Wisdom for the Trials of Life - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, March 31st. The first step in learning to benefit from difficulty is to acknowledge that God has a purpose in it. Here's part one of Wisdom for the Trials of Life.

One of the most commonly asked questions is, why is it that God allows His children to go through such difficult, trying, painful times in life? And that's what I want to deal with in this message, and I want to simply talk about Wisdom for the Trials of Life. And I want you to turn, if you will, to James Chapter 1. He begins by identifying himself, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ of the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad.

Greetings. Count it 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 may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it would 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 winds. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man and unstable in all his ways. And if you drop down to verse twelve, blessed is a man or a woman 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.

Here's what he's saying. He says, count it all joy when you fall into these trials. Your faith's being tested.

If you'll let it work right, you will learn endurance, and that endurance is going to bring you to great spiritual maturity. Then he talks about wisdom. Why does he switch? He's not switching subjects.

Here's what he's saying. In order for us to be able to count it all joy and to see our faith tested and learn endurance and mature in our faith, it takes Godly wisdom. Wisdom is seeing things from God's perspective. If I look at this from a natural perspective, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Joy and trials, no, tears and trials, difficulty in trials, hardship in trials, but not joy. But when you and I see things from God's perspective, then we say there's another side to this.

There must be a spiritual side rather than a human side. Now, wisdom must be applied. For example, it's one thing to have God's perspective, but the issue is am I willing to apply that? And so if I do apply it, here's what's going to happen. It's going to enable me to evaluate persons and circumstances and make the right decision. That is, how am I going to face this trial in light of my past experiences? How am I going to face this trial in light of my present circumstances? And how am I going to face this trial in light of my future dreams and goals in life? The right question is always, God, what is Your goal for this trial in my life? And listen, always asking this question, God, what would You have me to do? What is Your goal? What is Your purpose for this trial in my life?

What would You have me to do at this point? If you're going to have to suffer and there's a way to squeeze something good out of this suffering, don't waste your suffering. Don't waste your sorrows. Don't waste your heartaches. Don't waste your pain. Learn how to squeeze something good and profitable, a blessing out of every single trial of life.

And you can and you will, if you listen carefully, jot down these notes and begin to apply them to your life. So I want to say three things primarily and lots of things under them, but the first one is simply this, and that is that we need wisdom to discern the source of our trials. We're all going to have trials. So the issue is not whether we're going to, but what is the source of them? So what's the issue? The issue is, God, what is this all about?

How am I to respond to this? It's, you know, I thought I'd had pain until this, and yet there are some very specific sources from which it comes. Sometimes our trials come from making a wrong decision ourselves. Can't blame anybody but ourselves. We've all made wrong decisions and suddenly we're facing a trial.

Sometimes it's because of something someone else does to us. Turn over, if you will, just one book to First Peter. And look, if you will, in First Peter and notice the sixth verse of this first chapter. Here's what he says, talking about their suffering and trials they're going through. He says, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable. So you're going through some difficulty, some hardship and some pain in your life. And they were going through a time of great persecution.

And so as a result of that, they were suffering. There's one more verse that may give us a little better idea. Look in the twelfth verse, the fourth chapter, because here he just keeps on talking about the whole idea of what they're suffering. And he says in this fourth chapter, the twelfth verse, Beloved, he says, Don't even be surprised at the fiery ordeal or trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. The truth is, if you and I live a godly life, the Bible says those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The godlier you and I live, the more Satan's going to attack us in every way possible, the more trials and hardships we're going to have.

And what he's saying here in the first Peter, he says, he says, Don't be surprised when these things come upon you. Sometime it's because of a wrong decision we made. Sometimes it's because of persecution from others. Sometimes it's a result of living in this fallen world. We live in a fallen world.

There are tornadoes and earthquakes and floods and sickness and disease and hardship and pain and suffering from wars and bloodshed and all the rest. This is part of living in a fallen world. Sometimes our trials are the result.

We just, we appear to be victims of our surrounding circumstances. Sometimes it is straight from the devil. You know it's absolutely straight from him. And sometimes these trials are, listen, allowed by God. They all have to be allowed by him. Sometimes they're sent by him. Now, what we have to ask is, how do we handle these? This is why he says, If any man lack wisdom, because listen, the better and the more accurately I understand the source of the trial, the better I'm going to be able to handle it.

