“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds”
Today, I want to talk to you about the first step towards our spiritual maturity. Last week, from Dr. Ben’s message, we learned how blessed we are when we grow in maturity. We even took a test. By the honest score that you added up, I can assume that all of us need some work. The author James talks about what our attitudes should be in times of trials and hardships. In fact, he encourages us to “consider it pure joy, whenever you face trails of many kinds.” Basically, what he is saying in modern terms is we need to “Keep the right perspective about problems.” Let’s learn how today.
I What Problems Are in Life
When we think of problems, we need to know how they relate to the facts of our lives. Whether we want to admit it or not, the first fact is 1) Problems are inevitable. They will come whether we want them to come or not. No matter where we are in the world, or where we are in life, no matter if we are rich or poor, young or well aged, smart or ordinary, problems are bound to come: Gas prices, Salmonella, terrorism, final exams, papers, Hitler as your boss, arguments with your spouse, and family members, your cat clawing up your couch, your dog chewing up your remote, so forth and so on. Jesus once said to his disciples, “I have told you these things so that you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble.” Later on, I will tell you the hopeful ending of what he said, but for now, we learn that in this world, problems are inevitable.
The second fact whether we like it or not is 2) Problems are unpredictable. One of my favorite lines from my favorite movie of all time is, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” We seldom can anticipate the problems we face in life. Maybe that is a good thing. Can you imagine standing on the shore of a peaceful beach and then all of a sudden you turn around and in a distance you see this 200 foot tidal wave coming in your direction. Instead of taking out our spiritual surf boards, and “catching the waves,” we would run hysterically to our car, and in a panic drive away and plowing through everything in front of you. We never plan for bad things to happen, like getting a flat tire on our bike when we are almost to our destination, like our car breaking down in the middle of nowhere, or like getting a splinter while we are having a good time in the park with our friends. They just come unexpectedly. The thing is, will we hang in there and say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” or will we say, “Why me?”
The third fact of problems are there are just so many different kinds of them. Just like the many different flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, there are many flavors of problems. There silky sweet sugary problems, there are rocky road tough problems, there are nutty uncomfortable problems, and there is vanilla, all the same, kind of problems. They vary in texture: What it is like, in how long and painful it feels as it “churns” up our lives. It can be a one scoop small problem. Or even a tragic banana split problem with all the trimmings and cherry on top! A quote from a sign that Pastor Rick Warren saw was, “Into every life some rain must fall, but this is ridiculous.” Speaking of rain, last Sunday, the two softball teams in our church had a light scrimmage game in the park. During the BBQ, it didn’t rain at all. In fact, it was sunny and it seemed like it would dry up all the previous rain that day. However, when we began our walk to the park, it started to drizzle. When we picked teams, it began to rain, and then pour. I looked up to heaven and said, “Lord, why does it rain almost every Sunday when we play softball. Can’t you make it stop for at least an hour?” After that, it began to pour even harder. I said to myself, “No one up there is listening!” The fact of the matter was, the more it poured down, the more fun it was for the boys and I to play. It didn’t matter if we were getting wet, we enjoyed the time we had together, not to mention watching people fall on their behind as they tried to run! And didn’t you know, after 30 minutes, the rain stopped, and we got to play softball rain free for about 2 hours until the sun went down. One guy said, “It has been a while since I had fun like that.”
Which leads us to the final fact of problems in life: Problems are positive. Whether we know it our not, or as cliché as this sounds, problems are purposeful. Feeling pain can help us produce in life. Like the saying goes, “No pain, no gain. No study, no A.” or a new one “ No maze, No cheddar.” In the midst of pressure due to problems, adrenaline comes, and we find ourselves working harder than we have ever known or accomplished. And when we suffer we can accomplish many things. Problems are catalysts to God’s blessing.
Problems positively purify our faith. When things don’t go as planned, that is when something inside you wills you do so something unexpected. During these “unexpected times” is when our faith develops and grows even in the midst of not feeling like doing what is right. There is a saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” If you consider yourself a Christian, you should know that you were built for this. It is at these times that God reveals himself, and helps us to rise to a new level in our faith. It is the opportunity to learn how to trust that God is with me, to know that God loves me, and to see how God will deliver me.
