The Genuine Article (Part 1 of 2)

If we're given the choice, none of us would choose to suffer. But did you know that trials can actually be good for you? We're going to find out how today on Truth for Life as we continue the series called Faith That Works. Here's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled The Genuine Article. I invite you to turn to James in chapter one as we resume our studies in James this morning. Before we look at our text, we'll just pause and pray. Gracious God, as we come now before your Word, we recognize that what you have to say to us through the Bible is actually more important than what we have to say to you through our songs and our prayers. And so, we ask for a spirit of diligence, for an awareness of your divine work within us as we open our eyes to the pages of the Bible and as we seek to open our hearts to receive the Word that James says needs to be planted in us. Accomplish your purposes, we pray, for Christ's sake. Amen. Well, our text this morning is verse 12.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Like many young couples, when Sue and I were first married back in 1975, and when we lived in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, part of our challenge was in furnishing our flat or our apartment, mainly with second-hand furniture. And we would go to the new town in Edinburgh, which is actually an oxymoron in many ways, but it was a pretty old new town at the time. And down there, on a number of streets, there were all of these second-hand shops. And on pleasant days, much of the furniture was actually out in the street so that you could see it from the road and stop and examine it and handle it and so on. And on one particular occasion, we were there and looking, I think it was at a cabinet, and moving parts at any rate, and in the course of entering into price discussions with the shop owner who was out in the street with us, I said to him, Why would I buy this second-hand piece when I could actually go and, for probably the same money, get a new piece from one of those hypermarkets? Well, he obviously was thrilled at the challenge that was laid down by the question, because his eyes lit up, and he said, Well, I'll show you why you shouldn't do that. And then he proceeded to take this cabinet and to open the doors and to close them with such forcefulness that any lesser piece of material would have really been destroyed. And the more he banged and opened and closed it and showed us the way in which everything was put together and the joints were in wonderful place, he smiled triumphantly, as on every occasion the doors went right back into place. And then, having done that, he said, Now come with me. And he took us through the shop and into a back shop where he obviously had his party piece for occasions such as this, because he had another piece of furniture, a new piece of furniture, that was made with chipboard and had a white sort of plastic veneer on it. And he said, Now this is probably the kind of thing you're talking about.

Whether it was or not didn't matter for the occasion. But he then proceeded to subject this piece of furniture to the same kind of treatment that he'd given to the used piece that was out on the street. And with great triumph, he showed how it very quickly became a real mess and how it affected the screws that were in and so on, and it really wasn't failing very well. And then he said, You see, you can have a piece like this that may look a little better on the outside than what I have out there, but the real issue, he said, is its day-by-day usage and the test of time and the opening and the closing and the slamming and everything else. And he said, It is that which will prove whether you have the genuine article or not. And he said, I suggest to you that you reject this piece, and I still have in mind you love to waggle the door. Reject this piece, he said, and come with me and purchase the genuine article.

And of course, we were sold, and we did. And he spoke a tremendous amount of truth. Now the reason I begin there is because I've decided that an apt heading for this study of verse 12 is simply that phrase, the genuine article. Because James, in these opening verses—and we come to the end of a section here in the 12th verse—is actually addressing the question of faith as a genuine article. What does faith look like?

How do we know whether our faith is the real thing? And the answer that James gives, at least in part, is that genuine faith is to be discovered in the warp and woof of life, in the day-by-day opening and closing, if you like, in the facing up to the challenges and the trials that come our way. In verses 2–4, he's already established the fact that trials are not unnatural, nor are they uncommon, nor are they obstacles to spiritual growth. That of course is very important, because we may be tempted to think that that is the case, listening to people on a daily basis who suggest, somehow or another, that victorious Christian living means the absence of trials. That if you really were a man or a woman of faith, then these events that would threaten to harm you or undo you would somehow or another be uncommon experiences.

And indeed, if you wanted to make any kind of spiritual progress, then you would need to ensure that your life was free of these encumbrances. And what James says is the exact opposite of that. What he says in his opening verses 2–4 is said by Peter in his opening section, as we saw in one of our studies earlier, where in 1 Peter chapter 1 and in verses 6 and 7, addressing again, as James does, the issue of all kinds of trials, he says, these have come so that your faith may be proved genuine.

So that your faith may be proved genuine. So the experience of trials and of difficulties—not uncommon, not unusual, not unproductive, but in fact purposeful in the plan of God. Now verse 12, I think you will agree, completes the thought of verses 2–4. Indeed, linguistically, you can see verses 5–11 in brackets and read from verse 4 immediately to verse 12 and find that the whole thing holds together in terms of logical thought.

