Back to the Basics
#6: There is No Growth Without Struggle
James 1:2-4
Life is hard. Does anyone reading these words have any question about that? I didn’t think so. Because we live in a fallen world, nothing works the way it’s supposed to. Sin has stained every part of the physical universe. And sin has deeply infected the human bloodstream. Things break. Our bodies wear out. We grow old and die. People kill each other.
Marriages break up. Children get hooked on drugs or alcohol or sex. Or all three. Babies are born with defects that cannot be corrected. Priests molest children. Pastors commit adultery. Our friends disappoint us. And we disappoint our friends. One day we wake up to find out that we’re being sued by a former colleague. Or the boss decides that we aren’t the right “fit,” whatever that means.
And so it goes. “Into each life some rain must fall.” I know that’s true because I just saw a girl with an umbrella on a carton of salt. The sixth basic I want to share with you brings us face to face with a reality that some Christians would rather not talk about.
There is a lie in the land today that would have you believe the Christian life is easy. It isn’t. Whoever said that it was? Jesus did say that his yoke was easy and burden was light, but that was in comparison to the Pharisees, and anyway, an easy yoke is a yoke nonetheless. He also talked about taking up your cross daily, denying yourself, and following him. Nothing easy about that.
And lest I be misunderstood, I want to very quickly say that, without question, the Christian life is the best life there is because it’s the only true life. To know Christ is to know God and to know God is to have eternal life. Jesus himself said that anything you give up will be repaid many times over in this life, and much more in the life to come (Mark 10:29-30).
The paradox is this: If you follow Christ, you have to lose your life in order to save it. You have to go to the cross every day in order to discover the power of the resurrection. You have to die to find abundant life. You have to reckon yourself dead to sin in order to experience the fullness of life in Christ.
None of this is easy to do. If you think it’s easy, it’s only because you haven’t taken the Bible seriously. Much of the New Testament is written in the setting of a war. We are commanded to “put to death” the deeds of the flesh. Galatians 5 tells us that the flesh and the Spirit are continually at war with each other.
We are to put on the whole armor of God just to be able to stand through the day.
Christians are warned of three great enemies they face: the world, the flesh and the devil. The world is “out there” and all around us. The “flesh” is inside and loves to answer the call of the world. And it seems like the devil is everywhere, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (I Peter 5:8).
Paul told Timothy to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus”. The most beloved hymn of all time, "Amazing Grace", contains a verse that shares our testimony:
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come.
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
Truly, there are “many dangers, toils and snares” along the road that leads to heaven. That’s why this basic is so important because it reminds us that those difficulties are placed in our path for our spiritual benefit. Spiritual growth is possible and necessary but it is not instant or easy. There are no shortcuts on the road to glory. As our coaches like to say, “No pain, no gain.”
Personally, I prefer, “No pain, no pain”! But the principle still stands. And the truth is because we live in a fallen world, bad things happen to all of us.
Most of the time, we have no control over much of happens to us or to those around us. We do, however, have complete control over how we respond. And our response to our trials largely determines our spiritual growth—or lack thereof.
And as much as we dislike it, struggle and pain in the Christian life is inevitable, lifelong and ultimately beneficial. We encounter God’s grace through our trials in ways that would not happen if the trials had not come in the first place. It takes a mature Christian to understand this principle, and ironically, it is this principle that makes us mature.
Unfortunately, most of us would rather be victims than students.
Many people are professional victims, always talking about how unfair life is. A victim says, “Why did this happen to me?” A student says, “I don’t care why it happened. I want to learn what God is trying to teach me.”
A victim looks at everyone else and cries out, “Life isn’t fair.” A student looks at life and says, “What happened to me could have happened to anybody.”
A victim feels so sorry for himself that he has no time for others. A student focuses on helping others so that he has no time to feel sorry for himself.
A victim begs God to remove the problems of life so that he might be happy. A student has learned through the problems of life that God alone is the source of all true happiness.
