Christ Church Washington D.C.

Our sermon text is the first eight verses of chapter one of James. Give careful attention to the reading of God’s word. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect

that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 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, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man.

unstable in all of his ways. The word of the Lord. Lord and our God, we do thank you for your word and Holy Spirit. We pray that you would apply it precisely where it is most needed to bring about the maturity that you intend through it, through Christ our Lord. And it is in his name that we pray. And amen.

About six months ago, over Easter weekend, we, the public, got news of the remarkable and the harrowing rescue of a pilot that went down over Iran after his plane was struck by enemy fire. And last week, he shared more of this remarkable story publicly for the first time since the incident. And what stood out, to me at least, among the dramatic details was…

how clearly God scripted this story was and how much Bravo, even in the pain and the intensity of it all, was cognizant of that. That even here, the Lord is with me.

It was amazing to hear him recall how he flinched forward in faith even as his life hung literally by a thread. In the interview, he mentioned how his parachute was damaged in the initial explosion and so that he was essentially free-falling to earth. And as he realized his predicament and his hands frantically moved to try to get some fabric out of the chute to catch his fall, he told the reporter that he prayed this.

Lord, your will be done, but if I’m getting through this, I need your help. And the Lord did help. He ended up hitting the ground at an estimated 80 miles per hour, give or take, with several broken bones, but still he survived. But the drama was just beginning. He…

by a whole lot of grit and a whole lot of grace, then proceeded to ascend 7,000 feet of a climb to find some coverage. And once there, he was able to send off his first communication. And it had these three essential elements. I’m hurt, I’m moving, and God is good.

His was a faith that flinched forward while in the teeth of a trial. And as we begin the letter of James today, in earnest, this is the very thing James will be calling the church to. A steady faith that joyfully flinches forward when trials, which must come, do come. This is the main thrust of his message, which he wants this young church to catch a vision of.

Last time we did an introduction to the letter written by the Apostle James, we considered the author and the audience and the atmosphere surrounding the writing of this letter. We noted that while church history generally assumes it was written by James, the brother of Jesus, that there is compelling reason to believe perhaps it could have been written by James, the son of Alphaeus and one of Jesus’ closest three, not least because he was martyred in Acts 12 and

In the very events the letter addresses are front burner issues in the church, Acts 8 through 11, namely the dispersion of the church out of Jerusalem in the wake of Stephen’s martyrdom and the intense persecution, the intense persecution by the Jews that the church, including many of the new Jewish converts, were now facing. With that, let’s overview our text today.

So it begins, James self-consciously is writing this letter, and he’s doing so in Christ’s name and for Christ’s service. He’s writing it to the 12 tribes of the dispersion, and his aim in using that language is not to saddle them with an exile mentality, an escapist mentality, but rather is to identify them as the new Israel.

That is the church. And remember, we noted last week that James in the original Greek is actually Jacobus. It’s Jacob. It’s literally Jacob to the 12 tribes, which makes the connection even clearer. That’s verse 1. And he’s writing because…

They are now in a persecution pressure cooker. They’re in an intense trial. And this pressure, like pressure always does, started revealing some cracks within the church. Pressure always reveals cracks. Here it was the cracks of fear or frustration or favoritism or even violent quarreling or vitriolic speech.

This pressure was revealing those cracks. And so as a wise father, James lifts their proverbial chin and calls them to consider their immediate circumstance in light of the eternal story.

Consider your immediate circumstance, the immediate pressure in light of the bigger eternal story. That just as molten fire burns away the dross and filler in gold, so that the hotter the fire, the more precious, the more refined the metal becomes. So the fires of their trials are removing the fluff and the filler of their faith that they thought was so strong. It is a grace.

because it’s forging in them a steadfastness, a greater poise, a greater resilience in the good fight of faith.

Our Lord uses the same word in the parable of the soils for steadfastness. It’s Luke 8, 15. He says, As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. That’s the word. Bear fruit with steadfastness over time.

It’s a patient endurance that is fruitful. It brings something about this steadfastness. And James tells us one thing for certain, patiently enduring a trial will bring about, namely, it will bring about Christian maturity.

It’ll cause toddler Christians to grow up into maturity. That’s really the word that’s translated perfect in our text. That’s what it’s getting at. It’s not perfection in the sense of complete moral purity on this side of glory. That won’t happen until we see our Lord and anyone who says otherwise has wonky theology. One only need to go to 1 John 1.8. If you say you have no sin, then you make God a liar.

But that kind of settles that. No, it’s not perfect in that sense. The actual root word is telos, right? That’s the purpose or the ends or the realization of the reason the thing exists. It’s telos, the full mature expression of a thing, which for the Christian is to look more and more like Christ. That is the glorious thing.

that the fires of trial ultimately produce in us in the same way that Michelangelo’s chisel strikes brought David out of the marble. That’s verses three through four. But in the midst of a trial, in the fog of a spiritual war, we get disoriented.

So we must lean heavily on the Lord when that comes. We must ask him for wisdom to endure it well. James says, if anyone lacks wisdom, remember, that’s not just a general disconnected statement. It’s in context. If you lack wisdom amidst the trial, which is all of us, no one has a saturation point on wisdom, then call upon the Lord as the first and continuous action point amidst trials. Prayer.

