The Purpose of Trials

The only way out of a trial is what? Through it.

There are no side exits. God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear in. And the way of escape is always through. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. If God is good and all powerful, and He is, why do you and I, or why does anyone, suffer? If God is as loving as He says He is, why do bad things still happen to His people? The bottom line, if God really loves you, why does He allow you to go through trials? Well, as John MacArthur will show you today on Grace to You, trials can actually be good for you. John is going to help you see why that is and how to cultivate that perspective as he continues one of his all-time most helpful studies called Benefiting from Life's Trials.

And now with that lesson, here is John. How can we persevere through trials? Even as true Christians, how can we gain the most out of our trials? How can we be victorious in our trials?

Well, we're going to look at five key means to persevering through trials. First of all, we begin with a joyous attitude. Now, I believe that that is applicable to the life of every believer. As we enter into some kind of a trial, whatever that trial might be, we need to have the vision that sees beyond the trial to the joy that's going to come when we have passed that test, when we have been strengthened by that. And so our response is not partial joy, it's all joy, having come to a settled, definite, decisive conviction that we're going to face trials with the right attitude.

We can have all joy. I want to show you a second thing, a means to perseverance in trial, not only a joyful attitude, but an understanding mind, an understanding mind. Notice verse 3. What's the first word in verse 3?

What is it? Knowing, that speaks of the mind. Not only are you to have a joyful attitude, but an understanding mind. The word is ginosko, basically has the idea of knowledge which comes from personal experience, the personal knowledge that we have learned because we have encountered the truth ourselves.

Knowing this. Now what he means by that is, look, if you're going to go through a trial victoriously, if you're going to persevere, you've got to know a few things. You've got to understand a few things. Christ had joy in enduring the cross because He knew what was going to happen.

He knew what was going to come. You need to know some things, too. What do you need to know? Well, know this, that the testing of your faith works endurance. So you need to know that what's going on in your life is producing something very beneficial.

Let me see if I can break that down a little bit. What should you know to persevere in trials? What do you need to know? Well, first of all, you need to know your faith is being tested. You need to know that. You say, well, why do I need to know that? Because when you come through the other end of the trial and you still have your faith, it's good to know you're for real, right?

It's wonderful. If you ask me how I know I'm a Christian, one of the things I'm going to say to you is, well, I love the Lord with all my heart, certainly not as much as I ought to, but I love Him with all that I feel I have to give. And so I know I'm a Christian because of my love for the Lord, but I also know I'm a Christian because I've gone through difficult situations and I come out the other end and all my hope and all my trust is still in Him. So know this, that your faith is tested. Anything that's legitimate is going to be tested and the verification of true faith ought to be a wonderful thing. What an encouragement to see that my faith was genuine, that I went through the test and I passed. The word testing, dakimion, means proof. Know this, that the proof of your faith brings endurance, works. The word works means to achieve or accomplish. Don't ever think trials don't accomplish something.

They do. Trials, all the trials that come into our life are designed to accomplish something. They're designed to produce something.

They're designed to work something. And what is it here? It is hupomone, not patience. The best word is endurance. Patience is that word macrothemia, which has to do with being patient with people. This is the word endurance. It's the staying power is a good translation.

Perseverance may be the best one. And this is perhaps one of those passages where theologians of old drew the perseverance of the saints as a theological term. It's the tenacity of spirit that holds on under pressure while awaiting God's time to remove, to dismiss, to reward when the trial is done. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful thing to have in your life, endurance. And every time you go through a trial and every time I go through a trial and we pass through those trials, we are strengthened.

We have gained a little bit more endurance. In Psalm 40 verse 1, I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and He heard my cry and He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, set my feet on a rock and established my goings. He put a new song in my mouth. Boy, every time you come out of a trial, isn't that the way you feel? I cried unto the Lord, He picked me up, set me on a rock, put a song in my heart and off I went, stronger than ever because of the enduring of that trial. Now I want to show you something. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 10.

I need to just elaborate a little bit on this. 1 Corinthians 10, 13, it says, there is no trial...it's the same term here...there's no trial taken you but such as is common to men. In other words, you're not going to have some kind of supernatural trial that is going to be so overpowering that there's nothing within the human realm that can withstand it.

