Stretching The Muscle of Faith

James By Jeff Lyle Bible Text: Preached on: James 1:1-12 Sunday, May 15, 2011

Transforming Truth & Meadow Baptist 1446 Calvin Davis Circle Lawrenceville, GA 30043 Website: Online Sermons: www.transformingtruth.org www.sermonaudio.com/jefflyle

The book of James chapter number one verse number one says this. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. 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, lacking in nothing. 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 is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. 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.1 Lets stretch the muscle of faith. I want to get where you live this morning because the text leaves me no other choice. This is not eloquence this morning. This is brass tacks shoe leather Christianity. This is our weaponry that allows us to approach some in the unbelieving realm that say, Oh, your faith has nothing to do with life on earth. It is not practical. It doesnt have anything to do with me and I dont have any interest in it. Let me tell you that James chapter one just gets in our shirt. It walks where we walk. It causes us to recognize that the way we feel is the way the saints felt in the first century, that there is nothing new under the sun and human nature has always been the same since the Garden of Eden.
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James 1:1-12. Page 1 of 16

And yet we are not left without help during a pilgrimage through our valleys and James is writing to a group of people that need that message desperately. I want to start in the first two verses and I want to get very practical, maybe even elementary with you for a moment and remind you that there is a realization that tests will come. Part of stretching the muscle of faith is that you must be tempted in this life, not tested in the sense of God soliciting you to do evil, but tested as to the legitimacy and the level of your faith and your trust, you confidence in him. And you have got to recognize that it is going to come. Notice in this context the objects of lifes testings. He opens up and he says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.2 And this is to whom he is writing. To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.3 And then in the verse two he says, My brethren. I love this very subtle opening nuance that everything we are going to read in the book of James together over the next several weeks, Lord willing, is written to Christians. All of the counsel, all of the commands, I believe in the book of James, if I havent miscounted, there are at least 45 different imperatives. That means 45 occasions in a very short book of the Bible where God through James says, Do this. He is telling us how to live as believers in Jesus Christ and, of course, all of this is empowered by the Spirit and motivated by the grace of God which we find in Jesus Christ. But James goes out right at the beginning and he calls himself not the half brother of Jesus, not the leader of the saints in Jerusalem, not one of the apostles. He says, No, I am James. I am a bond slave. I am a servant. Woven into his own title he reminds himself as the reader that he is a servant unto God through Jesus Christ. He is not a superstar. He is not a dynamo. He is not looking for popularity or his name on a marquis. He is not trying to name drop and say, You know, I grew up with Jesus. Can you imagine that for a moment? Can you imagine your big brother being sinless and perfect? I mean, you talk about mommas favorite, I mean, he never did anything wrong. I am not being irreverent. I am being true. And James grew up in the shadow of Jesus and never believed on him until after the resurrection. But he doesnt drop that name. He says, No. If I am going to be known, let it be known that I am a servant and I am writing to Christians who are scattered. He makes a reference to the Dispersion there, the Diaspora. It is the occasion, more than
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James 1:1. James 1:2. Page 2 of 16

