Series: James
Lesson #2
Title: From Trials to Patience
Scripture: James 1
Date: December 1, 2009
Place: Teleford, PA
There is one constant, immoveable, anchor of the soul. It is Christ Jesus who has entered into the veil, into God’s presence, who shall deliver those who he has given faith to trust him.
Hebrews 6: 19: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20: Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
James points out the difference between the one in whom God’s grace is active and the man who looks to his own way.
James 1: 2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
WORKETH PATIENCE
In every believer, God works stedfast dependence upon him. He does it by proving his faithfulness to the believer over and over through every trial. We are more and more persuaded that God alone is able to raise up, even from the dead
Be sure you understand: this is not a theory; it is not merely a doctrine. No sinner can arrive at this any other way than by God working it within the heart he has created. We do not merely hear this fact and add it to a list of facts that we have decided to believe. This is the effectual work that God performs in the believer through the Holy Spirit whereby he makes his children willing to trust the Person of Christ Jesus his Son.
Salvation is not trusting in WHAT you know. Those who trust in what they know, by and by, prove that they do not know Christ. Salvation is trusting a Person. Doctrinal facts are not the believers wisdom, Christ is the Wisdom of God in a believer. Doctrinal facts are not the believer’s strength; Christ is the Power of God in a believer. Unto them which are truly called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the Power of God, and Christ is the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24.)
Through trials, Christ Jesus actively grows the believer, more and more, to look away from all else and rely solely upon him. He uses whatever he is pleased to use—Satan, unbelievers, his working of all things in providence—AND CHRIST ALWAYS SUCEEDS IN WORKING THIS GRACE IN THOSE HE HAS REDEEMED. GOD RECEIVES ALL THE GLORY AND MAN RECEIVES NONE.
Throughout this letter, James is declaring that God’s grace really does bring forth this fruit of stedfastness in believers. The believer’s faith will be justified, manifest to be true faith, because believers will patiently endure because they believe God is able to save, because Christ truly is their Treasure. The believer will ask God—cast his care on God, depend upon God--because Christ is his Wisdom--and God gives to those who rely upon him in abundance. God continually makes the believer to behold that Christ Jesus is our shield and defender, in every situation, in every hour, in every trial. The believer is crucified unto the world and the world is crucified unto him. This is the difference between believing in the fact that God’s grace is sovereign and having God’s sovereign grace actually working in you.
Let the fire get hot enough, let the glory be stripped from him enough and the man who merely has an intellectual understanding of grace, will look to his own strength and wisdom and rebel against God, his messenger, and his people. Such a man is unstable as water.
James 1: 6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
WAVERING IS THE OPPOSITE OF PATIENT ENDURANCE, THE OPPOSITE OF FAITH
“Nothing wavering” means “not contending”—with God or men. It means “not making ourselves to be the difference, not doubting God’s word, not condemning, not being partial in ourselves.” Asking in faith is asking in utter importunity, utterly convinced that only God is able raise up and that he is able to do so even from the dead. In verses 6-9, James seems to have in mind our Lord’s parable of the Pharisee and the publican.
Luke 18: 11: The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12: I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13: And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: [Now notice how the Lord sums it up:] for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Now look at what James says next: James 1: 9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: 10: But the rich, in that he is made low. The brother of low degree is the man who knows his dire need for Christ to take up his cause. This man shall be carried in the bosom of his Savior. The rich man is self-exalting. He shall be abased. If God has brought you low, from trusting in that rich man of your flesh, and made you a brother of low degree, rejoice!
James 1: 10:…because as the flower of the grass [the rich man of the flesh] shall pass away. 11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Isaiah 40: 6: The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 8: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: BUT THE WORD OF OUR GOD SHALL STAND FOREVER.
Ask in faith—Are you importunate? Is there any here who sees the dire situation that you are in?
Luke 11: 5: And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6: For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7: And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8: I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. 9: And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11: If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12: Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
James 1: 12: Blessed [happy] is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life,
The man who endures, does so actively beseeching God to raise up in this midst of this trial. When God delivers him to the end of the trial he shall receive life, which is the crown. Rejoicing in Christ our Life is the crown. The end of every lesser trial we face in this life is, rejoicing in Christ our Life. The end of this whole life of trial shall be rejoicing in eternity with Christ our Life.
