God's Process of Maturity, p.2

All right, grab your Bibles. Let's go to James again. What a great, great truth is in James. We've started on this one again.

I don't know how I got halfway through all these messages, mainly because I didn't want to keep you all that long when I first started them. But what a powerful truth, and for myself, how different this text is to me now four decades into my Christian life than it was when I first exegeted this text many, many years ago. Now I grasp the seed, the germ of the truth, but having lived out some things through these years, I grasp or apprehend the truth more in full bloom.

It's one thing to grasp the seed, it's one thing to see the full bloom. James chapter 1 verse 2, this local church pastor is writing to his persecuted and dispersed church members. Then says to them, just right out of the gate, verse 2, considered all joy my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you will be perfect or mature and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position, and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.

But the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed, so too the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, will fade away. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, but once he's been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him." So I've called this God's process of maturity.

God's process of maturity. And all of us will find these repeated cycles in our lives as God matures us. Now, I know some of you sitting here tonight are facing and living through certain trials, certain troubles, and God's got a word for you. That's exactly James' writing to these believers who are being viciously persecuted.

They're scattered. They run out of their homes, away from their families, their occupation, and Paul writes to them and says, hey, consider it all joy. Now what he's saying, Roman number one, he's saying these are required trials, required trials. Consider is in the imperative movement. He says, consider all joy. It means he commands them to do this all at once. He's not saying, feel like it's a joy.

He's not saying, look for the emotion of joy. He's saying, consider, declare, speak to yourself that it's a joy when these multi-faceted trials come our way. And I'm gleaning through this because I'm not going to preach all that I've already preached to you. So there's a sense in which as God grows us in the faith, he has multi-faceted trials that comes our way that he's going to use for our good and for his glory. Now, secondly, revealed faith.

Required trials was number one. Number two, revealed faith. He says, verse three, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Now, knowing means believing and understanding something. He said, as a Christian, you ought to believe and understand something, and that is that this testing is revealing something about you.

When a person is tested, it doesn't make them anything. It reveals something about them. And what he's saying is, when you are born again at the new birth, you are given a sixth sense. You have your record, natural five senses, but there's a sixth sense you are given, and that's the faith capacity. You have a capacity to reach out and grab a hold of things from a faith perspective that gives you an understanding others don't have. And so what he's saying, when a trial comes, the faith that God puts in you all of a sudden comes to the forefront. The faith rises up within you and says, I see God's doing something. So the trial serves to squeeze out of you the faith that God placed in you at conversion. The trial manifested and activated this already residing, though yet unmanifested and unactivated faith.

The Bible says God is allotted to each man, that's each believer now, a measure of faith. So you face a trial, you're to, as an actor, you will say, I'm going to consider this joy. My God knows what he's doing. He's in control of everything that comes my way.

Everything that comes my way is filtered through his hands of love and perfection. And I'm going to consider it joy, and that in itself is that rising of faith whereby you see that God is behind this. Now he says in verse three, this produces endurance.

Literally it means it results in endurance. You could say it results in staying power. The more you go through these cycles, the more you consider trials of joy, the more faith rises up in you and you say, I see God's doing something. I know God has a purpose in this.

Then you get to where that's just the pattern of the way you function. You've become steadfast in viewing things from a faith perspective in God that he's up to something good and for his own glory. So this attitude and this activity of sustaining faith is, if you will, the bloom or the blossom that God's looking for in your life. So the revealed faith comes forth as you continue to draw on this faith to see God's hand behind these difficult circumstances, you begin to come to a place where this is pretty much the steadfast way you approach life.

And that's where God wants to get us. Now we come to what's obvious and that is number three, resulting maturity. Resulting maturity. In verse four he says, let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect. The word perfect there in the New American Standard literally means maturity.

Doesn't mean sinless perfection. It means now you are looking at things in a mature Christian way. You've, in a sense, not absolutely, and I want to be careful with this word, but in a sense spiritually you've arrived in that it is your natural default to grasp and look at these situations from a godly perspective, from the fact that God's up to something and my faith is grasping that reality.

Now the perfect result he talks about here means the proper end. That's where he wants you to get to. He wants to get you to the proper end through all of these trials and that is that you are showing in God and praising God and seeing God's great hand behind it all. You have heard me say from this pulpit that a lot of the trials and the difficulties and the warfares that we've faced as a church and that I faced individually as a pastor were necessary for me. It was necessary for me. Now I may not have been guilty of some of the, well, most of the slander and the spins people would bring in accusations and attacks against me, but that didn't matter. I needed to mature and I needed to repent of things those people didn't even know about. God knew about them.