likely, surrounding that early persecution in those initial years of the Church, perhaps even by one Saul of Tarsus who would later become the apostle Paul where he was wreaking havoc. He was killing Christians. He was causing women to be widows as he imprisoned or killed their husbands, making orphans out of children of Christian families and the Church went on the run. Of course that was also sovereignly ordained by God because as they ran they took the gospel with them to the utter most parts of the earth. Pardon me. But James is now writing to these people as they have settled in other lands. This isnt one letter going to one specific area. It is general. It will be passed among the believers from congregation to congregation and these are people that are suffering. They are Christians. They are people without a place. Some of them living in Gentile lands where there is a plurality of deities worshipped. They worship a god for this and a god for that and a god for that. And the Christians come in worshipping one who is crucified and resurrected, one named Jesus and their property has taken away. They cant get jobs. They cant feed their families. At times they are in prison and physically abused. And they are getting very desperate. They are struggling in life. It is not that they dont believe on Christ. It is that they dont yet feel that they have the capacity for enduring faith based on what they are facing in life. And so James is saying, Yes, you are the object of testing. See, my brothers and my sisters, coming to Christ doesnt guarantee you a primrose path. It doesnt guarantee you that everybody is going to applaud you along your holy way. it doesnt mean that you are not going to be tested from without. As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches the opposite. And modern day theology means to go ahead and get reacquainted with this, that all that live godly in Christ Jesus are going to suffer some level of persecution. You are going to have some difficulty. But James is going to show us before we get to the end of the chapter next week that it is not only the trouble on the outside that causes us at times to be stretched, but it is the problems on the inside. You know, I dont need any help from the world. I got enough problem looking in the mirror every day. I dont need any human enemies. I got enough junk in my own soul that I am trying to battle. And James is going to teach us about that when he talks about our sin and our lust and how it brings forth death. But this morning he is focusing on circumstances, problems. Well, before we get done with verse two we find the struggle. Here is the struggle in lifes testings. Look at his audacity.

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Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.4 This is where faith starts getting stretched. He doesnt just simply acknowledge that you are going to have trouble. The acknowledgment, the indicative of the trouble comes with an imperative to count it all joy. You are going to have problems. You are going to have trials. You are going to shoulder more than you think you can bear. You are going to hurt. You are going to lose. You are going to fear at times. And James comes in, no nonsense, not trying to butter us up. He looks us square in our eye as he squints at us and he says, Make sure you count it joy when it happens. I am going go ahead and be honest with you. That is all I know how to do. Does that come naturally to you? Me either. Count it all joy? Yeah, I do that when the problem leaves. Bye, bye, burden. Get on with yourself. I dont count it all joy when it shows up in my life. I do what you do. I pray it will go away. I try to run away. I will do anything to either avoid it or not acknowledge it, but I dont want more trouble in my life and yet James says, You are not getting out of it, Lyle. And when it comes your way, you need to count it as an opportunity for joy. He mentions here trials of various kinds. I am glad that it is not just one type of trial that he is highlighting here. He doesnt even give us specifics. But all of us know what it is like to battle spiritually when dark clouds move in and the mind is not what it should be and the spirit is not what it should be and the worship is not what it should be and the passion for Christ isnt what it should be and instead of having faith we are experiencing fear. Instead of having zeal we are experiencing dryness and we have all been there before. And that is a trial. But it is not only spiritual trial. The various times could include relational trials, troubles in the home, troubles in the church, troubles at workplace, trouble with loved ones, troubles with enemies and these are the type of trials that wear us down as it is death by paperclip. It is just... or paper cut. It is just cutting and cutting and cutting until finally you dont feel like you can bleed any more. And then there are those trial that find us in our homes in our relationships where husbands and wives cant see eye to eye and parents and children cant see eye to eye. And James says, When that happens I want you to do something. I want you to count it joy and it feels so unnatural. And let me just tell you. It is unnatural. It is not the natural that we are talking about operating here. We are talking about spiritual whether it is a relational or a circumstantial or a spiritual battle. This is what he is saying. He is saying, By faith, child of God, I want you to import heavens joy into earths pain. I want you, by faith, to do some things that are going to enable you that when these unavoidable troubles come to you you are able to experience them in the arena of Christian, victorious joy.
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James 1:2. Page 4 of 16

