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| Trials and Temptations - Oh Joy! (James 1:2-4) | |||||
 Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window A Belgian proverb says that experience is the comb that Nature gives us when we are bald. Miguel de Cervantes said that a proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. You will appreciate this example, which is a German proverb that says He who has burned his mouth blows his soup.More seriously, Henry Ford said, "Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realise". That is what James is saying here when he urges us to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds. The word translated 'trials' here has the same root as 'tempted' in v.13. There it refers to inner moral trials, temptation to sin. In our text it refers to difficulties that come from the outside. We are living in an age when people only want good experiences and James reminds us that if you want to live the full life, be the real thing, and be mature, complete, not lacking in anything there are no shortcuts. What the world would find bizarre is that James' words command us to make a definitive decision to count it joy in the face of trials "of all kinds". That can include illness, financial setbacks, persecutions, etc. This is not taking joy in the situation but counting it joy in the face of trials and our joy is to be unalloyed with other emotions. The testing here has the same meaning as in 1 Peter 1:7: "These [trials] have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed" The idea here is not that the trials of our faith determine whether we have faith or not. Rather they strengthen the faith we already have. If we want to grow in faith we must count it joy when that faith grows through trials. The perseverance James refers to is not a passive patience, which we might show towards people, but a robust, challenging response to circumstances that proves the practical realities of the Christian principles we believe in. It is something that produces a good crop (Luke 8:15). Paul expresses the same ideas when he writes: "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Ro.5:3-5) Sometimes Christians find themselves wondering if they are truly saved. It is popular in some circles even to think that trials and difficulties are a sign of waning, or weak faith. If we truly believed, the thinking goes we would be soaring as on eagle's wings. James begs to differ, insisting that: "The testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" Note that the perseverance that trials develop is doing a work in you; a work that produces maturity, completeness as a Christian believer, lacking nothing. If that is where we want to be this is what we must do, "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds". Press on! |
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