In James 1:2-4 we find practical guidelines that will help us be students and not victims when hard times come our way. We begin with
1. The Command
Verse 2
James begins by reminding us that sooner or later (probably sooner) we will all face trials of various sorts. The word “face” has the idea of falling or stumbling over a problem. Picture someone driving down the highway in a convertible. The top is down, the music is blaring, and the driver is having a blast. Not a problem in the world, not a care or a concern. Suddenly there is a teeth-jarring bump and the car comes to a sudden halt. What happened?
The car has hit this massive pothole at full speed and suddenly the happy journey is over.
Life is like that for all of us. No matter who we are or where we live, trouble is just a phone call away. A doctor may say, “I’m sorry. You’ve got cancer.” Or the voice may inform you that your daughter has just been arrested. Or you may be fired without warning. Or someone you trusted may start spreading lies about you. Or your husband may decide he doesn’t want to be married anymore.
The list is endless because our trials are “multi-colored” and “variegated” (the Greek word has this idea behind it). And unfortunately, when it comes to problems and difficulties, we’ve got more flavors than Baskin-Robbins has ice cream.
How, then, should we respond to these hard times that suddenly come to us? James offers what appears to be a strange piece of advice:
He says, “Consider it pure joy” or “Count it all joy” (KJV). That sounds so odd that one wonders if he is serious. “Count it all joy? Are you nuts? Do you have any idea what I’ve just been through?” It does sound rather idealistic, if not downright impossible.
I confess to be being bothered by this so I decided to check it out in the Greek. No help there. The word “joy” means … joy. Pretty simple. So I decided to check out some other translations. One version says, “Be very glad” and another says, “Consider yourselves fortunate.” That didn’t help at all, so I turned to the translation of J. B. Phillips, hoping for some light (if not a way of escape).
This is how he handles verse 2: “When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!”
And he has the audacity to put an exclamation point at the end! In other words, it’s not just that we “welcome them as friends,” which would be hard enough, but we “welcome them as friends!” which to me sounds positively giddy, like I’m welcoming long-lost friends to my home.
Obviously, that is not a natural response. If we want a natural response, we can talk about anger or despair or complaining or getting even or running away. I was in a meeting recently where we were sharing prayer requests and one man said, “Pray for us out in . . . because lots of people have the flu and we sure don’t need that.”
And I thought how do you know what you need and don’t need? Maybe the flu is exactly what you need to understand something about God. But that is not a natural response. It isn’t “natural” to find joy in hardship. But that’s the whole point. James isn’t talking about a “natural” reaction.
He’s talking about a “supernatural” reaction made possible by the Holy Spirit who enables us to see and to respond from God’s point of view.
That means “counting it all joy” is a conscious choice we make when hard times come. Truthfully, it’s probably a choice we’ll have to make again and again and again. And to do it we’ll have to take the long view of life, to understand that what we see is not the final chapter of the story.
Now if we are to make the choice to view life that way, that means we must accept about our struggles and our trials that they are sent from the Lord and they are necessary for my spiritual growth.
Everything that happens to us is either caused by God or sent by God. And once I accept that, they I can move to the second statement and begin to look for ways to grow spiritually.
Here’s a practical hint. Don’t trust your feelings! When those you love are in great pain or when you face senseless tragedy or when friends turn against you or when life tumbles in around you, your feelings won’t be an accurate guide.
You won’t “feel” joyful or grateful or full of trust normally. You are quite likely to be filled with a whole bag of negative emotions. So don’t judge your circumstances by your feelings. Judge your circumstances by the Holy Spirit and by the Word of God.
There is a powerful conclusion that emerges when you do that: God intends for the trials I’m going through to bring spiritual benefits to my life.
Seeing things God’s way doesn’t cancel your trials and it doesn’t turn them into non-trials, but it does transform your evaluation of those trials. You will view them differently because you believe that God intends through them to give you a great benefit that could not come any other way.
There are all kinds of people who are always having a pity-party for themselves. The truth is, as a child of God, I ought to be having a “count it all joy” party when I have troubles.
You could send out some invitations and when people ask you why you’re having a party, “I’m having this party because I’m going through a hard time right now and I want to celebrate because I know God has something good planned for me in the end.”
You think that wouldn’t be a powerful witness to a watching world? Is that not a better idea than moping around and complaining about how bad things are? You tell me, “Which one is a better representation of the God we serve?”