No. The trials that come are going to be common trials to human beings. But God is faithful, now mark this, who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able. I want you to just stop and think about that. Now does everyone have the very same ability in terms of enduring trials? Do they?

No. A brand new baby Christian with limited knowledge and limited understanding and very limited experience is not going to have the ability to endure trials at a level that someone else might. And I believe what the apostle is promising here is God will never put you through a trial that you can't handle until He has put you through some preliminary ones to strengthen you for that level of trial. And that's the promise of 1 Corinthians 10, 13. There will never come into your life or my life a trial which will be absolutely overwhelming. First of all, the Lord will bring us trials, testing our faith, strengthening our faith, producing endurance so that gradually we can move out for Him, encounter greater trials, and be ready to face those trials.

The sovereign, faithful, covenant-keeping God who secures His children does so in a personal, intimate way through all the days and hours of their lives, not just through some fiat statement made in time past, but rather through working with them day in and day out. It's like a runner. I remember a few years ago they had the...I don't know what you call it...a jog-a-thon at Cal State Northridge for the disabled people in Dr. Britton's program out there. And somebody said, are you going to run?

And I said, well, I don't know. Well, people kept wanting to put money on me to run. And so by the time the jog-a-thon came around, I had a lot of people who promised a lot of money if I ran. I think one guy promised a hundred dollars a lap.

Now that's a lot of pressure. I mean, I know that every one more lap I can go is another hundred dollars for the program, right? And you had to do it within an hour. Well, I hadn't been jogging. I don't jog because I have bad knees from old football injuries. But I determined that day that I was going to jog. So I jogged...I think I jogged 26 laps in an hour. And I want you to know, folks, you didn't know this, but I could not walk for a week. My knees swell up.

You know, I don't want to go into my medical history, but I couldn't walk. And of course I got a lecture from my wife about overdoing things and all I could think about was I got all that money for this project, you know. But it was a good reminder that anybody who wants to develop the ability to run long distance starts small.

Mine went backwards. I started big and I haven't run since. We work up, don't we, to a maximum capacity. And James' point is that right here. Understanding and knowing that God is strengthening your faith. He's producing greater endurance for greater ministry, for greater service, for greater trials, for greater joy, may I add. And haven't I said to you on many occasions that the more difficult the battle is, the sweeter the victory, right? The more difficult the trial, the sweeter it is when you come out of it.

Oh, that's so true. And I have learned in my life that whenever you're going into a trial, there's always...there's always light in the morning. And when you come out of it, you rejoice at the increased strength and the deliverance of God, which again proves Him to be trustworthy, which strengthens your faith. In 2 Thessalonians 1, Paul writes to the Thessalonian Christians, he says, grace to you and peace from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly.

Isn't that good? Your faith grows exceedingly and the love of every one of you all toward each other abounds so that we ourselves glory or boast in you in the churches of God for your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. You know what endurance brought them? It brought them growing faith, abounding love, and a tremendous testimony.

It's very productive. In chapter 3 verse 5 he says to them, the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. They were a wonderfully enduring group. In Hebrews chapter 11 also, we have insight into this point being illustrated to us. It's a discussion of Moses.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He considered that the reproach of the anointed Messiah was greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

Why? Because he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. In other words, the man lived in the light of what the endurance would bring in the future.

He saw the future plan. So by faith in that plan, by faith in God, he forsook Egypt, didn't get intimidated by the wrath of the king because he could see an invisible king. Through faith he kept the Passover, the sprinkling of blood on the doorpost and the lintel as the firstborn be destroyed. By faith they all went through the Red Sea on dry land and the Egyptians attempting to do that were drowned and so forth.

And then he goes on from there to talk about other people in terrible times of trial. And you go down to verse 32, and you just have more and more of them, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and the prophets, always through faith, through faith, through faith, the great heroes of the faith here, they trusted God in the midst of unbelievable circumstances. They subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness and obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of the fire and escaped the edge of the sword.

Out of weakness remained strong, became valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others had trials of cruel mocking and scourging and moreover bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn in half. They were tested or tried, slain with a sword, wandered about in sheepskin and goatskins. They actually encased them in skins. They were destitute, afflicted, tormented.

The world wasn't even worthy of them. They wandered in the deserts, in the mountains, in the dens and the caves of the earth and all of them received witness through faith, having not received the promise. They did it all by faith. And then he comes into chapter 12 and says, that's the heroes of faith and you're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. That means so many people who testify to the virtue of faith.

