I LL SHOW YOU (PART 2 - TESTING FAITH) VISIBLE FAITH IN THE BOOK OF JAMES You know what it means that Jesus is Lord? He wins. Christians should live with an undying optimism because Jesus is Lord and Jesus is for us. And if God is for us who can be against us? There should be an undying optimism as the subtext of the Christian life. It doesn t matter how bad things get. He wins. (Patriots vs. Saints) Knowing Christ is the game changer. In death or in life we are Jesus s and Jesus wins.
James 1:2 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, In the ancient world sets of numbers were totaled at the top of the page, not at the bottom. Count it all joy is literally add it all up! In death or in life we are Jesus s and Jesus wins. What kind of trial are you currently undergoing? Financial? Marital? Vocational? Physical? Mental? Relational? Spiritual? Is there a mountain in your life that needs to be moved? Mark 11:22-24 22 And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. When we encounter these trials of various kinds, they test our faith. Don t we sometimes find that our faith wavers in such times? This Christian thing isn t working out for me. I thought God was good. I thought He could be trusted. How can I love a God that I cannot understand? Why is this happening, God? Well, He tells us why. James 1:3 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. To be steadfast is to be unwavering. He takes us through these trials so that we will know that He is good all the time and that all the time He is good. I remember talking to a friend who is going through a financial trial. He said, I know that God will take care of us, but it s another thing when you actually have to trust Him to take care of you. God is taking you from a Sunday school faith to a faith of substance with these trials of various kinds. Have you never gone through anything horrible and then afterward said, That was the best thing that ever happened to me. You have to know what it feels like to trust God when there s no emotional affirmation in here! Do you want to be a person of substance? Then go through your trial with undying optimism that God will bring you through, because that s why He s taking you through it so that you will know you can trust in Him.
You don t need a flashlight until it s dark out. The Word of God is a lamp unto your feet to light your way, but the reality is most of us don t appropriate the promises of God s Word until we find ourselves in a trial - when it s dark out. God brings us into some darkness, some trial so that we ll get His flashlight out and discover that we can surrender everything to Him. Oftentimes our unhappiness is due to the fact that we don t have the same goal for our life that God does. God s goal for us is to conform us to the image of His Son that we might intimately know His reality the way His Son did when He walked the earth. Our goal is our comfort and happiness. But it s from the same limited perspective as that of a fouryear old who wants to eat nothing but candy. James 1:4 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. The idea of perfection here is maturity - that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. When you grow into spiritual maturity you know that you lack nothing because you have God as your Father. Thus, you can face anything with an undying optimism that God will bring you through to maturity. But what kind of maturity are we talking about here? Let s be more specific. The kind of maturity here James is insisting upon is complete moral integrity. He is giving us the ultimate goal of the Christian life. This isn t what we have attained. It is what the work of the Spirit is progressively working out in our lives. Matthew 5:48 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Are you going through a trial and it confuses you or it troubles you? God invites you to ask for wisdom. But here s the thing, most of us want to ask, Why, God? Why am I going through this? You re certainly invited to ask for that kind of wisdom, but He s already told us why. So, what kind of wisdom should we ask for? The wisdom to know Him. Because when we know Him, we know we can trust Him. James 1:5 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
He gives generously. It s like trying to get out of your mother s house after she s baked you something. Matthew 7:7-11 7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So, Jesus gives us this great assurance that God hears us and will answer us. God, who cannot lie, gives us this promise, which is why James stresses this next: James 1:6-7 6 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. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; If the wind is calm, the waves are calm. If the wind is severe, the waves are severe. In this analogy, your faith is the waves and the wind that carries it about is the circumstances of life. The antithesis of this kind of wavering faith is a solid rock faith. The wind can crash the waves against the rock, but the rock is steadfast, unwavering. This is the kind of faith God is working in you - solid faith. Why is our faith often unstable? James 1:8 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. What does it mean to be double-minded? Well, let me ask you this, What does it mean to be single-minded? Single-minded people are intent on seeing a goal accomplished. They are focused. They are not sidetracked because they have this singularity of purpose. Their interests are not divided. When you say of someone, His interests are divided, you re saying that he isn t giving 100% to either interest. Luke 11:34 (KJV) 34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Psalm 62:1-2 62 For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. To trust in God alone is to be single-minded. But truth be told, many of us have functional saviors in addition to Jesus. The idea of a functional savior is that you re building your life upon something other than God alone.
You live for... answer this honestly. You live for... what? What you truly live for is your god. And if you re a believer God is rooting out the idols of your heart. I trust in God. Kind of. I also trust in my 401K. I trust in both really. Part of me trusts God and part of me trusts my mother s advice, which is different than God s Word, but still... she is my mother. That s being double-minded. You trust in the wisdom of God and you trust in the wisdom of the world, not understanding that they are the antithesis of each other. Here are some examples of antithesis between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world: 1. HIGHEST AUTHORITY - The world: the individual or the state or some group. I want to be true to myself. The church: God. 2. VIEW OF THE WORLD - The world: Normative and improving. The church: Abnormal and declining. 3. THE GOOD - The world: tolerance is the highest virtue. The church: obedience to God is the highest good. 4. GOD - The world: God is a subjective experience that varies from person to person. The church: God has revealed truth that is outside of ourselves. It s objective. 5. SPIRITUALITY - The world: whatever improves your life. You can take from various traditions and beliefs, etc. as long as they improve your life. The therapeutic has replaced the theological. The church: spirituality without the Holy Spirit is demonic. It s Superman and Bizarro World. You can t trust in both God and money. You will love the one and hate the other. Matthew 6:24 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Ultimately, the point is don t trust in the circumstances of life. James 1:9-11 9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 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.
Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation : I m a child of the King. I m seated with Christ in the heavenly places. I am dead and my life is hidden with Christ in God. I might be nobody in the natural but I m somebody in the spiritual. And the rich in his humiliation : I used to think I was all that until I saw that all I had I owed to Him who is the creator and sustainer and giver of all that. I trusted in my riches thinking I deserved them because of my superiority. Then God opened my heart to show me my great pride and I was brought low. Jeremiah 9:23-24 23 Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. James 1:12 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. James is echoing his brother and Lord here: blessed is the person. Blessed are you when... this was the essence of Jesus s sermon on the mount. And blessed doesn t mean happy. You can be in very tough circumstances of life that make you unhappy, but you can still be blessed in the midst of them. You can have the favor of God, in other words. There are several crowns referred to in the NT which faithful believers will receive from God: (1) the crown of righteousness (II Tim. 4:8) (2) the crown of life (Rev. 2:10; 3:11) (3) the crown of glory (I Pet. 5:4) (4) an imperishable crown (I Cor. 9:25) The crown he s talking about here is not the kind of crown we think of -- golden and bedazzled with jewels. The crown he speaks of is probably a laurel wreath placed upon the heads of victorious athletes. It s the same crown the Apostle Paul spoke about and the one Jesus referenced in the book of Revelation: Revelation 2:10 10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Also notice this crown is promised by God, but comes through the believer s victory over trials and temptations. As always God deals with mankind through covenant if then categories. If Jesus is Lord means Jesus wins and if we are Jesus s then we win too. But victory comes through surrender. The Christian life is full of these paradoxes. Living through dying. Finding through losing. And you can only really know and understand them experientially. I can tell you how it works and what to expect, but you re not going to get it until God brings you through it. The bottom line is this: The Patriots win with five seconds left in the game.