Problems help us develop patience. Verse 3 of our passage says, “Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” The patience we talk about is the patience that helps us stay where we are as we weather the storms of life. It is the strength we need to “hang on” sometimes when we feel like we are “hanging on to dear life.” We all know that when these times of hardships come we want to run away, run away to a cruise on the Caribbean, run away from our frame of mind by drinking and taking drugs, anything to avoid having to deal with the problem. However, God uses these problems to teach us how to handle pressure, and how to never give up. Even if we try to run, sooner or later, the same problem or something just like it will come and follow us. One person said, “Why do I keep having the same problem over and over again.” Those are not just problems, but opportunities to help us find different solutions as to grow our perseverance and patience. Let’s thank God for long grocery lines, waiting 1 hour to get our food at a restaurant, and for the most enjoyable thing in Chicago, waiting in traffic because of road construction, or the nosy person in front of us trying to find out what happened in the traffic accident.
Lastly, problems sanctify our inner persons. They slowly mold me, and make me like Jesus. They help me to mature as a person, and mostly as a Christian. Verse 4 says, “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” This is God’s goal for us in life. These things occur so that we may mature. Basically it is our opportunity to learn, to grow up, and grow in character. That is what it is all about in life. If there was anyone who had problems in life, it was Jesus. Even before he was born, there was adversity. His mother Mary and Joseph had him in a time when Jewish babies were being killed by a tyrant leader named Herod. When he began his ministry, the religious leaders did all they could to try to prevent him from continuing God’s work. People always flocked around him and didn’t leave him alone ever since early morning, till late at night. And it did seem like his disciples would ever change. Moreover, he suffered a mistrial at the hands of corrupt politicians, he was beaten, he was flogged, he suffered betrayal, and loneliness when he hung there on the cross by himself. But in all these things, he said, “It is finished.” In the quote I shared with you earlier Jesus, said to his disciples, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. BUT TAKE Heart! I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD." Problems did not rule over or break Jesus down, he used problems as a gateway into living into a different realm, different level where God exists. In the end, Jesus overcame the world, and became the gate for us to follow into with God.
We all love the verses in Galatians 5:22-23 which reads, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Like wanting to be a millionaire today, these things don’t come naturally. If anything, they come in the most unnatural and uncomfortable of circumstances. If God wants to teach you how to love, he will surround you with unlovely people. If he wants you to learn patience, you will always be stuck in a traffic jam, or behind an old lady at the supermarket check out line. If He wants you to be gentle, you be around the most annoying people you can ever think about, and so on. I believe you get my drift. God will put you around chaos, but he will never leave you there by yourself. He will always be there and equip you with the tools you need to overcome the situation.
II Keeping the right perspective about Problems
Here is a story that has been slightly reformatted. Steve has had his share of problems this month. The basement of his house in Chicago has been flooded due to the recent heavy rains in the area. He decided to go and purchase a water vacuum. When he went outside he found out that one of his tires was flat. After a half an hour spent looking for his jack, he finally fixed the flat tire. Afterwards, he went inside and called his friend Tom for help with the flooding in his basement. While placing the phone call, he experienced electric shock. While flying through the air, he inadvertently ripped the phone from the wall, which went crashing into his great, great, grandmother’s antique vase made from the Civil War era. While all of this was going on, someone hot wired and stole his car. However, the person didn’t get very far because the car was out of gas. Steve found his car half a block away, and decided to push it to the nearest gas station. Yesterday, he saw that the price per gallon was $4.25. But due to recent shortage, he found that the price had risen to $7.00 a gallon. He took out his credit card, but dropped it on the floor trying to slide it into the machine to scan. He picked up the card, but on the way up, banged his head on the gas pump. Not only this, as he swiped the card for payment, the machine said that he had insufficient funds. He realized that he left his other card at home, so he ran back as the rain began to pour even harder. He got his card, and while he was waiting at the cross walk, a big truck came and splashed all the water on him that was collected in the gutter of the street. Finally, he said, “God wanted me dead, but he kept missing.”
