A Gospel Perspective for Life’s Trials

Summit family and our friends, you are in for a real treat today. Pastor Daniel Simmons is going to take us through James 1 as we try to find perspective in the midst of trials.

I mean, none of you have had any trials this year at all, right? Listen, I think this is going to be something that's very helpful and relevant for all of us. Trials are a part of life and Pastor Daniel has his own stories to pull from, a man who has walked with God and experienced God faithful in these kinds of valleys. So let's join Pastor Daniel as he takes us through God's answers.

To how we ought to respond to difficult circumstances. Well hello, Summit Church. I am so glad to be with you today. A very happy Thanksgiving.

I hope you had a great holiday. If you're joining us from one of our home gatherings where you've gathered with some other Summit family members. If you're just visiting, if you're just kind of dropping by online, we're really glad that you're with us today.

Or maybe you're joining us from overseas. You're one of our people that that we've sent out over the years and you've come to worship. We're really excited that you're here with us today. Just know if you're overseas, we love you and that the staff and the elders of this church and the people of this church pray for you. And we're really proud of you.

I hope God is blessing you a great deal. You might be wondering who am I? You probably haven't seen me before.

My name is Daniel. I'm one of the pastors here at the church. I've been on staff here for about 10 years. Last year I planted the North Raleigh campus with a whole group of awesome people. We saw God do so much. And now the North Raleigh campus rolled into the Capitol Hills campus. And it's been kind of amazing to be here for 10 years.

In some years, 10 years is a long time. And I've seen God do so much. When I first came here, there was 3000 people.

And last time I checked, we had 12,000 people in attendance last February. And we have so many more kind of checking us out. And I've seen God bring people to Christ. I've then seen God bring their kids to Christ.

I've seen young people get married and start their marriages off with a deep faith in God. I've seen God do amazing things through this church and our community. And one of the things that we pray for continually is not just about filling seats here, but by sending people out. And we've planted churches all over the United States.

We've planted churches all over the world. I love being here. I love this church.

2020 has thrown some challenges our way, but it's also given us some opportunities. And we've really upped our game, like with being with our online presence. And so you, you are a part of what God is doing at our church. And we are really excited about that, because we know and we believe that the church is God's plan A for reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if there's enough about me, I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive in. So Father, thank you so much for today. I thank you for your word. I thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I thank you for every single person that is joining in with us today, whether they've been a part of our church for 50 years, or whether it's their very first time. God, I pray that you would, that you would encourage every single one of us with your word, that you would challenge us where we need to be challenged. And let this sermon be an opportunity for us to grow in our faith with you, and to push us out to make disciples wherever we are.

And I pray all this in your name. Amen. Well, guys, when I was 16, my life radically changed at the DMV. I bet you didn't think I was going to say that, did you? But it did.

And it actually changed for the better. And it's not because I got my driver's license. Instead, it's because I failed. I failed the eye test.

I didn't even get a chance on my 16th birthday to get behind the wheel of a car. Because when I sat down at the eye test station, there was an old man behind it. He made me look through it. After about two minutes, he looked up at me. He said, you failed the eye test.

You need corrective lenses. I was devastated. I thought maybe he would comfort me. But I forgot that I was at the DMV.

He said next. So I had to get up. I had to do the walk of shame.

I had to go tell my mom. I could not take the driving test. My eyesight was bad. And I had to go get corrective lenses.

But here's the thing. I had no clue my eyesight was bad. I mean, I knew that I kind of had to squint at the TV.

I knew that I sat at the front of the classroom because sitting in the back, I couldn't see the board very well. But I had passed every single eye test all the way through school up to that point. In fact, I had passed the eye test at that same DMV the year before to get my learner's permit. So I figured that my eyesight was fine. So we went to the eye doctor. She kind of did my eyes up. We had to wait one week for me to get glasses.

I went back. And I'll never forget the first time I put on glasses. It was as if I was seeing with new eyes. For the first time, I could see distance. I could see clarity.

I could see depth. I got behind the wheel of the car that day with my mom. And I was like, Mom, how did I not die this year? We were driving. I was like, a stop sign actually says stop in the middle of it? I thought it was just red with a white line in the middle of it. I was like, trees.