Now the reason that strikes us as odd is because of our misunderstanding of the word “joy.” We always associate it with happiness. To us, joy means the absence of all pain.
But that’s not at all what the Bible means. Here’s a working definition: Joy is deep satisfaction that comes from knowing that God is in control even when my circumstances seem to be out of control.
The key to joy is knowing that God is in control. If you know that, you can be satisfied at a very deep level even while you weep over what is happening around you and to you.
Remember the story of David’s affair with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12? David seduced Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, conceived a child and had her husband Uriah the Hittite murdered. Then he married her, but the Lord was displeased with David’s sin. So he sent Nathan the prophet to tell David that the child would die. When the child was born, the Lord struck him with a serious illness (II Samuel 12:15).
In response, David fasted and prayed and cried out to God to spare the baby. He lay on the ground weeping for seven days. His servants begged him to eat but he refused. When the child died on the seventh day, the servants were afraid to tell David because they feared that he might harm himself, so great was his anguish.
But David overheard their whispers and asked, “Is the child dead?” When they replied that he was dead, David rose, washed and anointed himself, put on fresh clothes, and went to the temple to worship.
Later he returned to his house and began to eat a meal. His puzzled servants couldn’t figure out why he fasted and wept when the child was alive, but when he died, he got up, went to the temple, and ate a meal.
David’s response is classic. He told them that he had fasted and prayed while the child was alive, thinking that God might yet spare him. But once the child died, fasting would make no difference. “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (II Samuel 12:23 NKJV).
Now I took the time to search 2 Samuel this week and I didn’t find the word “joy” anywhere. But I am convinced that passage is a sad but true example of what it means to “count it all joy” even in the midst of a terrible personal loss.
There is no laughter here, only pain and sorrow and weeping over one man’s foolish choices that led to the death of a son. But David’s response teaches us that down deep, far deeper than his sin, he knew some things about God.
He wept and prayed and fasted while that was appropriate. But when it was all over and done with, he got up, washed, worshiped, and went to supper. He understood that even through his tears, life must go on. He could not and should not fast and pray and weep forever.
The great 19th-century preacher Alexander MacLaren, in his sermon “Patience and Her Work", points out that excessive grief can be selfish:
“There are many of us who make some disappointment, some loss, some grief, the excuse for shirking plain duty. There is nothing more selfish than sorrow, and there is nothing more absorbing unless we guard against its tendency to monopolize.
Work! Work for others, work for God is our best comforter next to the promise of God’s Holy Spirit. There is nothing that so lightens the weight of a lifelong sorrow as to make it the stimulus to a lifelong devotion; and if our patience has its perfect work, it will not make us sit with folded hands, weeping for the days that are no more, but it will drive us into heroic and energetic service, in the midst of which there will come some shadow of consolation or, at least, some blessed oblivion of sorrow.”
Unfortunately, a lot of people never get there. SO what do we do when tragedy strikes and we feel like giving up? Here are five suggestions:
We should always begin by reminding ourselves of the promises of God.
Spend time in the Word of God. Force yourself to call to mind the promises of God’s presence, his comfort, his divine care, and his unerring purpose to mold you into the likeness of his Son. In the darkest hours, the promises will not come easily, but they still stand. You must do whatever it takes to feed your own soul with the Bread of Life.
Then learn to give thanks for what you can give thanks for.
There are times when thanksgiving seems almost impossible and sometimes even insincere. We never give thanks for sin, but even if you cannot give thanks for 99% of what is happening, focus on the 1% you clearly see and give thanks to God for that.
And refuse to give in to bitterness and despair.
Too many times we talk and act like we were involuntarily overwhelmed and had no choice but to be bitter, angry, and hostile or we had no choice but to give up our faith in God. Better we should say, “I could give in to anger but by God’s grace I will choose a higher road. I could turn away from my Lord but I will not do it.”
Then choose to believe in God.
That means exactly what it says. Believe in God! Believe in his goodness. Believe in his love. Believe in his kindness. Faith is a choice made by the heart. If you want to believe, you will believe, and the angels of heaven will come to your aid.
Finally, make up your mind to go on with life.