And that's why when we dealt with verses 5–11, we said that we need to understand this in light of the structure that he has laid down concerning the notion of persevering faith. But our concern is not so much with that this morning as it is to recognize that in verse 12 he introduces us to the truly happy individual. The word that is used here, blessed, makarios, is not an unfamiliar word in the Bible. It occurs often in the Psalms. Of course, we have the beatitudes of Jesus.

The brother of James. And here James provides us with his own little beatitude. The blessing that accompanies this man, the true happiness which this individual experiences, is a happiness that is not tied to circumstances.

It is not tied to circumstances. But it is a happiness which is known by the individual who doesn't try and duck the difficulties or run from reality but instead perseveres in the face of the trial. Now, in order to help us come to terms with this verse, I want to ask five straightforward questions of it.

They're very simple, but I hope they will be equally helpful. Let's just read the verse one more time. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Well, first of all, what are these trials? What are these trials? Up in verse 2, we are introduced to them as trials of many kinds.

The word in Greek is the word that gives us multicolored—the idea of a rainbow and all of the variety of colors and hues that are represented in the panorama of a rainbow's body. That is the word that is used to describe the trials that are experienced by those who are living the Christian life. They are trials of many kinds. It's interesting that he doesn't begin to list them. He doesn't say, And what I have in mind is this and this.

He deals with it in a generic way, which if you think about it, is actually far more helpful. Because if he had said, I have in mind A, B, and C, then those of us who could look at A, B, and C and say, Well, I have no awareness of this or experience of this right now, then we would either have to go and seek out A, B, and C, because if these trials are the key to maturity, then we're going to have to have them in order to become mature, or we'd have to just decide we're not going to become mature at all. He does mention, parenthetically, that poverty introduces us to a trial that needs to be dealt with, that prosperity in itself may become the occasion of trial, but beyond that, he simply calls them trials of various kinds. Which means that all of us have an immediate point of application. I don't need to ask you what your trial is or what your trials are to be aware of the fact that you have some.

Just to live life and to be honest is to know that. So for example, some of us are facing the trials of adolescence, either as adolescents or as the parents of adolescents. And somebody told us it's a bit of a chore, and we're saying, I didn't realize that it could be such a trial. Some of us are facing the trials of diminishing physical capacity for whatever reason—simply the passage of time, the fact that things are no longer working the way they once did.

For some of us, as Rico Tice said remarkably when he was preaching here, we have a furniture problem insofar as our chest has now dropped down into our drawers, that the impact of gravity is taking its toll. The trials of no job, the trials of the same job, the trials of a new job. Someone says, I wish I had a job.

Someone else says, you can have my job. Trial trial. The trials of not having children. The trials of having children. The trials of being an only child.

The trials of having siblings who drive you nuts. No, these trials are all kinds of trials. They are not uncommon, they are not unusual, and they are not obstacles to spiritual growth. And the tremendously encouraging factor is this—and you need to go to 1 Peter again to get this, it's verse 10 of chapter 4, you can deal with it later—but Peter employs the very same word of God's grace as he employs of human trials. It's manifold trials, manifold grace, or multicolored trials, multicolored grace. In other words, the grace of God is more than able to meet all the kinds of trials that are faced by God's people as they walk the path of faith. Question number two, what does it mean to persevere under trials?

What does it mean to persevere under trials? And you'll notice that it is not suggesting that we fly above the trials, but rather that we are flying through the trials. Every so often when you're flying, the pilot will tell you that he has spoken to air traffic control and he has spoken to some of the planes that are flying ahead of us, and there is no possibility of us being able to go above, below, or around the turbulence that we now face. He has asked everybody to please be seated, and if we would just give one more little tug on our belts—I love how they say that, just one more little tug on your belt—and we are going to fly through this. We're going to fly through it. The Christian life is all about flying through it. And anybody who comes to you with a story about getting above it and beyond it and so on is teaching you from an empty head and from a closed Bible.

James is absolutely categorically clear. When you face trials of all kinds—not if you face trials, but when you face them—the challenge is the challenge of perseverance. What does it mean, then, to persevere under trials?

That's our question. Well, it means refusing to run away from the challenges. Refusing to run away from the challenges. Some of us are experts at running away. Soon as anything becomes difficult, we just run. Change jobs, change home, change locations, change school, change courses.

