Faith that Remains Steadfast (1:1-15)

You can open your Bibles to James chapter one. What we're gonna do this morning is just do a little bit of a review from our opening last week, and I'm gonna start by reading in verse two. So we'll start with verse two, and then we'll read on just a little bit further. James one, verse two says, "'Count it all joy, my brothers, "'when you meet trials of various kinds, "'for you know that the testing of your faith "'produces steadfastness, "'and let steadfastness have its full effect, "'that you may be perfect and complete, locking in nothing.'" And now for this week's text, we go on to verse five. "'If any of you lacks wisdom, "'let him ask God who gives generously to all "'without reproach, and it will be given him. "'But let him ask in faith with no doubting, "'for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea "'that's driven and tossed by the wind, "'for that person must not suppose "'that he will receive anything from the Lord. "'He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways.'" Let's pray for the Word today. Father God, I just bow my heart before you, Lord, and we all bow our hearts before you in reverence, Lord, as we study this portion of your Word, and we ask that your Spirit would speak to us, open us up to reveal the truths, to reveal your love, to reveal those deep places in our heart that need to be touched by you, Lord God. And I pray that you would help us to limit our minds and the distractions of the day as we just settle in this portion of the Word this morning in Jesus' name, amen. When I was in 10th grade, I had a social studies teacher named Mr. Shapiro, and he wasn't a young man, but I think he was new to teaching, and he was just a little bit on the boring side. I suppose he was an adequate teacher, but he did tend to, we read the text in class, that's all I ever remember, is just reading out of the textbook, and then he would assign more homework, and then occasionally we would get into class, and in his monotone voice he would say, take out a piece of paper and number it from one to 10. The same words every time that this happened, and you know what he was after, it was a test. He called it a pop quiz because we didn't know. It was unannounced and it was unexpected. Looking back at that season, I would have advised my 15-year-old self, you should be prepared for these, because even though they're unannounced, you should come to expect that pop quizzes in Mr. Shapiro's class are inevitable over the course of the year, so don't act all surprised. You should have expected this, and you know what? We've lived long enough to know, right, that trials and troubles and tests pop up sometimes unexpectedly, unannounced in our life. We've also lived long enough to know that we should figure that out, and we should come to expect them. When they pop up, sometimes we notice a score when we have a trial or a test, and we can see our score, and sometimes we might look at one test and we are shocked, and we say, I totally bombed that last test that came, and then we grow in the Lord a little bit, and maybe He matures us, and we face another test, and we're like, yes, I did not freak out nearly as much as I did on the last test. Isn't that what life is? But the effect that we wanna see from the trials in our life, some trials are trivial. I had a trial this week. I just went for a tooth cleaning, and I had to replace a crown. That is a trivial trial, but it was a trial, because I went back with a mouthful of Novocaine. Some are trivial, and some are tragic, some of the trials. So we have the whole spectrum of trials in our life, but they increase our perseverance, our steadfastness, our patient endurance. They are the markers of spiritual maturity. Immature people are impatient, but mature people become patient and persistent. So even though I titled this week's lesson Faith That Remains Steadfast, I wanna give it a little subtitle for today, and the subtitle is, So What About Those Trials and Temptations? Okay, that's our subtitle. You know, I picture, I always like to picture what was this piece of scripture like for the people it was written to? What was it like for them? And I picture those Christians who were Jewish first, now Christians, having been chased from their homes in the dispersion, I picture them huddling together in little house churches, reading a letter that came from Pastor James. He wrote us a letter, and they just, they read this, and they must have felt so warm in their hearts when they realized right out the chute, he's engaging them on difficulties, because that's what their life was about. He's engaging them on these things, and it must have endeared him to them. These Jews who recently converted to Christ, they were young in their faith. They were young Christians. You know what? Everybody was a young Christian back then. Jesus had just died and resurrected. The gospel message had just been formed. The new covenant was still a new thing. So everybody was a young Christian in these days, and James was exactly right. They needed to know that the trials and temptations would be a regular part of their life. Hadn't Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. So they also needed to know that facing them with fear, anxiety, despair wasn't going to help. They could, they could count it all joy when they face trials because of the benefit that was going on, and that's what he was trying to convey to them. If they face the trials in God's strength, the result would be perseverance. Now, the Apostle Paul also said the same thing with different words. In 2 Corinthians 4.16, I'll put it up there for you, what the Apostle Paul said is he said, we don't lose heart for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. I think I lifted that from the NIV, maybe ESV is the same, but I love that phrase, light and momentary troubles. And what are they doing? They're achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Now, James said in his passage, when you meet trials of various kinds, he said when instead of if, meaning that we all go through these trials, we will all continue to go through trials in life. And when they happen, it should not be a surprise to us. And by the way, I just wanna kind of separate a little bit for our study here today, that trials are the difficulties