This is what David did. This is what we must do. Grief is good and proper and is healing, but after grief has done its work, then we need to move on. The past is gone and we can’t go back. Don’t try. You can’t live in yesterday. And you can’t even live in today. The voice of God calls us onward toward tomorrow.
It’s not easy but it’s also not impossible. It has to be done. And when we do it, we will discover a well of joy springing up to refresh our souls as we march onward with the Lord.
Now we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the command. Let me quickly touch on
2. The Reason
Verse 3
Every word of this verse is crucial. The phrase “you know” refers not to head knowledge (what we sometimes call “book learning") but to heart knowledge, the kind gained by years of experience.
Some things we learn from books, others we learn from life. God wants to put our faith to the test. The word “testing” refers to the process by which gold ore was purified. In order to separate the gold from the dross, the ore was placed in a furnace and heated until it melted. The dross rose to the surface and was skimmed off, leaving only pure gold.
That’s a picture of what God is up to in our “fiery trials.” We all have to undergo some “furnace time” sooner or later. And some of us will spend an extended time in the furnace of affliction. But the result is the pure gold of Christ-like character.
Job spoke of this experience when he declared of the Lord, “He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
What is God trying to do when he allows his children to go through hard trials and deep suffering? There are several answers to that question.
First, God wants to purge us of sin and to purify us of iniquity.
Second, God uses suffering to test our faith. Will you still obey God in the darkness? Will you serve God when things aren’t going your way? Will you hold on to the truth when you feel like giving up?
Third, God uses times of difficulty to humble us. When things are going well, we tend to get puffed up about our accomplishments. But let the darkness fall and we are on our knees crying out to God.
Fourth, God uses hard times to prepare us to minister to others. He comforts us so that we may comfort others. I know many Christians whose greatest ministry has come from sharing with others how God helped them through a time of crisis.
Fifth, I believe God uses hard times to prepare us for a new understanding of his character. In the furnace we discover God’s goodness in a way we had never experienced it before.
Until your faith is put to the test, it remains theoretical. You never know what you believe until hard times come. Then you find out, for better or for worse. When the phone rings with bad news, when your son winds up in prison, when your best friend betrays you, when you lose your job, when your parents suddenly die, when life comes apart at the seams, then you discover what you truly and actually believe in the depth of your soul.
Until then, your faith is speculative because it is untested. You can talk about heaven all you want, but you’ll discover whether or not you believe in it when you stand by the casket of someone you love.
God’s great design is to produce “perseverance.” Sometimes it’s translated as “endurance” or “steadfastness” or “patience.” In the book of Revelation, this word describes the faith of those brave saints who would not take the Mark of the Beast.
It describes a certain kind of “battle-tested” faith that stands up under fire from the enemy and does not cut and run. In the early church the martyrs gained the respect of unbelievers because in the moment of death, they had this quality. To the very end, they died with their faith intact. Of them it was said, “They died singing.”
It is the faith of men like Polycarp who was burned at the stake, asking to remain untied as he praised the Lord for counting him worthy to die for him.
Finally, let’s think about
3. The Promise
Verse 4
There is a process involved in our trials that leads to a product. Perseverance requires work and faith and hope and determination to hold on to our faith even when the world seems to be disintegrating around us.
Perseverance says, “I will not give up no matter what happens or how bad life may be. I will hold on because I promised and because I believe the Lord has something in store for me.” And the reward for that kind of stubbornness is genuine spiritual maturity.
When trials have finished their work in us, we will not lack anything the Lord wants us to have. If we need faith, we will have it. If we need hope, we will have it. If we need love, we will have it. If we need any of the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), it will be produced in us. Nothing will be left out; nothing will be left behind.
The great danger is that we will try to short-circuit the process by running away from our problems. Eugene Peterson (The Message) translates part of this verse this way: “Don’t try to get out of anything prematurely!” That’s good advice; it’s not always easy to follow.
And when I think about that, I have to think of the lives of men and women I’ve known who’ve served God for years and years and been through so much and when I think of them the two words that come to mind are “pure gold”.
Through long years of difficulty, God has been at work to develop true Christ-like character in them. They are mature and complete, nothing was lacking.