This is where we find ourselves ill equipped, unskilled and a little awkward, because, quite frankly, let me just make a comment on our culture. We are a pampered church. We have been diapered and bottle fed. Decades of preaching has failed to prepare us for difficulty. The health, wealth and prosperity gospel and the feel good vibe in our churches of this generation is not preparing us. And then when trouble hits not only are we wrestling with, wait a minute, this doesnt jive with what the pastor taught us for 25 years, we find nothing within us to be able to combat and persevere and endure. Well, James is going to help us. Hallelujah. We get to get back to our Bible today. So this sums up my thoughts on the realization that the tests will come. But the real question is: What do we do when they get here? What do I do when the pain comes bolting in like a summer thunderstorm? Well, lets look at verses three through eight, because, friends, this is where I am going to ask you to engage your spiritually enlightened intellect. I want you to think. I want you to discipline your mind and I want you to let your Bible say what it says. This is the response when tests arrive. I think it is easy to submit that there are going to come some of you, probably most in here are carrying at least one significant burden in your heart right now that is bigger than you. And if you are not carrying one today, I am not being a pessimist. I am being a realist. Give it time. You will be reacquainted with trouble soon enough. Here is what we do. Here is how James teaches us to respond. Discern this as an opportunity to grow. Immediately the news comes. Immediately the circumstance comes. Immediately the pain comes and he says, You know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.5 James takes a detached, non emotional, no self absorbed look. He is looking at the trouble objectively as a problem that has been deposited into your life. Here is a question for you to wrestle with. Who deposited it there? We are going to come to that in a few minutes. The problem has now found you. James before we can panic, before we can cry, before we can run to somebody else for help, he says, Stop. Wait a minute. You know something here. You know that this problem is going to produce something wonderful as a characteristic that all believers need. And he is going to develop this in you and it is called steadfastness. And when we speak of steadfastness it is kind of an out of date word, but it is the best one for it. The word indicates your ability to endure progressive levels of suffering or pain. Steadfastness indicates that you are developing the ability, the empowerment to endure progressive levels of suffering and pain.

James 1:3. Page 5 of 16

You see, my friends, the very fact that God the Spirit is writing to us about cultivating steadfastness ought to indicate something to you. The challenges get harder the deeper you get. How quick we are, when problems hit, we think we have done something wrong. Oh, God must be mad at me. God is upset with me I failed. We go back to confess sins we havent committed yet. And we are just assuming that big, bad, old God is mad, has lost his temper with us and he is brining down the hammer on us. Now, listen. I am going to tell you if you are living in sin you are going to reap what you sow and God does discipline his children. I am not talking to those people this morning. I am speaking to those of you that have a heart for Jesus. You are living him and life is problematic. And God is saying to you through the prophet James, through the apostle James, I am allowing your faith muscle to be stretched because you need to be stronger. This is where we get to decide will my faith remain theory or is it going to be alive? There is a danger and this is something I am really working through in my own walk. I will get a little transparent here. I want to know what is right theologically. God has so wired me that I cannot bear the thought having lived the first 24 years of my life in absolute error and denial of the truth and reaping that awful harvest of sin and all of its repercussions. When God delivered me I wanted to know what is true. I want to know what is right. I am not interested in mans opinion anymore because man is as messed up as I am, because I am a man. And I want to know, God, what is true so I have a thirst of theology. But let me give you a warning here. Some that thirst for theology, that is all they thirst for and they never work it out. They are constantly stroking their Spirit enlightened intellect for more and more, but they dont use what they have got. And James is here saying that this insertion of problems into our life forces us to move out of the realm of theological theory and figure out how does my faith flesh itself out in life. And that is an awesome thing for God to entrust you with. Let me step out on a limb here and suggest that some of you that are committed Christians in the will of God who are going through deep struggles, if you can recognize that this is an opportunity to grow, let me tell you what will happen in the midst of the problem. The problem is not going away yet. But joy starts to spark. Oh, my problems arent arbitrary. My problems arent random. My problems arent accidental. It is not simply man being man and people being people. You mean that there is a reason to my struggle? That is what James is teaching. God is strengthening you. Well, lets go further. Here is another response, verse four. Value the outcome of this process. He says, And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.6
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James 1:4. Page 6 of 16