that we inevitably face in life. They're not the problems that we create for ourselves. The problems that we create for ourselves stem from sin. And that stems from temptation, which we'll get to at the end of this lesson, okay? So I think trials and temptations have a similarity, but they're definitely different as well. Okay, what does the Christian woman who does have trials of many kinds in your life, you're facing trials, what does the Christian woman do? Okay, you have two choices that I'm gonna give today. Choice A is you say to yourself, you know what, somebody told me along the way that God loves me and he has a wonderful plan for my life. This doesn't seem like a wonderful plan, so I don't think God loves me, I'm done talking to him. I'm gonna handle this on my own. So it's choice A. Choice B is move on to verse five. So let's all do that choice B together, okay? Choice B says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. What a relief to hear that these unexpected tests that come into our life are open book. If you don't know the answers, you can just go to the Lord. You can ask for wisdom, and it says, you know, he'll share that information without reproach. The NIV says without finding fault. That is such a relief and such a great answer for us. However, even though we know that, it's common for us to face these difficult circumstances, doing just about everything except humbly coming to the Lord and saying, help, I need wisdom through this. We can be so reluctant to do that. And that's why I love that song that Amy shared. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Say it, take it to the Lord in prayer. If we can just remember that and do that, that is how we handle our trials. I wish I had time to go off course here a little bit and talk about how to support one another through trials. But that's a whole different message, and it's part of what we talked about at retreat. We need courage through trials. And so as we're supporting one another, we encourage one another. We cheer the motivation on toward the strength to do what needs to be done to move forward in the midst of pain or fear. grief. But in your study guide on page 7, we ask the question in order to apply it to our lives, what has God been allowing in your life recently to test your faith? If you didn't have an opportunity to study this week, that's a question I want you to think about right now. What has God been allowing into your life recently to test your faith? Have there been trials again on the spectrum? Are they merely annoying or are they crushingly huge? Did they arrive unexpectedly or did you see it coming? Or is this a trial that you know is for life? It is a lifelong trial. What do you think your score has been on this last test? Have you learned to take this quickly to the Lord in prayer, realizing the trials are open book, the tests are open book, God will give us wisdom? There's a promise here for that. Verse 6 goes on to say, but let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that's driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose he will receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. Did you like that little space I left in your study guide to draw a picture of the double-minded woman? You know what I was getting after. I was wanting you to draw a picture of a woman with two heads, right? And so with that is what we look like when we're double-minded. With one mind we are, we think that God is there to help us in our trouble and with the other mind we're totally planning how we're gonna take care of this on our own. That is double-mindedness and James says that person must not suppose he'll receive anything from the Lord. He's double-minded and what is the characteristic of a double-minded person? Instability, unstable in all of his ways. Now as we go on to verses 9 through 11 it seems to me that there's sort of parenthetical insights because verse 12 we're gonna get right back to this maturity thing, steadfastness and maturity. But we take, let's take 9 through 11 and kind of pull them out here just a little bit. Verse 9 says, let the lowly brother, and I want to contrast for you lowly compared to rich in verse 10, okay? Those seem to be the two contrasts. So we're talking about the financially humble brother, okay? Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation. Why? Because he knows that he is rich in the Lord. He is an heir with Christ Jesus and so in the realm of the Spirit let him boast in his exaltation and then let the rich boast in his humiliation. We'll come to that in a minute because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. There's nothing about earthly wealth that is going to last. It will pass away. Now I really rolled over and over this in my mind and I'm sharing this like I would share in a discussion group here and say, well I think what has come to me here, I don't think that having wealth is the humiliation here. That just, I can't line myself up with that. I wonder if as James is talking to these people in the dispersion, I wonder if their life circumstances are something like we read about in Hebrews where it talks about the confiscation of their property. I wonder if the humiliation is that you once were wealthy it has been taken away from you and now you have been humbled in your circumstances. I don't know. I'm just guessing here but it makes a lot of sense to me that you know when it says and let the rich boast in his humiliation that he no longer has this worldly wealth. But what can you boast in? The same thing that the lowly brother can boast in and that is that you know the Lord. That you are rich in the Lord. You are rich in spiritual blessings and you are an heir with Christ Jesus. Now God spoke to Jeremiah and said something very very similar so I want to put that on the screen for you. Jeremiah 9 23 through 24, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches. But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me. That I'm the Lord who practices steadfast love and justice and righteousness in the earth. I thought that that was such a good Old Testament, New Testament match probably because of the repetition of the word boast but it's saying again the same thing in an Old Testament way. If you're gonna boast in anything it can't be your strength, it can't