They didn't know about them and I needed to grow in ways they didn't know. And now it's gotten to where that's my default viewpoint. I was counseling with the pastor just recently and he talked about this thing that came unveiled in his local church and things that were concerning and upsetting and I immediately rejoiced. And he thought I was a little bit strange. I said, no, no, this shows me God's hand is on your church. He wouldn't expose these things and work you through these things if he wasn't planning on using your church. You got a trial in your marriage? Praise the Lord. God's working on you. God's doing something.

You got a trial at work? God's doing something. You've got to make sure you have the perfect end result. You've got to make sure you learn to respond right in faith so that God will say now you're at the default place of responding in faith and not with the whiny, complaining, bitter, fault-finding, blame-shifting spirit that the world so commonly has. We function on a higher level than the world. And he says this is the way we become complete. In other words, mature in all of our parts in verse 4.

Now we get to what I call an interlude. Look at verse 5. In verses 5 through 11 there's an interlude that certainly connects to these truths. And in verse 5 he says here, notice what he says, but if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God who gives to all generously without reproach and it shall be given to him. Now how many times, listen to me, how many times has something happened, you're troubled, you're heartbroken, you're angry, you're disappointed, a trial comes, how many of you immediately go, God give me wisdom, what are you doing?

God give me wisdom, what are you up to? If he's not doing something, if he's not up to something, if he's not using this out of deep love for you, you can't even comprehend the depths of his love for you, then he's not God. Our first response should in faith be, God give me wisdom, what's going on here? Now in my experience, God does two things. Number one, he says here's what I'm dealing with in you.

And secondly, if I can get you to be honest there, I'm going to show you what I'm dealing with all around you. Give me wisdom. I'm so very very grateful that I was taught by a Christian teacher, I mean right after my conversion, to seek God for wisdom. If there's anything that's been a key to God using me through the years, as I have pleaded with God from early in my Christian experience, God give me wisdom. Give me that capacity, and you might define wisdom this way, let me say it this way, it's the proper understanding and use of knowledge. I have knowledge about this trial, I have knowledge about these bad things that are happening in my life, these consequences, these circumstances.

Now God give me the wisdom to use this right, to understand what you're up to. Now he didn't say you're to ask God for strength, I'm not suggesting that's wrong, but that's not what James says here. He don't say ask God for strength, he doesn't say ask God for grace, I'm not suggesting that's wrong, but he didn't say that.

He didn't say ask God for deliverance, I'm not even saying that's wrong, but that's not what he said, because those things are important, but they're secondary. It's to ask God for wisdom. I remember reading about a pastor who had a godly older lady in his church, who had just recently lost her husband quite suddenly, and she herself had suffered a stroke. So the pastor very kindly and compassionately went to her, and he told this dear church lady, he said, I want you to know I'm praying for you. And the lady said, well what are you praying? He said, well I'm praying you'll have strength. I'm praying that you'll have the help from God that you need.

She said, well that's good, but would you pray that I would also have wisdom so this won't be wasted? Do you go to God and say, God show me what you're up to. Some of you have spent your whole Christian life never getting to first base on these principles, but it's never too late to start and learn to consider it all joy when these multifaceted trials come your way. Literally it means with all kinds of dynamics and twists and angles.

It's more than one trial. It's a combination of trials coming your way, because God's up to something. He is growing you.

He's maturing you. He's doing something in you. Then he says in verse 6, but he must ask in faith without any doubting. That is, you must ask God believing that he's up to something good, that he's a sovereign God in control of all of it.

Not like it's out of his control, it's in his control. Do you ask him knowing he's doing something for your good and his glory? If you don't go with that kind of faith, he's not going to answer that prayer. Believing that God's way is right. Now listen to me, also believing that God's method of using trials to grow his children is good and wise.

Now think about it, we're going to also go through trials. Praise the Lord, we get to go through trials that help us, because our God's going to make sure they do. He says, don't be a quirky Christian.

Look at what he says there in verse 6, but he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. Well, this thing happened, so I'm over here. This other thing happened, so now I'm blown over there. This thing happened, so now I'm mad. This thing happened, so now I'm hurt. This thing's happened, so now I'm full of anxiety, and you're just a quirky Christian, you're like a cork on the waves.

No, he said, don't be like that. You're not to be the victim of your circumstances, you're to be the victor through your circumstances. Sounds a little bit like Joel Osteen, doesn't it? But there's a proper way to look at that from a biblical perspective. Ephesians 4 reminds us, no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

Same idea, just bouncing all over the place. Then in verse 7, for that man ought to expect that he will receive, he will receive anything from the Lord. Verse 8, being a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways.