Now, first of all, you are commanded to cooperate with the process. Let steadfastness have its full effect.7 You are a part of this. This is not just let go and let God. I wish they would strike that phrase from the Christian American book of dumbology, amen? That is just stupid. There. I got my rant over with. That is all you are going to get today. But it is beyond let go and let God. That is a mindless statement. You have got to cooperate with what God is doing in your life and as you are cooperating he is working in you, through you and for you in the midst of these problems. But notice this. Lets work our way backward in that verse. You might want to throw it back up on the screen again. If I ask you: Who would like to end their Christian life lacking in nothing, raise your hand? The rest of you get with me here this morning. What is wrong with you? Who would like to end their Christian life complete? Raise your hand. That is me. Who wants to be perfect as a Christian if it is achievable in this life? I am like, sign me up, Jack. I want to be a part of that. Who wants to do that? Well, we all do, James. James says, Well, you have got to let steadfastness run its full course. You have got to learn to endure. You have got to be persevering. You have got to be overcoming. You have got to welcome God to do this. You say, I want steadfastness. And James says, Good, because it is going to come through your problems. We want the result but not the pathway. We like the destination, but not the journey. Sign me up for lacking nothing and being complete and mature and perfect in Christ. Sign me up, but can I order it without the problems? The answer is no. Let me ask you this. I want you to think about what you might be going through. I dont want to sound like Dr. Phil this morning, but I dont want to avoid the fact that problems reside in the mind, reside in the emotions, reside in the spirit, sometimes in the body. And so I want to try to minister holistically here and talk about... think about what you are going through. Think about what is hurting you, worrying you, weighing you down. Now I am going to ask you this. Are you valuing the process and its eventual outcome? Or are you like most of us with our knee jerk reaction. It is so distasteful, so stressful, so
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Ibid. Page 7 of 16

fearful that the better part of us just sayswhen I say the betterthe bigger part of us just says, Make it go away, God. And God loves you too much to leave you in a spiritual state of atrophy, weak and withered. He says, I want strengthening you. But you have got to value the outcome. I think the issue is we lose track of what God is doing. We forget what he said. We get amnesia and we forget what he is saying that he is doing here. This is a journey. He is teaching us stuff. He is developing us. You dont bring your babies home from the hospital, lay them in the crib and say, Ok, feed yourself and change your diaper and do whatever you have got to do. I have got stuff to do. We baby our kids. We graduate them from level to level to level. In just a couple of weeks our seniors are going to graduate from high school. What an awesome time in their life to have completed it. But all along the way there has been a journey that mom and dad have led them upon and now they get to apply what they used. It is very similar in the spiritual realm. Well, lets go further. Request wisdom for the test and from the test. We are talking about how are we going to count it all joy. Well, you have got to discern the problem as an opportunity to grow. You have got to value the outcome of the process. And you have got to request wisdom for and from the test. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it [the wisdom] will be given him.8 You dont have to wait through anything. You dont have to cut off the trimmings to understand that. This is what God is saying to us through this plain spoken apostle. You are going though the trial and part of the trial that makes it unpleasant is confusion. I mean, let me tell you how it works sometimes. God, I believe that you are good. God I believe that you love me. God, I believe what I know to be in your Word to be true. God, I believe in your character. God, I believe that you are my protector, my provider, my shepherd. I believe all of these things, but, Lord, how does this dovetail with all the junk I am experiencing right now. God, I dont even have the courage to doubt you, but, Lord, you know my heart and I cant hide it. I am confused. Have you ever been there? We have all been there. And God says, I am glad you are asking me for the wisdom to understand.