They have leaves. Who knew? I had been completely unaware of how poor my eyesight was and how much better I was going to be able to see clearly with glasses on. And that's why the DMV did that. The DMV knew that if I could not see properly, if I did not have a clear perspective of the road, then I wasn't going to be able to drive very safely and that I was not going to be a very effective driver. But the glasses created clarity.

They created clarity so that I would be safe, so that I would be able to drive well. And doesn't a clear perspective do that for every single situation we could go through in life? Like if you have a clear perspective of the situation and the circumstances that you're going through, you're going to be able to live through it better.

You're going to be able to navigate that better. And the passage that we're going to look at today, which is James 1, 2 through 6, is going to tell us how to do that in maybe the most difficult situation to have a clear perspective. And that's the trials and the hardships of life. And I think what this passage is going to show us is this. Is that a clear perspective in trials will give you confidence and hope in God. And if you can have confidence and hope in the midst of trials, you're going to be able to lift through them more effectively.

You're going to be able to navigate them well. And that's what God wants for you and for me. So let's dive into the passage, James 1, verses 2 through 6. It says, I know what you might be thinking right there. You might be thinking that that's a strange jump for the writer of this passage to make. Talking about trials to talking about wisdom. But I know it seems like that.

It felt like that to me when I first read it. But we're going to come back to that because he absolutely means to make that jump. But let's keep going. And so there's three things that I want to pull out of this text for us today. First, the reality of trials. Second, the larger purpose for trials. And third, how to gain this clear perspective that James is talking about.

And that I've been talking about. So point number one, the reality of trials. He says, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith.

I'm going to pause right there. The Bible is very honest in this passage and throughout all of it that trials are a very normal part of life. The Bible never minimizes that. Trials are a very normal part of life. The Bible never minimizes the reality or the severity of the trials that you faced. The Bible basically talks about trials and hardships as if they are a given in life.

And I really like James's, the word he uses when he says, when you meet trials. It's as if you're going along in life and you meet someone unexpectedly. You weren't thinking that you were going to meet them. You're not sure what to expect of them when you meet them.

You may only meet them and they may come and go or you may meet them and they may stay with you for a very long time. But either way, if you are a human being, you should expect to go through trials. The next thing he says is the various trials.

So James isn't like honing in on one very specific thing. James is trying to tell his readers and us that there's all these different types of trials out there and we're going to face them. Some trials are going to be small. Some are going to be really big. Some are going to be minor. Some are going to be really severe. Some are going to be with us for just a little bit of time. Some are going to be with us for the rest of our life.

But there are all these different types of trials and we are going to go through them. And one reason why I think this passage is really important for us today is because 2020 has been one big trial for every single person I know. There's not one person that I've met this year that has not, that has not faced the hardship of life in 2020.

It's been hard for me personally. I'm an extrovert. I love the people that I work with.

I love our church. I love to be out and about. And I've been forced to sit at home more than I ever have before. That's been really difficult for me.

That's a little bit of a trial. I've had to watch my kids stay home from school. They don't love staying home from school. School's been a little bit harder. Listen, if you're a teacher, and I think there's actually some teachers at my kid's school that are tuning in today, I think you've done a great job. I think you have done everything that you possibly can to teach these kids.

And I think you're doing a great job. But nevertheless, it's been difficult for them. And as a dad, it's been difficult to watch them struggle as much as they are. And I know that even in 2020, there's all different types of trials that people have had to face. People are losing their jobs.

People are getting sick. Because people are staying at home together, some marriages, the cracks that were already there, well, they're starting to kind of come to the surface. On top of that, 2020, we've seen the most social unrest in our country that we've ever seen. And we've also been through the most contentious election that probably any of us have seen in our lifetime. On top of that, 2020 didn't replace the trials that we faced in 2018 and 2019.

It only added to them. So all the trials that we would have been facing had 2020 not been such a crazy year, we're having to walk through those as well. In fact, the only group that has benefited from 2020 are dogs. I feel like I know 25 people that have all gotten a COVID puppy. To be honest with you, we got one. I stood strong all of 2019.

I said, no way, no way. And then COVID hit and I was like, sure, let's get a dog. I think we're putting a picture up for him. But literally, it's the best time in the world for dogs. They're getting adopted left and right.