So if you think God might be doing something, no God's not doing something, I'm just a victim of this circumstances, I'm just depressed by this, I'm just distressed by that. Look, look, look, that don't matter. God matters who's behind that.

His hands behind that. Think about Joseph in the in the prison there in Egypt after Potiphar's wife had lied about him trying to make a an aggressive sexual assault toward her or approach to her. And he, but he, every evidence in the Bible shows us that he doesn't look at the circumstances, he trusts God's up to something. Daniel in Babylon, Daniel in the lion's den.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. They didn't look at the circumstances, God's up to something. God's up to something. That's where your faith comes in.

Without doubting that he's up to something, without doubting that he's faithful, no vacillating, no hesitating. And then verses 9 through 11, he talks about how material things should not be our final goal, should not be our aim anyway. Now let's see verse 9, and the brother of humble circumstances is the glory in his high position. In other words, if God's given you the trial of humble situations.

By the way, a lot of these folks were starving almost. And if you're in that situation, God's, the pastor James says, consider that God's got you in a high position. He's doing something through this. It's a great way to look at life. And then verse 10, the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. The rich man is to keep reminding himself, well I may have amassed a lot of stuff, but boom, I may die tomorrow and somebody else will have it. Matter of fact, some of you are not wise enough, you're going to leave your wealth to somebody who don't love God. And that's a travesty.

What I'm saying is, either end, wealth or nothing, those things really don't matter in the long run. What's God doing in our lives? What's God teaching us?

How's God growing us? Are we viewing trials as God's up to something good and for his glory? Now we get down to verse 12, and that's our fourth main point, the receiving of life. You're not even saying the imparting of life.

Now I'm not saying that spiritual life was not imparted to you at the new birth, but there's a way that it comes up in your life and you walk in this abundant life God's intended for you to have and to know and to walk in. Look at verse 12, blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. Persevering under trial doesn't mean you just grit your teeth and get through it.

A biblical persevering in the trial means you don't get bitter, you don't get angry, you don't get resentful, you don't get vengeful, you trust God's up to something. Joseph's brothers travel to Egypt in the famine. They're starving to death. They meet the prime minister of Egypt, the second most powerful man on the earth. His name's Joseph. He was in a prison cell, but God meant it for good and God's now exalted him to the right hand of the Pharaoh.

He runs the whole kingdom. Joseph's brothers come in there. They don't recognize that it's Joseph. They had thrown him away. They'd abandoned him. They left him for dead, so to speak. Well, actually they did.

It's not even so to speak. They did leave him for dead. God intervened. God protected him. God's got him now all the way to that high position of being prime minister of Egypt.

They didn't recognize him. You know how the series of events unfolds. And finally, Joseph is really good to his brothers. Doesn't hold a grudge. He's not vengeful. He's not bitter.

He doesn't strike back. When it's all said and done, they basically say, why would you be this way? We threw you away. We left you for dead.

We hated you. Oh, but Joseph said in the Jeff Noblitt amplified translation, oh, but God was up to something good. I had faith to see that this trial, God was doing something for my good and for his glory. You, my brothers, you meant it for evil. I'm not going to let you off the hook. You need to get God about that. You don't owe me anything.

I'm not going to hold a grudge. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. Joseph, in that illustration, is a powerful picture of the abundant life of Christianity that Jesus promised. He said, you might have life and you might have it abundantly. What's the abundant life? Among other things, it means that you're even able, by God's grace, to grasp your trials in faith, not grow bitter, not grow angry, not grow resentful, not fall into anxiety, but say God's using this for my good and his glory. And therefore, you walk with a new joy, a new blessedness, a new peace. You have an abundant life no matter what the circumstances around you. In James' writing, he said, that's where God wants to get you as a Christian. The world cannot in any way comprehend that kind of approach to life.

Matter of fact, you can't comprehend it. It's just that God saved you and gave you the capacity to walk in it. He says here, you'll persevere under trial. That doesn't mean you grit your teeth and go through it. It means you go through it looking at, to God, looking to see what God's up to, that God's behind these things.

And cheer up. God brings his children through trials because they're his. If you don't go through any, you're not his. Some of you prayed for me a lot. Well, you still do, I think, a lot. But I mean early on in my Christian pilgrimage, in my ministry experience, you prayed for me a lot. And you prayed God to bring troubles into my life. Because you wanted me to be a man of God. You wanted me to be faithful. You wanted to be true to the Lord and true to the Word.