be your health, it can't be your wealth. It needs to be the fact that you know the Lord and you understand his character. Isn't that sweet? So we're reminded that in this physical life our health, our wealth, it's fleeting, it's temporary and the perspective is to know and understand God. So I pointed out in the study guide that whatever you named for your trials, trial or trial right now, probably is related to something like money or relationships or health which are all fleeting. They're all of this world, right? And verse 11 says, for the sun rises in its scorching heat and withers the grass, that's us, that's our existence, its flower fails, its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. We're all fading away, the rich and the poor, we're all fading away at the same rate. I love that question, how much, talking about some rich person, how much did he leave when he died? He left all of it, all of it. We're all fading away in the midst of our pursuits. So after that kind of parenthetical example, now I think verse 12 picks up the theme of spiritual maturity again. 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. And that's what we are after, that is a marker of real faith, that is the title of our Bible study, real faith in this case that remains steadfast. So if we pursue anything in this world, it is a pursuit of knowing God and knowing his character. Now our final three verses are going to switch from boasting in the Lord and loving God in the midst of trials to thinking rightly about temptations. What are our responses to temptations? And that's why I wanted to separate them out just a little bit. So let's read verse 13. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire, and then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Today it is very out of fashion to talk about sin. I don't think it was out of fashion in James Day, even if he was, he's the kind of guy that wouldn't have cared. And so he goes ahead and talks about sin right away in this letter that he wrote. Because after trials I think he knew that for these people he loved and cared about, their next biggest problem was temptations. Remember I said they were young Christians. And do you remember that last week in our opening we said we wanted to meet Scripture, when we study Scripture, with the intention of adjusting our decisions rather than justifying our decisions. And that's what James is telling them here. He goes, each person, each one of you is tempted by his own desire. I am personally responsible for my own temptations, my own sins. He says, let nobody say that I'm being tempted by God. God doesn't tempt people. Now why would anybody even say that? Why even mention that? Because that's just weird. People don't go around saying, so God tempted me. We don't say it that way, but we justify things that way. In the example we used in our study guide was the first sin. Adam justified what he did by saying to God, well it was the woman that you gave me. In other words, God you put me in these circumstances. The temptation that came and my failure to chase away that temptation, really God must have tempted me because it's part of the circumstances he put me in. If we yell at our kids, we rationalize. I wouldn't have to yell at them if they would just obey me. God gave me these kids, so it's really not my fault. And we justify sin, right? If we're moody or broody or focused on ourselves, we say, you know, I could be cheerful if my husband or my friend or my parents or whoever it was would just fill my emotional tank. But they're not doing their part. This is what you've put me in, so my sin is justified, right? So we don't say the words, God is tempting me, but we justify the same. Again, this letter isn't written to pagans who don't care about pleasing God. The letter was written to Christians who wanted to please God. We want to please God. We also want to please ourself, and that's our problem, is we are often double-minded in our pleasures. And so we want to please God, but we also love those desires that come our way. So before we get into the meat of the letter, when we're gonna face a lot of instructions about how then should we live, James is confronting and asking us to consider a single-mindedness in obedience to the Lord, adjusting rather than justifying. I wanna look a little bit at the language of intimacy that James uses to talk about sin. It is a life cycle of temptation and sin. So look at this, first we have desire. Desire enters into my life, it is a temptation right here. It is not a sin, a temptation is not sin. Desire is not the sin yet, it just enters into my life. And I have a choice right here to boot it out and then we're done. But if I don't boot that out, then if I form a connection with it, a love affair, if you will, between the desire and my will, then we have conception. It says when desire conceives, and that requires conception, requires the meeting of two people, temptation and will, desire and will. It gives birth to sin, and we know that when something gives birth, it's created a life of its own. And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. So I wanna spend a little bit of time talking about desire, since that is the entry point. Again, a desire or a temptation is not sin. It is merely the suggestion of a relationship, okay? Like a dating relationship. So what are some of the desires that we go through? Let's connect dots here. Let's talk about just real life thing. We have a desire to be well liked. That is not a sin. But when we stretch the truth about our life, and perhaps make sure that other people are put in a dimmer life than us, then we've united our will. We have a desire for peace and quiet, for some leisure time. There's nothing wrong with that. But when that desire, when we unite that with our will, and then we constantly withdraw from serving others, like our family or others that we're in, to spend time doing what pleases us, then we have united with our will. We have a desire for financial security, a desire to have money. There is nothing wrong with that. But when we hold back everything for ourselves, we don't tithe, we don't contribute to the needs of others, we are not financially helpful. Then we have united that desire, and it has given birth. We have a desire to fit in. But when we laugh at coarse jokes, and go out to the bar with the girls and drink, just so that we can prove that Christians fit in, then we have formed a relationship with it. I think you understand what we're talking about here. I just wanna end with one, a desire to be right, because I think it can resonate with every single one of us. We have a desire to be right, and to make sure that the person that we're with, knows that we're right. And that is a temptation, that is not a sin yet. Until we engage, and we begin to argue, and we have to have the last word, and we engage our tongue. And so I have an example of this fresh off of the stove. My husband and I took a little motorcycle ride last week, and he said just a simple comment. This is the road that we used to take to go to such and such a place. