressing the very spiritual and doctrinal issues that had

arisen in the wider church that would include Gentile believers as well.

The main way to apply this verse to us as Christians is to know that we do not

belong to ourselves, but we belong to Christ as his bond slaves.

Just as James humbled himself in obedience, surrendered Jesus Christ as his master and Lord,

so we, you and I, must do the same and surrender control over our rights and

authorities, even our own selves to Jesus.

And as we surrender by faith in Christ, Christ's purpose, His will,

His desires become our sole focus, life, and joy.

James' example to be a bondslave of Christ is radical and completely countercultural,

then at His time, but also in our time today.

When the world wants us to get in touch with our feelings and our personal identity,

we seek to get to know Christ and serve to please Him above all others.

When popular media tells us to focus on ourselves and our own personal worth,

we, by God's grace, abandon ourselves and seek Christ as our greatest value and worth.

When we are tempted to do what we want to do rather than what God wants to do,

we, as Christians, in the strength of Christ, obey our wonderful Master and

Lord Jesus in all things.

So far, we've been taught by God that James was instructing the dispersed Jewish

Christians to take on his example, to follow Christ, his beloved master, as a bond slave of God.

And this leads us to the second point that I want to show you from James 1, verse 2.

James 1:2

And that is, as Christians, we are to joyfully encounter trials.

One of our first winters here in Dillingham, I had the privilege to go trapping

a couple times with a friend out on the tundra back behind their house,

wants to set traps and wants to check.

Mostly, my friend was going after beavers, where he set traps near the mouth

of their dens underwater.

But we also set snares around game trails to trap other types of animals.

Unfortunately, we were not successful on that set that I was a part of.

This concept of being trapped by something that we did not cause ourselves in

reference to trials is what James was teaching about.

In James 1, verse 2, where he wrote.

James 1:2

Before looking deeply at this verse, I want you to understand that the context

of James encouraging the dispersed Jewish believers was out of James identifying

himself as a bond-slave of the Lord.

That James served Yahweh God, Jesus Christ, as his slave, not out of force,

but in the unfathomable love of his precious master.

Serving Jesus was a service of joy no matter the circumstance.

And this is important. When we read verse 2, exhorting the believers to encounter

various trials with joy,

we must know that the way to go through trials with joy is to realize who you

are going through the trials for and with.

James was able to endure the trials that he was inflicted with by abiding in the joy of his Master.

It is in going through the various trials for our Master and Lord Jesus Christ

as we trust in His infinite love for us, that we would be willing to endure

any evil for His sake to bring our Lord glory.

I want to point out to you that James taught the believers to consider encountering trials as all joy.

The word joy meant the experience of gladness.

What James was getting at was the believers were to view from their own personal

perspectives that they were to be glad as they meet various trials.

As we found out from our illustration, this concept of a trap or snare was referring

to and not trials of our own making or consequences of our sin and mistakes,

but rather trials that we fall into or that we're struck by or ensnared in.

James knew what hardship was. He had seen Stephen die

and before that his half-brother Jesus was crucified.

We also know that due to famine, the Jerusalem church was suffering terribly and extremely poor.

Paul in Romans 15, verse 25-27 wrote about the struggle that the Jerusalem church was having.

Romans 15:25–27

But now I'm going to Jerusalem to serve the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia

were pleased to share with the poor among the saints in Jerusalem,

and yet they were pleased to do so. They were indebted to them.

For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted

to minister to them also in material things.

Moreover, the Jerusalem church was under continual attack from the Jews and the Romans.

And so, as a leader of the church, James knew hardship and wished to encourage

the Jewish believers who were scattered around the empire because of losing

their homes and family from persecution.

Yet we need to remember that this command of God through James is a command

in the context of being a bond slave of the most wonderful Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

Even more important is the truth that we as Christ believers are not alone in our trials.

And it's only by Christ's presence and strength that we are able to experience

gladness while going through and enduring various trials with joy to the glory of God.