James 1:5. Page 8 of 16

Parents, lets be very careful as our children get older. And sometimes in our impatience and our preoccupation our children will ask us stuff that we have already instructed them on. We have already taught them. We have already seen them perform. And if for whatever reason they come back with the same request, the same question, the same debate and do you know what we so often do? You ought to know that by now. Why are you asking me? I am done talking about that. You ought to know. God never does that. You can come back to him for the 100th time saying, I need wisdom about this. And he is going to say 100 times, I am glad your asking. I am glad you are seeking me. I am going to give it to you. Look at what the Scripture says here. He doesnt upbraid. That is the King James word. He doesnt reproach us. He doesnt chastise or rebuke or chide us for coming to him. He never gets annoyed with you. Isnt that great? I am kind of an annoying God. I have been told that by several. It is proof. It is written down somewhere. I wrote it down. I read it and it is true. I am an annoying guy and I get annoyed fairly easily. Just ask the staff. I mean, I have got some issues in life. And so when I go to God sometimes I feel like, oh, I better not bother him with that. Well, what am I going to do, cause him to run out of his power? Is my demand going to tax his abilities? I mean, listen. He has been running eternity for eternity. I think he can handle one request from me even if it is about the same silly thing. Ah, but we have got to trouble not the master syndrome. I dont want to bother God with that. I ought to figure it out on myself. Well, dont live in pride. Humble yourself and ask God for the wisdom you need, not only for the trial and I love that. He says, Ask and God gives liberally or generously to all. You dont have to come to me to get Gods wisdom. And, listen. I will be glad to help and counsel and that is part of what I do. But I want to tell you something. Are you saved? Do you have a Bible? The Holy Spirit working within you? I would say talk to God a lot before you come and talk to me. I could give you the wrong answer, but God in his Word never will. And if you will seek him, you will find the delight of being able to regularly circumvent your pastor or some other mentor or spiritual leader and say, I dont need him for that anymore. Well listen to your preach on Sunday, preacher, but I am going to get my wisdom straight from God and straight from his Word. And, of course, if it is in his Word, it is Gods wisdom. There is no select group of people that have an inside track with God. Beware of cultic personalities like that that try to tell you. It is big among some Baptist churches. Pastors get so I am going to rant here,
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too. Pastors get so full of themselves that they look down on the parishioners. And do you think God is going to give you discernment about things that have to do with this church? God will speak to me. I would be careful, brother, because the next thing he speaks to you may be an invitation to come on back to heaven and your life will be done down here. That kind of pride doesnt help people. God gives wisdom. And, by the way, I want you to know that verse number five is not a suggestion. It is not maybe you should ask for wisdom, maybe you shouldnt. It is a command. Ask God for wisdom about the trial. Keep it in its context. He is talking about understanding, the ability to understand the nature and the purpose of God in the midst of whatever you are facing. Ask him. He is going to shepherd you through it. And I would say this. You are growing in your faith if you are asking God to give you the wisdom of it before you ask him to give you the relief from it. You are growing. The knee jerk reaction is, Get this out of here, but the spiritual response the sovereign God of heaven has deposited enough trouble in my life to catch my attention. What do you want me to know? What do you want me to understand? What glorious thing must I learn? There is a fourth thing. Remember the character and the commitment of God when your test arrives This will enable you to count it all joy. James says if a man is asking wisdom: But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea [that is hot flattering] that is 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 his ways.9 This is a very negative verse. It is positive truth, but it is spoken in a negative tone. He is saying, I want you to come to God and I want you to ask God for the wisdom. But when you ask God for the wisdom listen to his answer. Stay there in faith because if you are asking and you are doubting what he is going to say, then you are like the ocean waves. The ocean waves, they pound in from side to side. They move. Yes, we might be able to predict the tides, but you go deep enough in sea and there is no pattern to the waves. They are everywhere. And James says, That is what you are going to be like. What does it mean to doubt God in a context like this? It means this.