Well, you better lay aside the stuff in your life and run the race of faith like they did. And the great finisher and author of faith is Christ who is the greatest example of joy in the midst of trials. When trials come then, we have an understanding mind. We understand that the Lord is creating endurance and endurance strengthens us for greater ministry and our faith is proven. The third necessary means for perseverance. First, a joyful attitude.

Secondly, an understanding mind. Thirdly, a submissive will...a submissive will. I love this in verse 4, it's so direct. Look at this, let...but let...this is present, active, imperative.

This is a command. Let patience have her perfect work. Let God do His work.

Let endurance do what God wants it to do. This is the command demanding submission. What he's saying is be submissive to the trial. Don't fight it. Don't argue about it. Don't shake your fist at God.

Accept it. If you try to fight it, if you try to resist it, if you try to argue with it and debate with it, you may bring yourself under the chastening of God. My son, don't despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you're rebuked of Him, for whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges every son He receives. If you endure through chastening, God is dealing with you as a son.

He's perfecting, He's shaping. If you fight against it, you're going to find it becomes more and more difficult. The only way out of a trial is what? Through it.

There are no side exits. The way out is through. God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

And the way of escape is always through. So with joy in trials, because we see the glorious future, because we're drawn into sweet communion with the Father, because we are enriched in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, because we see the sin being knocked off of our own life, because it gives us a greater hope for heaven in the joy of all of that, we begin to see how to see how to persevere. Then comes the understanding that God is doing this to create a greater endurance for a greater usefulness for greater trials. And then we submit to that with a submissive spirit or a submissive will.

And look what He says here. Let patience have a perfect work. What it's trying to do, let endurance have a perfect work, what it's trying to do is just make you better.

The word perfect here would be better translated spiritually mature, spiritually mature. Don't be reluctant when trials come. Don't fight against that.

Don't resist that. Don't deny God that wonderful perfecting work that He wants to do in your life. In Psalm 131, just a three-verse Psalm, it gets lost, but listen to what it says. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty.

Neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself like a child that is weaned of his mother. My soul is even like a weaned child.

Beautiful thought. Lord, what You've put me through has made me grow. I have matured.

I'm off the bottle, is what He's saying. And that's a privilege, a thankful heart for being weaned away to be strong. Job thanked God and willfully submitted to every trial the Lord gave him, even though his heart sometimes was confused. And you know what's interesting? It wasn't the circumstances that confused Job. It wasn't the circumstances that bothered him. It was the fact that he couldn't get an answer from God that bothered him.

He kept asking and nothing came back and that was the difficulty. In Job 5, 7 he says, Eliphaz is speaking, yet man is born into trouble. As the sparks fly upward, I would seek unto God and unto God would I commit my cause, who doeth great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number, who giveth rain to the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields, to set up on high those that are low, that those who mourn may be exalted to safety. He says, when you go through a trial, just commit yourself to God. Just give yourself to God. Trust in Him. Psalm 37 says, fret not yourself because of evildoers. Commit your way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him.

The Scripture says He'll bring it to pass. Now listen, follow this. Endurance is not the goal. The goal is perfection. Endurance is a means to that.

It goes like this. You go through a trial, you get stronger, you have greater endurance. That greater endurance will allow you to go through a greater trial and that greater endurance, a greater trial and the sequence of that is going to bring about spiritual maturity. Perfection is really synonymous with spiritual maturity. Let endurance lead to the goal or the end or the fulfillment which is spiritual maturity. Doesn't mean sinlessness?

No, there's no indication of sinlessness. James 3, 2, in many things we all stumble. But the point is spiritual maturity, full mature development. In the terms of 1 John 2, 14, to be a spiritual father who knows Him who is from the beginning. By the way, that term, perfection, is used in secular sources of animals that are full grown. Here it is used of Christians that are full grown. It makes a full grown Christian. So the Lord is giving you endurance to put you through a greater test to make you a stronger Christian, a more mature Christian. And in Philippians 3, 15 Paul says, let us therefore as many as be mature, so forth. So it's attainable.