Oh, I didn't think chemistry would be this hard. The only way to deal with this is make a run for it. No, you could actually try and see it through. Not running away, but running on. Running with perseverance, as the writer to the Hebrews says in 12. Running with perseverance, the race that is marked out for us. It means not only that, but holding on, no matter how hard it might be. Because in this way, we actually prove to ourselves, as well as to any who may be watching, that perseverance in the face of trials is not only possible, but it is profitable. You see, how do we prove to ourselves that our faith is genuine?

It's when trials come. When the trials come and everything goes skew-with, now we find out whether these professions and these testimonies and these verses and all that stuff we've said about the grace of God and the peace of God and the securing providence of God—now we have an opportunity to find out whether the profession of our lips is matched by the experience of our lives. And that's what it means to persevere in them. Not just possible by God's grace, but also profitable on account of God's grace. In Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, which you can read later on if you choose, is exactly along these lines.

I'll give you just a little piece from it. He says, He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials. No man can be illustrious before the Lord unless his conflicts be many. If then yours be a much-tried path, rejoice in it, because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of God. As for his failing you, never dream of it. Take the thought, the God who has been sufficient until now should be trusted to the end.

Add Spurgeon on 2 Corinthians 12.9. Thirdly, what does it mean, then, to stand the test? You'll notice that the verse goes on, because when he has stood the test, the word is dokimos in Greek. It means approved after testing.

And that is the word that he uses here. When he has stood the test, when he is the one who has the seal of God's approval on his life because he is a persevering believer. But without the trials, there's no test, and without the test, there's no graduation. You don't get a seal of approval without going through the test. God is purposeful in what he does in the lives of his children.

That's what James is saying. How long does this test take? When I looked at this, at first I thought, you know, when he has stood the test—this is a moment in time—and then I looked, and I said, no, when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. When do you receive the crown of life? In eternity. When does eternity come? Just after you finish with time. When will you be finished with time? At the end of your life.

How long is this test going to last? The whole of life. See, basically, if we're honest, the whole of our lives is just one gigantic series of tests. There's something reassuring about that, though, isn't there?

Because it gives us an opportunity to think seriously and realistically about the things that we and other people are going through when we're tempted to regard them as intruders rather than, as James says, welcoming them as friends. Every so often, when you're flying—and I'm sorry, this is my last flying analogy for the morning, but eighteen and a half hours from Johannesburg to New York has put flying firmly in my mind for a while—but you've had the experience, you find yourself sitting next to a pilot, and you say, Where are you going? And he says, I'm going to the simulator. And why are you going to the simulator? Well, I'm going to simulate. And I'm going to have experiences of turbulence and stress and the loss of an engine or the loss of two engines or an aborted takeoff or whatever else it is, so that if and when that ever happens, I might be prepared and ready to go.

And of course, you're very interested in that, and you wish him the best, and you hope that he finishes his course successfully, just in case the two of us are ever back together again in a real-life situation. But when you think about it, the Christian life has no simulation. The Christian life is a real-time experience all the time every day. And what James makes so obviously clear is that the experience of joy and trial is an experience that is a simultaneous experience. It is not, as we've said before, that in the absence of trial is the discovery of joy, but rather that joy—a joy that is an unfathomable joy—may be discovered on account of the trial. I've quoted this verse to you before from the hymn, but it is a useful verse, isn't it? It's the hymn that begins, My God, I thank you, who has made the earth so bright and all of the wonderful things in the earth. And then the hymn writer says, I thank you too, that all my joy is touched with pain, that shadows fall on brightest hours and thorns remain, so that earth's bliss may be my guide and not my chain. You see, the blisses and the encouragements of our earthly journey may chain us to a constant fixation with wanting more and more and more of that affirmation, that approbation, that good time, that safe time. And God, in his heavenly wisdom, brings into our experience pain in the reality of joy in order that we might become more like his Son. Trials are unavoidable, but we're finding out that God uses them to test our faith and to make us more like Jesus.

You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Your mission here at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance. As we study the book of James, we're learning how this practical instruction is relevant to our lives, particularly in the midst of trials.

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The books are available to buy at our cost at truthforlife.org slash store. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for listening today. Life's challenges can sometimes feel overwhelming. Many of us have probably been tempted to give up or to run away at one time or another. But as believers, we're instructed to persevere. Join us tomorrow as we'll continue learning how to stay the course in the midst of trials. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.