James 1:6-8. Page 10 of 16

God, I have got this issue in my life. God, I am struggling. I am hurting. I am afraid. I am concerned. I cant talk to anybody about it. I am getting nothing from you. I am getting nothing from your Word. I am scared and I want to know what to do. And while you are praying that and you are saying, God, give me wisdom, with the other side of your soul, with the other side of that double mind you are preparing to handle things on your own. And that is what we do. We are praying but we are also working the backup plan in case God doesnt answer. Anybody want to... can I get a witness? Let me just hit home with it. It is the single person praying for years for a mate and dating somebody that they are pretty sure is not in the will of God and they are saying, God, I have been praying for this mate, God... Yes, honey I will be there at seven o'clock. God, I have been wanting. I want your man. I want your woman. Yeah, I will see you tonight at eight o'clock. God I want to be the type of person that can have a blessed family and marriage. And you are praying for wisdom and in the meantime you are not listening. You are running your own scheme. You are running your own game. And since God didnt come through when you were ready, you doubted him and you got the back up plan. And you didnt receive anything from the Lord. Do you follow me? We do that with our job opportunities. We do it with church hopping. We do it with... well, we do it with just about anything man can think on and pray about. And what Gods Word tells us is endure. Wait. Be steadfast. Dont let your left hand and your right hand know what each other is doing. Lift both of those empty hands up to God in an attitude of surrender and say, Lord, I got nothing and I need your wisdom. Well, how does that... how is that emblematic of my thought to remember the character and commitment of God? Well, listen. Why are you going to doubt him if you believe he is good? You see, this is the thing that happens and it can train wreck us in our faith even if it is for a short season. It is a missed opportunity to trust God and bring him glory. You have got to make up your mind somewhere along the journey if God is trustworthy or not. If he is not what are you doing here? What are you dabbling in Christianity for? I mean, if you can trust him with your soul, what is the big issue about trusting him with the sub soul issues, your time, your money, your health, your opportunities. We enthusiastically commit our soul to God, but when he reaches an omnipotent hand to order our life we swat it away. We doubt God. And, brothers and sisters, God is not looking for just a peak into your life. he is going to set up a throne there, right there square in the center of all that you are. And he is going to set up that throne and his Son
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is going to sit on the throne of your life and he is going to say, Place all of your confidence in me. Put all of your trust in me. Seek me in every single thing. Let me give you a verse from Hebrews chapter 11 that you will remember. Hebrews 11:6. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.10 I love plain spoken Scripture. If I seek God, God rewards me. It is not that he rewards me for seeking him. It is that he rewards me through seeking him. Do you know why? Because seek and you shall find. If you are seeking him, you find him and there is your reward. See, the reward is not your problem going away. The reward is not ease and comfort and breathing and relaxation and leisure and entertainment, all of the pillars of the crumbling American society. The reward is that you find God no matter what the context is. And when I say find God I mean you experience him in levels that you never have before. So I am given an opportunity here to be kneeling before a stabilized throne or sailing on tossing and turning waves of lifes ocean and I think the better of the two is obvious. So lets get down to verses nine through 12 and then we will be done. What are the results which tests can bring? Well, here is the first one. The broken and the humbled are uplifted by God. Verse number nine. James says, Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation.11 There is a couple of different paradigms here in this verse. He is speaking of an individual, a Christian who is in undesirable, unfavorable circumstances. This individual is broken. This individual is hurting. This individual is lowly as the ESV renders it. It is not a place that you want to sign up for, but it is where you are in that verse. And James reintroduces the initial command. Rejoice. Rejoice. How can I? My problems, my circumstances, my pains, my annoyances, my troubles. James would say, Well, what does that have to do with rejoicing? Well, James, I am a shallow 21st century American Christian and I have got to have things going my way if Jesus is going to get the glory from my life. Ooh. Where did that land this morning? Right in the middle of our self indulgent hearts.