You can get there. The Lord's putting you through that to bring you there. Faith is tested to make us more dependent, to give us stronger faith, to drive us to deeper communion and that makes us more mature. The word perfect has the idea of richness of character, getting us to the place where we really want to be and where the Lord wants us to be. It also kind of conveys the idea of balance, a stable, balanced righteousness. The best verse to explain it, I love this, Galatians 4.19, Paul says, I'll never be satisfied or I'll be in travail, I'll always be having pain spiritually until...listen to this...Christ is what?

Formed in you. Isn't that a marvelous thought? That's the desire, that's the ultimate spiritual goal until Christ is fully formed in us. And he describes what he means by perfection in verse 4. Let endurance have a perfect work that you may be perfect, and he repeats teleoi again, and complete, that's a marvelous word, holakleros, holos means whole, we get a word today, holography which is a 360-degree picture, holography, holos and kleros means all the portions. He wants you to be all portions intact, well-rounded, fully put together spiritually. And then the negative of that, lacking nothing.

Oh, what a comprehensive statement. He puts you through trials so that you can gain endurance, so that you can go through more trials until you've become fully complete as a mature person in Christ. Only trials really can do that. Takes the Word of God which is able to perfect you, 2 Timothy says, and trials, 1 Peter 5, 10, the God of all grace after you have suffered a while will make you what? Perfect. Trials and the Scripture and the perfection that comes. Let's pray. Father, we would not want that having heard we would forget, or having remembered we would not apply, but we would desire that, Lord, we would hear and apply these things in our lives, and, Lord, work in every life your perfect and gracious work. For the Savior's sake, amen.

That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, here on Grace To You. Today's lesson is part of John's practical series from the book of James, called Benefiting From Life's Trials. Well, John, today you said that God is separate from sin, he's above sin, he can't be touched by it, can't be defiled by it, he's not threatened by it, but that doesn't mean that God is distant from sinners like you and me. In fact, the Scripture says Christ sympathizes with our weaknesses, he gives us spiritual weapons for the fight. All of this is very encouraging, isn't it?

It is. It is encouraging to frame it up that way, to say that God has no sin in him, God tolerates no sin, and yet God is very personally involved in helping us deal with our sin by refining us through suffering. I think it is the refinement of suffering that gets at our sanctification.

Trials are for our sanctification. So if we know from Scripture, from divine revelation, that the Lord uses suffering to perfect us, then we can embrace the suffering. Then the suffering actually, rather than making us weak, empowers us, and that's what Paul meant when he wrote that God said to him, my strength is perfected in your weakness. So that's why I wrote the book called The Power of Suffering. I can't say enough about this book, it just turns conventional wisdom on its head. Most people are trying to avoid suffering, and many false preachers are telling you God doesn't want you to suffer or feel any pain.

That is not true. The most powerful work that God will ever do in your life is going to be done through suffering. You don't want to avoid that.

You don't want to create it unnecessarily, but you don't want to avoid it. You want to be able to say, Lord, bring into my life whatever you need to do to sanctify me, whatever would make me more like Christ, whatever would bring me greater joy, greater peace, greater confidence, greater usefulness, whatever it is that would produce that in my life, do it, Lord, for my good, my usefulness, and your glory. The book is The Power of Suffering. It looks at all the angles of trials and suffering, a couple hundred pages.

Now here's the good news. We'll send you the book, The Power of Suffering, free of charge, if you have never called or written us before. Free to anyone contacting us for the first time, The Power of Suffering.

And by the way, those of you who already have contacted us, you can order one as well for a very reasonable cost. Yes, and this is a great book. It will show you how to honor Christ and find peace even in your most difficult times. To get a copy of John's book called The Power of Suffering, free if it's your first time contacting us, contact us today. Call our toll-free number, 800-554-7223, and that number is easy to remember as 855-GRACE, or you can also go to our website, gty.org.

That's gty.org. John's book, The Power of Suffering, is loaded with practical advice. It has chapters on how to prepare for suffering, how to glorify God in the midst of your trials, and what you can learn from suffering after it's passed. And this book will not only help you better understand the important role suffering plays in your life, it will also equip you to comfort others during their trials.

Again, The Power of Suffering. It's our gift to you if you've never contacted us before. Call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday. Check your local listings for Channel and Times, and be here tomorrow when John shows you what to do when you're tempted to doubt God's goodness. That message is part of his current study, Benefiting from Life's Trials. Don't miss the next 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.