And God said, okay, this is what I'm going to have to do to him. But I'm happy about that. I'm thankful that I don't want to sign up again for some of that journey. But I'm thankful for what God has done. Are you going through a trial in your marriage? Let me ask you something.

Have you gone to God and said, God give me wisdom. What are you showing me? What are you doing to me? What are you doing in me? As I preach, you say, it's not my sister. It's not my brother. It's me, O Lord.

It's me, O Lord. You persevere on through in faith, in faith. If you come through it with your teeth gritted and not having grown much at all, then you didn't persevere. That's not Christian perseverance.

You persevere when you get like Joseph on the other side. You're not bitter. You're not angry. You're not resentful.

You're not jealous. You love God. He said in verse 12 there, if you persevere under trial after he has been approved. That means referring to the test way back there in verse three, knowing that the testing of your faith, verse three.

He said you've gone through the test and you've been approved. You've successfully, doesn't mean you didn't have any struggles, didn't mean you didn't fall some, but overall you got on through it trusting the Lord was up to something for your good and his glory. Then he says you'll be given the crown of life here in verse 12. That's an interesting phrase, the crown of life. Now this refers not to the victor's crown. That's not what it's talking about. It refers not to a crown of royalty, but the crown of life.

Actually it means this, the crown which is life. In other words, you'll have this new approach to life. You'll have this new way of living life. You'll have this new outlook on life because the faith factor has risen in you so that now that's your steadfast in it. That is your natural default view of things now. Something comes, God's up to something.

And yeah, we'll still struggle some. I'm not suggesting that you're just in this perfect plane of spirituality, but that's the new way you look at it, the new way you walk in it, the new way you perceive things, and that's this abundant life and that is the crown. That's the crowning gem of Christian sanctification to get to this place of spiritual maturity. The crown which itself, or rather the life which is itself the crown.

It means a full life, a meaningful life, a complete life, the abundant life that Jesus promised when he says, if you believe in me you'll have life and you'll have it abundantly. How are you viewing your trials? This is the process of maturity.

How are you going through it? Are you... is there faith rising in your heart and are you walking in that faith to see that God's hand is behind all of this? So you have the trial which unleashes the faith. God put that conversion as this becomes something of a pattern, the bloom. You come to full bloom in your faith where this is the default way you view things in life and view things. That's the maturity God's looking for and then the crowning blessing is that as a life of new abundance. You have a new level of joy, you have a new level of peace, a new level of contentment, a new level of sweetness, a new level of kindness, a new level of generosity.

Why? Because God... you just know God's in control. You're just kind of free.

What a place to be and what a place to live. Now you do not want to resist the grace of God that He gives you during the trial which enables you to respond in faith. In one sense, grace is the power and the desire to do what's right. So when you face a trial, God gives you the grace, that desire and that power to react right, to react properly, don't resist that. If you do, instead of coming out like a mature adult, you'll come through your trial like an immature, spoiled, selfish, irritable, disgruntled brat, spiritually speaking. That's why I've said to you before, you know we have some of the sweetest senior adults in our church, sweet folk, they're just sweet. I want to grow old sweet, don't you?

Now you could sit down with some of these sweet senior adults and listen to what they've gone through and you'd probably look at them say, well if I was you I'd be mad. No, no, no. They've had the crown of life, the crown which life is that crown that is and they're walking in that level of sweet, abundant life. That's victory.

That's glory. We don't want to be like Jonah and you know we look at Jonah, you get the impression that Jonah just went along with what God wanted him to do, but I guess you'd go along too if I well swallowed you and spit you back up on the beach. But we have trouble wondering if Jonah's heart was really in it because we get to the last chapter of Jonah and he's outside of Nineveh and he's pouting hoping God would send judgment back on Nineveh. He's mad at the sun, he's mad at the wind, he's mad at the vine, he's mad at the worm, he's mad at God. You don't want to come through the trial that way.

He says one quick word here and I'm done. Look at verse 12. Blesses the man who perseveres under trial, comes through it properly with the faith he's believing God's up to something good.

He's growing in that abundant life factor inside of his own present life. Then he says, for once he's been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. To those who love him. When we love God we endure our trials with sustaining faith and we come out mature and full of abundant life. Now think about it, this thing's come into my life, it's difficult, but my God is Lord, my God is sovereign and I love him and I respect him and whatever he's doing I want to cooperate with him. So I think the key factor is that phrase of, do you love God? I love God because he's so wise. I love him because he's so wise, he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's accomplishing. So wise. Well, God's process of maturity.