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, you're completely wrong. And you need to know that you're wrong, and you need to know that I'm right. And that I have the information that we both need here. And so this temptation is flying into my mind. And I'm, ladies, it was like 20 minutes of our ride. I'm thinking to myself, I really do need to say something. Not that he needed to know, I needed to be right. Okay, can you relate to that? Okay, thank you, I'm glad. So we go through this life cycle here, the desire to make sure that somebody knows I have the correct information is there. Conception would have happened, and I just have to say, I can't always say this. But I did get the W this time, I won. I did not speak, I just let it go. Even though it took me 20 minutes to get over it, I just let it go. It's fine, if you want to think that's the road we used to take. How silly, right? How silly would it have been if I'd engaged in sin over something so stupid? But it's true, and in any relationship, but particularly in a marriage relationship, when we do that, this one particular example, we have to be right. And we give birth to arguing, to disrespect, to pride, to stubbornness. And it says that that sin eventually causes death. Well, there is a spiritual death because of the pride that's built up in us, that has an effect on our relationship. But in the natural, sins like this ruin relationships. What happens to a man over time, when we have to prove over and over and over that we are right? They just stop talking, they just, it ruins relationships. And so even in the natural, we can see some death that goes on. And I don't want to camp on that, this isn't a marriage thing. I just wanted to use an illustration that wasn't sexual immorality. That you guys could kind of relate to. And like in this case, Paul says, why not rather be wronged, sort of a thing. So maybe you've heard the illustration before, and I think it's a good one. When it comes to temptations, you're out on your patio, you have a beautiful tree that shades your patio. And when the birds come into your tree, that's like a temptation that comes into your life. You really had no control. The birds are gonna come into the tree. If the birds stay there, they're gonna poop all over your patio. They're gonna be loud in the morning. They're gonna build nests. You do have some control over that. You can chase those birds away. The birds come into your tree, you can chase them away. You don't have to build them a birdhouse. You don't have to put out bird seed for them. You don't have to invite them to stay. But the fact that they simply flew into your tree is not the problem. You can chase them away. And I've always thought that that was a great analogy for that. But we see how easy it is to justify the sin of pride, arguing, or disrespect. And you know what? As we're getting into the subject of obedience in James, we need to remember that Jesus came to break the cycle of sin and death. He came to break the chains. Our culture is so much about everybody's okay, everything is okay. Just sit there in your chains. That's good. You're so pretty, it's so great. No, Jesus came to break the chains, break the chains of sin and death. And so as we go through this, we will process it and look at breaking those chains in our own life so that we can be useful to help break chains in other people's life. Okay, let's do a quick summary. What did we learn in these verses about real faith for daily life? Okay, we learned that trials are part of life. We should expect them. God doesn't spare his kids, but he actually uses them to mature us. And that is the point. We learned that God is very willing to give us wisdom. When we need wisdom, we should just ask. It's open book. And we need to ask him for the things that come our way. We learned that life is short and we're all fading at the same rate. So don't take comfort or boast in your strength, your health, your wealth, your family, we're all fading away. And we learned that temptations are also a part of life. But rather than justify the desires that come into our life, we need to adjust our response by saying no to the temptations before they form a relationship with our will, before they give birth to sin, and before that gives birth to death. Good stuff, isn't it? Father, thank you for these opening verses. And Lord, would you give us each courage to be women who really do chase out the temptations? Lord, we probably need the blinders pulled back so we can even see what some of those desires are that we have justified for so long. We are probably blinded to some of them in our own life. So we ask this morning, Lord God, that you would make us wise to that. Help us to see, Lord, those areas that we can please you by just saying no to those temptations. And Lord, I just want to thank you that in all those areas that the temptation has given birth and the sin has fully grown, Lord, you are... faithful and we can come to you, confess our sins, and you will forgive our sins, Lord God. And Lord, we rejoice in that. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your forgiveness. And right now, Lord, as we're thinking about things that we have allowed to grow, Lord, we just bring it before you with open hands. We say, Lord, here is the sin that's already grown. Would you forgive this? Would you remove this from my life? Would you wipe this clean? Would you make the slate clean again between me and you? Lord God, thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your grace. Jesus' name, amen.