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Hebrews 11:6. James 1:9. Page 12 of 16

Some of you all better get with me this morning. I am feeling like thin ice today. This is the thought. Two things. One, James could be saying, Rejoice in your exalted, elevated position in Christ, meaning this. Life down here was never promised to be as sweet and scented and easy as we would like it to be. But I want to tell you the flip side of the coin. The life that is to come is so much better than you have ever conceived. Yeah, life down here at times may be harder than you eve thought it would be, but I want to tell you. It is all of eternity that is going to be infinitely better than your mind or my tiny little mind has ever begun to fathom. And so James is prying our attention off of the horizontal and directing our worship vertically and he says, Keep looking that way. There is your empowerment for joy. You are looking to things that are eternal. Let me just ask you if you are still blessed by these facts. All of your sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ. Does that crank your truck? You are destined for paradise to be with him forever because of what he did on your behalf. Does that move you a little bit? You are going to have a glorified body that will never get sick. It will never get old. You wont need plastic surgery to get rid of your wrinkles or to lift up what gravity has determined to take down. You are going to be, amen... you are going to be glorified forever and you are going to live in a glorified place with glorified people. There will be no church splits in heaven. There is only going to be one church. And that is just the stuff I can think of off the cuff in 25 seconds. And James says, Brother of low degree, sister of troubled circumstances, rejoice in him. He is worthy. He is worthy. Let me give you this. I want to read you something. I am not familiar with the author, but I like what he wrote. Gary Richmond wrote a book with a funny title. It is called A View from the Zoo. And he is writing about the birth of a baby giraffe in the zoo. And he is going to make some spiritual application that I hope will help you and it helped me a little bit. He writes, The first thing to emerge as the baby giraffe is born is its front hooves and its head. A few minutes later the plucky newborn is hurled forth, falls 10 feet from its mother and lands on its back. Within seconds he rolls to an upright position with his legs tucked under his body. From this position he considers the world for the very first time as he shakes off the last vestige of the birthing fluid from his eyes and his ears. The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about 60 seconds and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby so that it is sent sprawling head over heels. When it doesnt get up the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby giraffe grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts. Finally the calf stands for the first time on its own wobbly legs. Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible in order to stay with the herd where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards and wild dogs all enjoy to eat
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young giraffes and they get them, too, if the mother didnt teach her calf to get up quickly and get on with things. He adds this. I have thought about the birth of the giraffe many times in my life. I can see its parallel. There have been times when it seemed that I had just stood up after one trial only to be knocked down again by the next. Now I know it was God helping me to remember how it was that I got up in the first place, urging me always to walk with him in his shadow under his care. Have you ever felt kicked by God? I am going to tell you most of us have. Have you ever stopped long enough to import the wisdom from above and say, He is teaching me to walk close to him? Friends, your world is filled with all sorts of jackals and hyenas and lions and leopards that will eat you up. And you have got to know how to stand and the only way you can know how to stand and to get back up is if you experience being knocked down and I would so much rather have God knock me down educationally to learn something than to have an enemy knock me down maliciously to destroy me. So let us think about these things. I am finishing. The self sufficient are enlightened by God, verses 10 and 11. This is a result that tests can bring. James writes of the rich manand this wont be the last time in this study. And the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.12 Brothers and sisters, he is writing to Christians. He is not writing to some pagan rich man. He is talking about people that are in the kingdom who are losing their stuff. And, man, that is being repeated manifold times in this decade. Christians who have honored God with their substance. Christians who have been blessed to have much. Christians who have lived in the heights of opulence as they use their income to bless the kingdom of God and to serve the Lord. And then they wake up and through whatever means it is going, going, gone. And the Lord says through James, Rejoice, rich man, rejoice. That is your faith muscle getting stretched. That is why it hurts.
12