James 1: 12: Blessed [happy] is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
The believer is given the love of Christ in our hearts. The Holy Spirit creates in the sinner a love for Christ by speaking of his love for that sinner:
Jeremimah 31:3: The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
How did you come to Christ?
Did you come to Christ by your own doing, by your own strength, your own wisdom? Sinners are saved because God has everlasting, freely, loved his vessels of mercy. God draw the sinner in loving kindness. How then do you expect to be saved in the midst of this trial? Ask God! He first creates this love in a sinner by speaking his enduring Word of redemption to our souls:
Romans 8: 34: Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...37: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Did something you did, justify you? Have you made yourself holy to be accepted of God? Has your fleshly wisdom and power ever delivered you from anything? How then do you expect to be kept separate from this world? How then do you expect to be saved in the midst of every trial?
When the Lord speaks his Word into the heart he has made new that sinner believes it THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURETH FOREVER. Christ the Word shall make good on his promise to deliver EVERY sinner in whom he has imparted his love. Faith believes the Lord who loved us, the Lord who gave himself for us, the Lord who has promised us he will never leave us or forsake us. By the Lord continuing to deliver you through every trial it is the Lord who works this patient endurance in us who believe—HE WORKS IT.
“The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1: 16.)
Not, just power unto a decision, unto a profession of faith. The gospel is, Christ Jesus the Power and Wisdom of God, who is saving us every hour of every day and who shall continue to save us unto final glory. The gospel ceases to be a theory and becomes an ever-present reality—when he speaks into our souls—IT IS THE WORD OF THE LORD THAT ENDURETH FOREVER. HIS GLORY IS BEHIND HIS PROMISE! HIS NAME IS ATTACHED TO HIS PROMISE! Read verse 12 again, let it sink down into your hearts:
James 1: 12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
There is one constant, immoveable, anchor of the soul. It is Christ Jesus who has entered into the veil, into God’s presence, who shall deliver those who he has given faith to trust him. Let no man say when he turns away from God, that God produced this fruit in him.
James 1: 13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
God can not be turned from that which is right, neither does God make men turn from that which is right.
James 1: 14: But every man is tempted, [turned away from trusting God] when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
LUST IS COVETOUSNESS
Among other things, in the trial you face right now: the lust of your flesh is: to be your our own wisdom, to have your own strength, to obtain our own deliverance so that you might have all the glory. This is not of God, it is of our own sinful flesh. Our flesh will only produce death.
James 4:2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Galatians 5: 15:…if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. 16: This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
James 1: 16: Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
No variableness, neither shadow of turning with God. James lists one of those gifts as being born of God. And how did he do that?
James 1: 18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Of his own will, not your will, with the Word of truth, not the lies of men, he births his children making them his firstfruits—choice fruits—of his new creation
Application:
1) HEAR THE WORD AND PUT OFF THE OLD MAN.
James 1: 19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
2) BE DOERS OF THIS WORD
James 1: 22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Illustration: The man in the mirror.
If you hear then go on with no urgency, in this trial, then you forget your need of this Word, forget that apart from God, apart from his gospel, we are nothing, with no power, no wisdom, no ability to save, you will turn to yoking, oppressing, living by the sword. The man that does not do this word may seem religious, but James says, 26: this man’s religion is vain.
James 1: 25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed…27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Look into this perfect law of liberty—has Christ made you free? Has Christ sealed the Word of promise? Are you persuaded that only God can raise up? Continue therein—depend upon no one but God, look to no other but Christ our God and our Savior, ask Christ who is our Wisdom and Power.
Orphans and widows are all around you in this place. That is what sinners in need of this gospel are. This people in this place are in affliction. They must have the gospel. The only cure is the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Give yourselves no rest, beseech God, depend on God, cast your care on God. Line up preachers for 6-12 months out. God says his people will continue in this word and he will bless them! James 1: 25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Amen!