The world's understanding of happiness has to do with feeding our appetites

or pleasures or comforts.

And what makes us physically happy as humans may be different for each of us.

For me, I love the comfort of doing my Bible study with my tea sitting next

to my electric fireplace on a cold morning.

I love sitting next to my net and watching the fish hit or the thrill when I

get a big fish on the line, or that

first bite into a steak or a burger at Bailey's, our local restaurant.

And yet God commanded us to have the same kind of gladness or happiness that

we have when we experience comforts or pleasures.

This is essential to the glory of God.

Many of us have experienced grief from the loss of loved ones,

even recently we have experienced loss in our church.

Some here experience or do experience constant pain from physical illness.

Now I know that many in this church have gone through financial difficulties

due to a stock market crash or losing jobs.

We also may know family or friends that have experienced or are experiencing

loss of homes or property due to fires, floods, tornadoes, or other natural disasters.

The key to being able to go through any trial with the joy of the Lord is knowing

and trusting that the Lord is our wonderful Master and that He,

Jesus Christ, is with us and He has a purpose for the trials for the glory of God.

I was convicted by what Oswald Chambers taught in this devotion that I'm going to share with you.

This is what he says. We think that the work we do in Christian ministry counts as service.

Jesus Christ says that service is what we are to Him, not only what we do for Him.

Christianity is not devotion to a work or a cause or a doctrine.

It is devotion to a person.

Our Lord's obedience was to the will of the Father, not to the needs of humanity.

The saving of humanity was the natural outcome of that obedience.

And if we're devoted only to humanity, our love will falter and we will soon be exhausted.

But if we love Jesus personally and passionately, we will be able to serve humanity,

even if people treat us like doormats.

I was convicted by this truth. As Christian workers, and I include any Christ

believers who have the faith-filled desire to share Christ's gospel,

it is so easy and tempting for ministry to become attached to our happiness,

even, I dare say, work addiction.

And if things do not go physically well for the ministry, then our happiness diminishes as well.

No, our joy amid the challenges of this life comes out of our relationship to

Christ who is our Lord and Master, and we have the privilege and joy to be His bond slaves.

We find our joy and strength to serve our Lord as we live in the love of Jesus and love Him in return.

There are two overarching truths that the Lord, through James, has been teaching us.

The first truth that we have been taught is that James greeted the dispersed

Jewish Christians with his example to follow Christ as their beloved master, as a bond slave of God.

Secondly, we have learned that believers are commanded to experience and show

gladness while going through and enduring many kinds of trials to the glory of God.

And we, you and I, are to consider trials as joy because we are serving Christ

through and in the trials and in the joy of our beloved Master, Jesus the Christ.

And as we go through any of these types of trials, the Lord through James is

teaching us that we need to experience these trials with joy.

This is extremely difficult. But as the people in that Austrian town found out,

that I used as an illustration at the beginning of this sermon,

God can do amazing things when we joyfully put our faith in Him.

We are not alone. Our Master, God, Jesus Christ, Creator and Lord of the universe,

who loves us so much, is always with us, and He will act on our behalf as we wait upon Him.

I'll leave you with this scripture from Nehemiah 8, verse 10.

Nehemiah 8:10

Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for the privilege and honor it is to be able to serve you, Lord.

And we also confess, myself included,

that we have not always lived as bond slaves, as willing slaves to you and your

Son and Holy Spirit, Father God,

one God, Holy Trinity.

We thank you for the privilege to do so, Lord. Strengthen us.

Use us, Lord, to serve you, to follow you, and to do so with joy no matter the

circumstance, no matter the trials that come our way.

Help us, O Lord, to see you as who you really are and to see ourselves rightly in response to you.

Use us as we go out to share the love of your Son, Jesus Christ, to all we meet.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this blessing from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 58.

1 Corinthians 15:58

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in

the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Amen. Have a wonderful Sunday, and may the Lord bless you.