And I'm going to be able to profit the most from it if I understand and take the time to evaluate this trial and ask myself the question, honestly, what's the source of this? Is this the result of a wrong decision? Is this just life?

I'm out here living life. Is this something that someone has perpetrated upon me deliberately? Is this just a satanic attack that suddenly there it is? Or God, is this something that You have allowed or sent into my life because You have something in mind? Very important at least, listen, the answer to those questions may not be clear at first, but it's always good to ask the question as we said before, God, what is Your goal?

That is, what's the source, what's Your goal, but also what's the source of it? There's something very good about being able to acknowledge and say, I do think that I'm understanding what this is all about. Now, wisdom will enable us to view it from a whole different perspective.

Now the second question is this. First of all, we need wisdom to discern the source of our trials. And secondly, we need wisdom to discern the purpose of them. In other words, this is why he switched, it appears, from talking about trials to wisdom, because he knows that you and I need to understand the purposes behind the trials that God allows in our life.

It doesn't make a difference whether it's something we did, something somebody else does, straight from the devil, it's just part of living in a mixed up, diseased, sick world, sick sinfully, sick physically world, but whatever the reason, what is the purpose of this trial in my life? Listen carefully, if I don't understand the purpose, and I ignore the purpose, I'm going to have a negative attitude. It's absolutely natural and normal and fleshly to have a negative attitude if we don't understand His purposes. And so that negative attitude is going to be expressed probably in a number of ways. And what's going to happen is this. I'm going to look at these if I don't understand His purpose, and I'm going to come to the conclusion that this just happened to me.

God had nothing to do with it. That is not the right response. Secondly, I may have the idea that this appears to be absolutely unnecessary, unprofitable, there's no sense in it. It makes me look hopeless and helpless, and therefore God, I just don't believe that either you care or you don't care about me.

A third attitude that may develop is this. I feel defeated, miserable, hopeless and helpless in this trial, and I don't understand how in the world could God love me and allow this to happen. Another attitude may be that we see these things from our sense of strength and our resources, and we don't know how to handle them. And so God, I'm, you know, how do you expect me to handle this?

I can't handle this. That's because we're not looking at it wisely from God's perspective. We're depending on our own resources, on our own strength to see us through it.

And oftentimes there are trials that that absolutely will not work. Sometimes we fail to recognize the truth that this is an opportunity. God is taking advantage of an opportunity to demonstrate something in our life. We don't see that.

We say, you know what? I'm not using God demonstrating in my life anything. I just want to get through this. So what I want you to see is all these negative attitudes are just as natural normal as they can be. And then we have the idea, I'm a victim. I'm just a victim of this.

God, I don't understand why. I'm a victim of this persecution. I'm a victim of this gossip. I'm a victim of this setback. I'm a victim of this financial failure. God, I'm a victim.

If you're God, if you love me, why, why, why? Well, you know, all those kind of attitudes leave us in a particular place I'm going to talk about in a second. And that's this. They deprive me of my joy, my peace, my contempt.

In other words, if you don't have the right perspective about trials, you're going to be negative. And what you're going to do is you're going to murmur. You're going to complain.

You're going to blame. You can get angry. You can get bitter. Your faith begins to wobble a little bit. And you think, well, God, now, if you were, and if you are.

And so what happens, the wrong kind of response is the result of not viewing the trial wisely. Wisdom is seeing things from God's perspective. When I see things from God's perspective, I'm not going to have those attitudes. And that's why it's so very important we understand the purposes of God. Now listen what he says in this passage. He says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing, listen to this, I can only count it all joy when I know something, knowing that the testing of your faith is producing something profitable in you, endurance, the capacity to hang in there no matter what, listen, and let endurance have its perfect result or it brings to maturity our Christian experience. And so he says, knowing these things, if I'm if I'm going to know them, I've got to stop and ask this myself the question, God, what is your purpose? And he has some very definite purposes for allowing you and me to go through the trials of our life. So let's look to see what some of these purposes are. And the first one here is very evident.

Listen to what he says. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith, one of the primary purposes for which God allows trials in our life is to test our faith. Now I want you to look at this word testing for a moment.