You stay home with them every single day. They're getting three walks a day. But for all the rest of us, 2020 has stunk pretty bad. But there is good news about trials. Because God has a larger purpose for our trials. Every single type of trial that you could go through, God is working in them. Let's keep reading the passage. He says, For you know that the testing in your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James wants to make it very clear that God is at work behind every single trial you go through.

Think about that just for one moment with me. Every single trial you have ever faced, whether big or small, God has been behind the scenes doing a work in you. Listen, trials happen to you. But God is at work in you. God has a goal and a purpose for every single trial that you are going to face. And what that ultimate goal is, is to build your character. God wants to work on the inner person. And what he says is, he says that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And what that word means, like literally, it means to hyperstand.

It means to plant your feet and lean into the hardships that are coming at you and not to back up. This is not mere patience, right? Like how many of you have ever sat on an airplane on the tarmac and the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and he says, Excuse me, we're gonna having a little trouble here. We're going to be sitting on the tarmac for about 30 minutes.

We just want to thank you for your patience. And I want to yell at the top of my lungs when that happens. I have no choice. I have no control.

I simply have to sit there. It's passive. Steadfastness is not passive. I think about when COVID first broke and we knew that it was going to be pretty serious and all of the medical workers stayed at their post. They went into the hospitals.

They went into the doctor's offices to help those that were coming down with COVID even at great risk to themselves. That is steadfastness. That's leaning into the hardships and not backing up. But steadfastness is not, that's not even the end goal. There's more work that God is doing behind the scenes because what he says is, is that as you face trials and your faith is tested, steadfastness is going to grow. And over time, as you stay steadfast, three things, God is going to be doing three things, building three things in you. One, it says that you may be perfect. And what that means is that you would be mature in every aspect of your life. The second thing he says is that you would be complete or that you would be whole. A theologian named Richard Baucom describes this as the integration between what you believe and what you do, that your words align with how you live, that you're able to say no to what you need to say no to, and that you're able to say yes to the things that are healthy for you. That's the sense of wholeness, of being complete. It's a major theme in the entire book of James.

And the third thing is not lacking in anything. And what that means, he's not talking about material things. He's talking about being equipped to handle whatever it is that life throws your way, that this is the work that God is doing behind all of our trials. This is his goal for you. He's not going to necessarily take away the trial, and he certainly doesn't want you to just make it through the trial.

He wants to grow you in the midst of the trial. Now, at this point, you may be thinking, Daniel, what you're saying sounds great. It sounds really good on paper, but with where I am and the pain that I'm going through and the trials I'm facing, I just don't know how to do what you're talking about. I can't bring that up from myself. I can't make myself feel joy and suffering or content and suffering. And I'm not sure that the work that God is doing behind the scenes is worth the pain that I'm going through.

And I just want to tell you that I get it. I've walked that path before. We have a daughter that it seems like she has been in and out of the hospital. She has had multiple medical diagnosis.

And one time when she was six years old, a doctor looked across and said, she's going to have to be in a wheelchair from now until she's about 18. And I had to wrestle with that. I had to wrestle with, well, the Bible says that this is true about God. I know this to be true about God.

I tell people that this is true about God all the time, but I'm not sure how these things can be true in the reality of what my daughter is going through to be true at the same time. But I did. I fought for it, and I was able to get here. It took time. It took prayer.

It took others coming around me, but it did happen. I wish that the choice we have was to choose between suffering and not suffering. But the truth is, is that our choice is between suffering with hope and suffering without hope. And that's why I think James actually makes the jump from suffering to wisdom, because wisdom is going to give us the clarity to suffer with hope. It's going to give us the clarity and the perspective to see the work that God is doing behind the trials.

So let's keep going. Verse five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith and with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

This is where James tells us how to gain the clear perspective we need to see trials properly. And he is very direct, and he's on the nose with it, is that we need wisdom. And if we want wisdom, we simply need to ask. But there's a right way to ask, and there's a wrong way to ask.

And the right way to ask requires two things. The first one is that it requires humility. See in this spot right here, if any of you lacks wisdom, well, in order to gain wisdom, you need to realize that you don't have a sufficient amount of it. You need to have the self-awareness to be like, man, the wisdom that it is going to take to make it through this, I can't produce that from within myself.