This is a sad, but hilarious example of what problems can be like on a daily basis. Like I said before, they seem to be never ending. However, there are 3 things that James encourages us to do in order to “profit” from our problems. Let’s read the first part of verse 1 together, “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials…” notice that James says the word “consider.” He doesn’t want us to fake or pretend that everything is okay. Rather, he asks us to regroup and reflect on the situation on hand. He wants to move beyond the present situation, and see it from God’s point of view. Instead of just looking at the problem, God wants us to enter His realm and see that He is the only one who can take the bad in our lives, and turn it into good. No matter where the origins of these bad experiences come from, God wants to use them in order to grow us and for his glory. God wants us to make up our minds to see these obstacles the right way, seeing it from the right perspective that God is in control, and that God loves you, and that God will help this thing come to pass. But before He does so, he wants you to learn and “profit” from this situation. You probably are saying, “Len, you don’t know my boss, he gives me problems every day.” “Len, you don’t know my wife, or husband, kids…” “Len, you don’t know how financially tight we are,” so forth and so on. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should be prancing around in fantasy like we are in the movie, the Sound of Music. But what God is asking, is that we “consider it joy.” In truth, we cannot control the circumstances that happen to us in daily life, but we can control how we will respond to them. Let’s decide once and for all to think about the problem and rejoice in God knowing that he has us in the palm of his hand, that God is in control, and that He will bless and lead our lives in a way which we would never have known.
At the same time, while considering to rejoice, we need to request. Let’s take a look at verse 5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” When there is a problem, we need to ask God to help us in prayer. This should be easy. Usually, people come to God when they are at the end of their rope. Let’s be honest, how many of us has ever prayed, “Lord, help me!” “Lord, please come!” “Lord, I am in trouble here!” This is why James encourages us to pray, not only in troubled times, but in good times as well. We can pray to God for many things, like to take the pain away. But most of all, we need to ask God for “wisdom,” so that we can know exactly what to do next. We need to understand the problem instead of going on in life complaining about it, and we need to know what further steps to take in order to alleviate or redeem the situation. Instead of asking “Why?” like “Why Lord did this ever happen to me?” lets ask, “What?” “What do you want me to learn from this event Lord?” If we never learn how to ask “What Lord” instead of “Why?” we will always go on in life wondering, blaming, and playing victim to our circumstances.
There was a famous Bible story about a man named Joseph. Joseph was the eleventh son born to Jacob in the old testament. He was well loved and favored by his father. However, his brothers were jealous and did not appreciate all the attention that his brother was getting. At the same time, he was experiencing visions that he had received from God. However, his father and brothers did not understand what he was saying as he tried to explain things to them. In fact, they misunderstood him, and became even bitter in their hearts. One day, they took him and sold him as a slave. While a slave, he could have been bitter. But instead, of asking “Why Lord?” he asked “What?” God prospered him until his master took notice. But then again there was a misunderstanding, and he was thrown in jail. Again he could have asked, “Why Lord?” But he instead asked “What?” Two years later, God redeemed him until he became one of the most influencial men in Egypt next to the leader Pharaoh. And when he saw his brothers, he did not punish them and get them back. Instead he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” He asked God, and God gave him wisdom. Let’s ask God “What?” instead of “Why?”
Finally, in all these times of trials, James encourages us to do one last thing: Relax. Let’s read verse 6 together, “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” After we pray and ask God, we should not sit there on our couches and then replay everything that happened, and get worked up. Rather, we need to learn how to relax. Sure, we can go out, or go see a movie to help us put it out of our minds. But what I am talking about is a spiritual relaxation. This means that we give all our troubles and concerns up to God, trusting that he will take care of us in the process. He wants us to relax believing that these trials are a way to catapult us to success. He wants us to have a quiet confidence that I am a child of the most High God, and that I am in the palm of his hand. Jesus once said, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand” We need to relax and make up our minds to “trust” in peace, and that he has given us the tools we need to take action when these situations arise. It is at that time that God will give us his supernatural strength, peace, and joy in our hearts which will help us rise above the circumstance, and take us to a new level in our lives of faith.
Next time we have a problem, let’s not freak out, wig out, burn out. Let’s not turn sour or negative, blaming others and blaming ourselves. Let’s not cry out to God asking, “Why?” But “What?” Let’s learn to see problems in the right perspective, and consider rejoicing when they come. Let’s ask God for wisdom about “What is going on?” and “What we must do next?” and Lastly, let’s relax knowing that we are the children of the Most High God, and confidently believe that he has our lives in the palm of his hand. Let’s believe that he is with us, and that he has given us the tools we need to overcome our problems. We just need to keep the right perspective about them.