I think that’s what James means when he says in verse 3, “You know.” We know these things are true because we have learned them by experience and because we have seen them come true in the lives of others.
So let me wrap it up with a few observations. When trials come, and they will come to all of us eventually, there is something we can’t know and something we can know:
First, we can’t always know why things happen the way they do.
No matter how hard we try to figure things out, there will always be many mysteries in life. The greater the tragedy, the greater will be the mystery. God does not explain himself to us. As we go through life, we can look back and see many blanks that we wish God would fill in for us. Most of the time we will carry those unfilled blanks with us all the way to heaven.
However, when hard times come, we can know that God is at work in our trials for our benefit and for his glory.
To say that is to say nothing more than the words of Romans 8:28. For the children of God, “all things” do indeed work together for good. Sometimes we will see it; often we will simply have to take it by faith. But it is true whether we believe it or not.
And so we are left with the simple words of the sixth basic: There is no growth without struggle. As long as we live in a fallen world, we cannot fight against this law and win. Your arms are too short to box with God.
When Charles Simeon finished his exposition of this passage, he addressed himself to two groups of people.
First, there are the timid, those who fear the trials of life. Our message is, Be of good cheer. Fear not. Nothing can touch you that does not first pass through the hands of your Heavenly Father. Though the arrow be shot by the evil one, it cannot touch you unless God should will it so. And your Father who loves you will never give you more than you can bear. Though you may feel that you are far past the limit, you aren’t. God measures his trials along with his blessings. If he afflicts you, it is not to destroy you but to develop in you the gold of Christlike character.
And what shall we say to those who are suffering right now? Should we pity you? No! We should rather congratulate you that God has counted you worthy of such great trials. Nothing is wasted—not your pain, your tears, your confusion or even your doubts. All of it is grist for the mill of God’s loving purpose. “Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.” Receive with joy what God has given you, and bless his name.
In order to make this as simple as possible, I’d like to boil my sermon down to just two words. When hard times come, when trials fall upon us, or we seem to fall upon them, when the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune knock us to the ground, what should we do? Remember these two words.
Pray and stay. Repeat that out loud. PRAY and STAY.
Don’t run. Don’t hide. Don’t shake your fist at God. Don’t start arguing with the Almighty. And don’t waste time trying to make excuses or empty promises. And don’t try to bargain your way out of trouble. It doesn’t work, and you don’t have anything to bargain with anyway.
Pray and stay. Pray and stay. Pray and stay.
Pray: Seek God’s face. Spend time with the Lord. Listen for his voice. Ask God, “What are you trying to teach me? Speak, Lord, and I will listen to your voice.”
Stay: Wait. Be patient. Don’t rush God. Refuse to run away. Affirm by faith that God is at work even though he seems invisible and your life seems chaotic.
And don’t do anything foolish or hasty. Most decisions don’t have to be made today. If you are tempted to take a quick and easy road out of your troubles, stop a moment and think about it. Do you have to do anything today? Then don’t. Give God time to work. There will be time to “do something” later if you have to.
The Christian way is not an easy way and any representations to the contrary are false. There is an abundant life to be had, and there is spiritual victory, and there is joy in the Lord and the filling of the Spirit, but those things don’t come in spite of our trials.
Most often they come through and with and alongside our trials. In various ways we will all struggle every day as we make our earthly pilgrimage. In a fallen world, there can be no other way. And for the most part, we can’t choose our trials nor can we avoid most of them. But we can choose how we respond. That part is up to us.
Joy or bitterness.
Forgiveness or anger.
Trust or unbelief.
Faith or fear.
Love or hatred.
Kindness or malice.
Temperance or self-indulgence.
Gentleness or stubbornness.
Mercy or revenge.
Peace or worry.
Hope or despair.
Our perspective makes all the difference. Our trials are not sent to make us fall. They are sent to cause us to soar by grace. They are not meant to defeat us but to be the means to a greater spiritual victory. They are not intended to make us weaker but to make us stronger. They are not sent to hurt us but to help us.
Therefore, we should not complain when hard times come. We should rejoice. And we will rejoice if we believe what God has said. Every hard trial is another step on the stairway that leads from earth to heaven.
Let’s pray.