I can't find it in all the different places on earth. I need to ask God. You know, one of the things that is really true is that wise people are humble people. Just a couple chapters later in the book of James, it says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. You see, wise people consistently humble themselves before the Lord, and the Lord consistently pours out his grace and his wisdom on them. You see, one of the primary markers of a wise person is not intelligence. It's humility.

Do you want this wisdom? Well, you've got to humble yourself before the Lord and ask. But the second thing is you've got to ask in faith.

And James uses some pretty strong language here. He's like, you have to ask, and you can't doubt when you ask. And I believe that what James is getting at here is, do you really know who you're talking to when you ask for wisdom?

Like, do you know his character? Because what this passage makes really clear about God is that he's generous. It's that God longs to pour out his grace on you. He longs to give you wisdom. This is like one of those prayers that if you ask it in the right way, James says it's a yes every single time.

If you will ask in humility and you will ask in faith for wisdom, God will always give it to you. And that's because the character of God is generous. In fact, you could actually, where it says in there, let him ask God, who is generous to all. In the original Greek, you actually should flip God and generous. So the way that it would read is, let him ask the giving God. You see, at the heart of who God is, he's a giver. He's generous. And when it says in there without reproach, what that means is that you can't come to God and him ever be annoyed by you asking. Right, like around February or March, my wife and I always get four or five letters from high school students and college students asking us to give them money to go on trips to go share the gospel with people. And usually the first letter we're like really excited about and usually the second letter. By the fifth letter, I'm kind of like, would these kids think I'm made of money?

Like what do they want me to do? Give them all my money to go share the gospel with people overseas? That attitude that I have right there is stingy. God is never stingy. God is just as pleased with you coming to ask him to be generous with you the 10,000th time as much as he is the first time. God loves to give. If you will humble yourself before God and ask because you know he's generous, God wants to pour out his grace on you. He wants to give wisdom to you.

And this is where I want to wrap us up today. Because 1 Corinthians 1 24 says that Jesus is the wisdom of God. So when you come and you ask God in humility and faith for wisdom, you're not merely asking for God to give you information.

Because what God is going to give you in that moment is a relationship. God's not going to put information in your head. He's going to come and walk alongside of you.

He's going to walk with you in the midst of the trial. And isn't that what we really need? In our darkest moment, what we need is not facts. We need someone to come alongside us who is powerful and strong and compassionate and loving and remind us that we are never going to be forsaken.

He is going to remind us that we are never going to be left alone. And the greatest confidence that we have in this is that God is absolutely using our trials to change us. But the reason we can trust that so much is that God used his trials to change us. When you look through the Bible, when you look through the Old Testament, you will see many times when God's heart is broken. When God himself is going through trials and in every single one of those, he never gives up on his people.

He never abandons his people. And then at one point in history, God came down and he took on flesh and he lived among us as a man. And if you ever read the gospels, you'll see that Jesus went through many trials. And then he went through the ultimate trial.

You see, when he went up on that cross, he was mocked, he was shamed. Even the people that loved him most in this world abandoned him. But he did that for you. He did that so that he could have a relationship with you. God's greatest desire for you is that you and he would be close.

Is that you would have a close, deep, intimate relationship with him. And that's how we can know when we are in the midst of the worst trial, in the darkest moment of our life. If God was willing to face the worst trial that could ever be imagined for us, there is no way that he would ever abandon us. So what I want you to know right now is if you're not a believer, if you're searching, if you've kind of been curious and you're joining us because you feel like you're on a journey, that all the things that God has been doing in your life up to this point, all the trials that you have, he's been wanting those to work in your life to bring you to know him. And for the rest of us, for me and for you, if you're a believer, the trials pretty much do the same thing. What they are meant to do is to draw us into a deeper relationship with him where we know him and depend on him in a deeper level.

And through that, we become more and more like him. That's my hope and my prayer for us. Let me pray. God, I pray that you would give us the clear perspective of our trials that would bring hope and remind us that there is a bigger purpose behind our trials, that you are working in our life through each and every trial that there is. So God, we thank you. God, we love you. Continue to work in our lives. I'm gonna pray all this in your name. Amen.