I want you to go to a couple other scriptures. It is a word in the Greek, it's dakimos, which doesn't mean anything necessary to you. But here's what it means. It means to be tested and found proven. That is, this isn't just a test and the end result come out in your way. That is, God is proving our faith. He tests our faith to prove it. That does not mean He tests our faith with the end result that we fail.

We said, we said temptation is an inducement to do evil. That is, the end result is the desire by the devil that we fail. God allows and sends tests in our life in order to do evil. In order to test our faith, to trust Him, to prove our faith. Because unproven, untried faith is worthless. In other words, how do you know what you can face in life if your faith hasn't been tested?

So what He's simply saying here is this. And that is one of the primary reasons He tested is that He allows these things in our life because He is testing our faith. Now, I want you to turn, if you will, to First Thessalonians chapter two.

Just go back four or five books or so. First Thessalonians chapter two and look if you will in chapter two and verse four. Paul's speaking of himself here and he says, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. And so he says, God tested him. God approved of his response.

And so what did He do? He entrusted him with the gospel. Then I want you to look, if you will, in First Peter chapter one, from James over to First Peter chapter one. And as we said, he's writing to those who are undergoing persecution. Let's start with verse five. He says, we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this now, he says, you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that, look at this, so that the proof of your faith, it's approved, it gets tested, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says now, the truth is, the testing of your faith is more valuable than gold and silver.

Think about it. There are lots of people who have lots of material things, but no faith. What do they do when trials come and money can't fix it? What do they do when they don't have any faith to face those difficulties of life and sickness and facing death and all the many things that come with all of these trials? How do they respond when the only resource they have is something you can count?

They don't know how to do it. I wonder if that's where you are. You're facing trials in your life you can't fix. You're facing trials in your life you can't escape.

You're facing trials in your life that your money absolutely cannot alter one single bit. You need the wisdom of God to see these things from God's perspective. God always tests, listen, He always tests the faith of His children. Why? Because He desires to bring us to spiritual maturity and a person with weak faith is not spiritually mature.

A spiritually mature person, one of the characteristics is they have a strong faith. Why is it strong? Tested. Tried. Did they always succeed?

No. All of us have been tested by God in our faith in some ways and we have shrunk from the test. We have failed the test at some point or the other. But here's what happens the longer you live, listen, the longer you live you can expect, anticipate, don't be surprised at the times of testing to become stronger and more intense.

Why? Because if you just lift five pounds and you never lift over five pounds that's strong as you'll ever be. But then you get it up to ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, whatever it might be. And every time the pressure is there long enough your body sort of grows up, your body matches the test. God wants our faith to be strong. And He wants to, listen, He wants the possibility and the potential of demonstrating in your strong faith what your God is able to see you through and able you to walk through and to work through and to survive and to come out victorious and to be blessed on the other side.

God gets glory out of that. And so one of the primary reasons that He allows these tests and trials in our life is simply because He is in the process of testing our faith. And testing our faith, if it's going to be strong, it's got to be tried, it's got to be tested. So He says in this passage, look, consider it all joy, brethren, you enter these various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

He said, listen, you need to know that. And that's why He moves to wisdom and say, look, the only way you're going to know that is you see things from God's perspective. Because humanly speaking, trials hurt. In God's perspective, trials help. They help my faith.

So that's one of the primary reasons that He allows it. Now, when He says, for example, consider it all joy knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Now, that means to be able to stand up under.

It means to be able to be steadfast no matter what happens. That is, you may not be able to run as fast as the next one. That's not even the issue. The issue is, can you finish?

That's what the issue is. The issue is endurance. In other words, we're enduring. That is, we are facing trial after trial and difficult after difficult and hardship after hardship. And you know what? No matter what we see, we keep being victorious over them no matter what the circumstance.

That is far better than being able to face a trial here and a trial there and go down on the next one. Endurance, continuous steadfastness, strength, why? Because something has happened to your faith. And when your faith is strengthened, what happens? You're able to see these things from a whole different perspective.

And when you see them from a whole different perspective, everything changes. That is, the idea of endurance here is energetic resistance against the pressure. In other words, it isn't just backing up and saying, well, God help me, God help me, God help me. But steadfastness, endurance means I will resist no matter what.

I will move on whatever the price. I will not give up under any condition. That's the kind of spirit, that's the kind of endurance that God wants in our life because we're going to be continually under attack. We're going to continually face trials in life. Thank you for listening to Wisdom for the Trials of Life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by, InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.