James 1:10-11. Page 14 of 16

What in the world or how does that make us rejoice? I think the vibe of that verseI cant think of the right wordthe spirit of that verse is that the rich man can say, Thank you, God, for interrupting in my life what might have become selfish, empty pursuits. Thank you, Lord, for not even allowing the possibility of me being undermined by the snare of riches. Let me say this word and then I am going to give you the last verse. The Bible speaks inordinately more warnings to rich people than it does affirmations. If you are blessed of God financially, hallelujah. Use it for his glory, but you also may be called to lose it for his glory. Dont panic. You are not taking any of it with you. Invest it wisely. The last verse, verse number 12. The last result that I am going to highlight that a test can bring is this. Those who are tested are purified and later rewarded. 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.13 What is this describing? It is describing divine favor, an eternal reward. For whom? For those who endure. Let me give you some good theology here. All true Christians endure. The perseverance of the saints is not a fringe cultic doctrine. All true believers endure until the end. We have the persevering resident of the Holy Spirit within is. It doesnt matter that you... I mean it doesnt mean that you wont occasionally ebb and flow to the degree of your faith, but we will endure until the end. And here is promised the enigmatic crown of life. I have heard some funny sermons on this and I am just going to tell you. I am not confident enough to go too far with it. I have heard dogmatic sermons that we are all going to be walking around in heaven with laurel wreathes made of gold on our heads and, hey, a nice crown of life. I like your crown of life. Well, thank you. I got for enduring. I got it for loving God. I dont think that is the case. I dont think we are talking about heavenly apparel. Quite honestly I dont believe that even if we do get physical crowns, aint nobody going to be wearing them. You know what you would do with one if you got one, amen? You are going to put it down at the feet of the King of kings and the Lord of lords who upon his head deserves every crown. But what is it perhaps speaking of? It is talking about what you already possess. It is talking about being crowned with eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the fullness of that is experienced not in this life. One of the biggest staggerings in the pilgrimage of faith is we have heaven in our heart. We have a spiritual longing for all that heaven is in our heart and we have that today and therefore we want to experience it on earth and God has not permitted all of heaven to be experienced on earth.
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James 1:12. Page 15 of 16

So if you look at life as not giving you what you inwardly desire as a Christian, you can be frustrated. You can feel ripped off. You can feel like you didnt get what you thought you were supposed to get out of this thing. Or when trials deny you, when troubles prevent you, when circumstances humble you, you can respond in faith and say, There is coming a moment in time where nothing, not even the gates of hell will be able to prevent me from experiencing all of my full inheritance in Jesus Christ. I am an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ and one of these days at the end of this little misty vapor, one of these days I am going to enter into my fullness. And do you know what you find when you weave that into your spiritual mind? There is all of hell and earth come against you, you can wake up with joy. You can rejoice and count it joy no matter what your lot is. You say, Jeff, but that is going to be hard. Right. And you have a shepherd that is going to get under that yoke with you and you are going to walk through this field of life and in the end there is going to be a bountiful harvest and the first fruits of which in all of us must be joy. Would you bow your head and close your eyes?

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James 1:1-12

Stretching The Muscle Of Faith

preached Sunday AM 5/15/11 at MBC

I. The Realization That Tests Will Come (1-2)

A. The objects of lifes testings (1-2a) - James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion... My brothers... Christians, believers, obedient followers, the beloved, Christs bride, the elect of God chosen before the foundaiton of the world, overcomers, conquerors, the redeemed, the forgiven & eternally secure

B. The struggle in lifes testings (2b) - ...count it all joy... when you meet trials of various kinds. Diverse trials: spiritual, relational, emotional, physical, psychological, volitional, & circumstantial

II. The Response When Tests Arrive (3-8)

A. Discern the opportunity to grow (3) - For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

B. Value the outcome of the process (4) - And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

C. Request wisdom for and from the test (5) - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God , who gives generously to all without reproach {chastise, rebuke, chide}, and it will be given him. This is an imperative in the Greek, not a suggestion!

D. Remember the character & commitment of God (6-8) - But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is 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 his ways. Hebrews 11:6 - And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

III. The Results Which Tests Can Bring (9-12) A. The broken and humbled are uplifted by God (9) - Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation...

B. The self-sufficient are enlightened by God (10-11) - ...and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

C. The tested are purified and later rewarded (12) - 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.