Responding to Difficulty

Written by Ed Allen
Sunday, 21 November 2010 10:00

Sermons - General Sermons

Good Posture

For some reason today’s lesson reminds me of the Smokey Robinson song, “Tears of a Clown”

We’re going to look at an inspiring and very helpful passage from the book of James. In this passage, James gives us an outrageous directive. He urges us toward a certain spiritual posture when we are confronted with difficulty that honestly sounds either trite or cruel depending on how you read it. Then he gives 3 motivational reasons for following the directive. And at the end of the passage he offers up a firm correction against one of our primary tendencies that work against following the directive.

But I really don’t want you to miss this: underneath James’ instruction, he makes a profound spiritual assumption that is both mind-bogling, and heart-rattling. In other words, this assumption speaks to both our minds and our hearts powerfully. Plus, it’s also very, very helpful.

I’m sharing this lesson today because I felt impressed by God last week after my nephew’s funeral to share a message about suffering. That message was actually inspired by one of the conversations I had with my nephew. Today’s lesson is like a companion piece to what we talked about last week.

• Review last week
  • 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
  • “An unimaginably weighty and eternal glory is being produced in us by our troubles.”
• Today’s lesson fills out that great truth! I have prayed for all of us that we would allow today’s lesson to settle into our hearts and our minds. So let’s unpack it.

Read James 1:2-4; 12-15

James 1:2-4; 12-15

(1) James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.

(2) Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, (3) because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (4) Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

(12) Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

(13) When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; (14) but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. (15) Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Outrageous directive: When faced with trials we should choose to joyfully endure them.

In other words, the right response to trial and temptation and suffering and difficulty is always joyful endurance. The God-honoring, emotionally healthy, future-enhancing response to difficult circumstances is to choose to be joyful and to persevere. This is the emotional posture that you and I should adopt when we are facing sufferings of all kinds: we should persevere with joy.

Now if we’re honest, this instruction can sound trite. “What … am I suppose to just put on a happy face when I lose my job or my health.” But this is not at all what James’ is saying. James is not encouraging us to be positive because people like positive people. He’s not asking us to put on a clown face even though we’re crying inside. He’s not appealing to a shallow, false sense of optimism. You know the kind of advice that that kind of spirit generates: “Things always work out in the end.” “There’s other fish in the sea.” “God has His reasons.” “This too shall pass.”

Those sayings are sometimes true, but they’re often not really helpful. For me, I have found that that kind of positivism is no match for the difficulties of life. It may be different for you – and God bless you if that kind of stuff works for you, but honestly I don’t believe it does. And this is not what James is saying.

His instruction can also sound cruel. “My life is falling apart and you want me to be happy. I’m dying on the inside and you want me to paint on a smile.” But James is not asking us to just forget about our troubles and to paint on a smile. He’s not being trite and he’s not being cruel. James was a man who understood what difficulty is.

• James’ background
• Background of the book

How do we choose joy?

Okay, James. You bring some understanding to the topic of difficulty. But HOW do we do what you’ve directed? If I were an actor, I would ask, “What’s my motivation?” Where does such a response come from? How can I choose joyful endurance with any integrity or authenticity? Right now that would seem fake.

So to help us get to such the right spiritual posture, James gives us three motivations.

The first motivation for choosing joyful endurance in the face of difficulty comes from knowing that trials build into us the perseverance necessary to our maturity.

• The NLT of verses 2 and 3 read like this: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”
• Life is not a sprint! Our spiritual journey is not a sprint. We need to persevere in order to finish. Trials build our capacity to persevere.
• If you’re going to run a marathon you’ll have to run through some blisters, you’ll have to run through some physical dings, and you’ll have to run hills. All of that stuff builds your readiness to run on race day.
• If we’re going to persevere spiritually, we will have to build up our endurance and trials do that for us.

The second motivation for choosing joyful endurance is supplied by James’ word choice here. He calls these difficult times “tests”.

• “Consider it pure joy when you go through trials because the testing of your faith...”
• This word (peirasmos) had a rich history in Jewish culture. (Like saying the word freedom to an American audience)
  • In Judaism, this word was used to refer to general difficulty like sickness, or physical suffering or even persecution.
  • Plus, it was sometimes used as a synonym for temptation to sin either from outside of us or within us.
• It was also used at times to refer to God’s examination of a person.
  • Abraham with Isaac
  • Jesus in the desert
  • That’s the way it is used by James here.
• What James is telling us by using this word is that the difficulty you’re going through has a purpose. God is involved in it. This isn’t some random event. God has either occasioned it, or He has allowed it.
  • But why? What is God examining? What is He testing?
  • Actually, the Bible has a lot to say about this and if we had the time to survey the Biblical stories that relate to this topic we would find that God’s examinations are always about two things:
    • He is strengthening us (image: refined in a furnace)
      • For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. Psalm 66:10
      • See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48:10
    • To force what is in us to come out so that He can purify us.
      • Frequent image in this connection is of a father disciplining his son.
      • (Israel in the desert) Deuteronomy 8:2-5
  • God allows what he allows and He makes happen what He makes happen to strengthen us and to purify us... that is for our good! That’s why James reminds us later in this same passage “Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly lights.”
  • The second motivation for choosing joyful endurance comes from knowing that we are being tested through our trials. They have purpose. Through that testing, we are being strengthened and we are being purified.

A third motivation is provided by knowing what these difficulties mean for my future.

• (Verse 12 in NLT) “God blesses those who patiently endure testing. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.”
• My future hope, which is an incredibly free and delicious future spent knowing Christ and being known by Christ, is confirmed and secured as I adopt a posture of joyful endurance through trials.
• Every year, tree in backyard shows me that it is some kind of cranapple tree, because it produces cranapples. I know how to treat it, how to trim it, how to fertilize it because of the fruit it produces. So when I adopt a spiritual posture of joyful endurance, I show what kind of person I am spiritually. I confirm and secure my future with God.

James follows this motivational talk with an anti-motivation. He warns us: not only should you posture yourself with joyful endurance but DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN THE POSTURE OF BLAMING GOD.

• Verse 13-15
• Play on words (peiradzamenos – peirasmos)
• While God can be and sometimes is involved in the testing of your faith, He will not involve Himself in tempting you. His tests are not set up to force your or to encourage you to fail. His tests are set up to strengthen you and to purify you. So if you fail, you have to take responsibility for that yourself.
• Keeping the right spiritual posture means not only adopting a position of joyful endurance, but it means choosing to reject a posture of blaming God.

“I Wonder” tours – friend who played the slouch, his back and neck hurt

On the one hand, I can choose to believe that I am miserable and I deserve better. This shouldn’t have happened to me. I can choose to be angry at my circumstances or at whoever did this to me or ultimately at God. I can slouch in my emotional or physical misery. I can disregard my spiritual posture. And ultimately I will suffer the consequences. I will become sour and bitter and depressed. I will lose hope. And all areas of my life will be infected by that decision.

On the other hand, I can choose to believe that what I’m going through is purposeful. I can choose to believe that this is revealing what is inside of me and that it is refining and strengthening what’s inside of me. I can choose to believe that this is shaping my character in good ways, that I am building the perseverance that I will need to finish my race. And I can choose to believe that I have a wonderful future that is being confirmed and secured by my right response to this trial. That belief will work its way out to the surface of my life and it will manifest itself in an enduring joy. I will not be “happy” overnight after I lose my job or my mother or my marriage or my health. But I will not get stuck in a kind of depressive mire; I will not wallow; I will not slouch. And as we said last week, God will use the trials I’m facing to produce in me a glory that far outweighs the troubles if I will allow Him to.

This doesn’t mean we enjoy our difficulties. But it does mean we choose to joyfully endure through them.

Powerful assumption:

You are not your sufferings.

• Your sufferings are external to you – to the essential you.
• So you get to decide how you feel about them – you choose – you are not just the suffering, you are the sufferer, but that’s different than just suffering.
  • Not a prisoner, not a victim
  • This is why Jesus asks “do you want to be healed”
• This is sometimes why we get depressed, this is sometimes why we get stuck – we are fully identified with our trial-
  • Kid who died cause he didn’t quit playing World of Warcraft
  • This is true even of our mistakes. We can get completely identified with our mistakes.
    • We end up thinking: “I blew it, therefore I’m no good”
  • We are not our mistakes
  • We are responsible, we are the ones who made the mistake, but we are not the mistake

My friend had to play the character differently. So you, in order to manage your life healthily, you will need to adopt a posture of joyful endurance in the face of difficulty.

James 1:2-4;12-15

(2) Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, (3) because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (4) Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

(12) Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

(13) When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; (14) but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. (15) Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Deuteronomy 8:2-5

(2) Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. (3) He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (4) Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. (5) Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.