Say, Lord, help me. Lord, steady me. Bring your word to my mind. Give me wisdom for this moment right now. This is Bravo, calling out to the Lord while pulling out pieces of parachute during a free fall. Lord, I’m hands ready to act. I would like to act, but I need you to do what only you can do. Stabilize, steady, give me wisdom to endure this well. Side note,

This is a good reminder that we can go straight to the source in prayer to God himself. We don’t need to go through Mary or through icons or through saints. You go to the Lord, ask him in all of his fatherly embrace and compassion to help. And God hears with alacrity, with a readiness to respond as if Jesus himself were making the request because he is.

That’s verse 5. But though God doesn’t play favorites, he hears all of our prayers readily when we come to him, James does give one condition on our prayers. Namely, we should ask in faith. We should ask with a believing heart, not fingers crossed, not hedging our bets.

Not while being tossed on the stormy seas like a boat with a sail up that catches every wind of emotion or every wind of the stock market or the winds of scorn or the applause of man that blows us to and fro. He says, don’t do that. Don’t be more dominated by a dopamine hit than by trust in the divine.

who is constantly with you. He says, if you do, if you’re constantly staring past Jesus to the waves, like Peter did momentarily that one time, you ought not expect to gain any wisdom at all through the trial. That’s verses six through eight. But, and this is really important, we must understand what James means by asking in faith without wavering when you’re in it. Here’s not what James is saying.

Here’s not what James is saying, because that could feel like a lot of pressure. Like, don’t you screw it up at all while you pray, or it’s done. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s not saying you must have perfect poise in every syllable in your prayer, as if the Lord’s staring at your spiritual EKG. And if it quivers at all, if your faith and prayer falters in the slightest, then forget it. No wisdom. You must walk the faith tightrope with zero wobble. That’s not what he’s saying.

Now, if you read the text woodenly, you could let it land on you that way, but not only is that impossible, that’s not the picture he’s painting. One way verse 6 could be translated is ask in faithfulness.

It’s not so much keeping a perfect spiritual poise in every second of prayer, but it’s rather continually flinching forward in faith, responding in faith, prayerfully embracing, repenting, and rejoicing as we walk through the trials and even stumble through the trials. Pastor Jeffrey Meyer says it really well. He says, “‘A person who asks for wisdom and maturity,’

without the faithfulness to endure the hard process, will not receive anything from God, not because of God’s stinginess, but because of their unwillingness to participate in the reception of the gift. You get that?

They won’t receive something from God, not because God is stingy and won’t give it, but because the wisdom comes through the trial and they won’t participate with open hands to receive what the Lord says. See, the wisdom God gives in trials is not some secret knowledge that he just beams into your brain disconnected from the trial.

And it certainly doesn’t come usually by quickly removing the trial. Rather, the wisdom he gives comes by walking the path in faith through the trial with a steady confidence that even here, God is at work. Even here, God is good. Even here, there is a precision to his providence that is working something good to mature me.

Thinking again of Bravo after the miracle, where his life was spared after denting the earth, there was still a mountain on the other side of the miracle. He still had to climb the mountain. His faith was not just in the moment of prayer as he fell, but in every step up the mountain after his life was spared. Genuine faith in God plays out one step at a time through the season.

including the faithfulness of repenting when we sin or we do fall into unbelief. Job is the picture of this, which, interestingly, James will reference near the end of the book. James 5.11, he says, you’ve heard of the steadfastness of Job, so that’s the same word in our text, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord really is compassionate and merciful.

But Job was not perfect. Job, he had his groans, he had his growing pains. He was deeply perplexed at times by God’s hard providence, but he also tethered himself to the mast. He tethered himself to the mast, refused to jump ship, even when his wife told him to curse God and die. He refused to doubt the essential goodness of the Lord, even when he couldn’t understand it.

He said, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That was the banner over his life. And that is the gospel grit James is wanting us to mature up into. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And when the dust settles, it’ll all be made clear. So that’s the text.

Now, there are two areas I want to drill down some in more on how we flinch forward in faith, even in joy when the rough patch comes. First, we can do this more and more by understanding the dignity of godly discipline. I’ll draw this out in a minute.

We can do this by understanding the dignity of godly discipline when it comes. It’s a dignified thing to be disciplined by the Lord. I get this from Hebrews 12. He says in verse 7, it is for discipline that you have to endure because God is treating you as sons, as heirs.

For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? And verse 10, for earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. He disciplines us so that as heirs, we become to resemble him more and more in all of his holiness. Let that sink in. God desires that we share.

In his holiness. Make it personal. God desires that you, even you, genuinely reflect his holiness in the world in a way that is true. In the way that creation could say that and say, now I understand something better about the holiness of God. God wants that for you. The unbearable weight of glory. And that’s a diamond that takes pressure to produce.

That’s a diamond that takes pressure to produce. That’s a dignity that comes through his discipline. And something that’s an extension of this that I’m not sure we consider enough, but we ought to. For the Christian, character formation and personal holiness is not an end in and of itself. It’s not an end in and of itself as if the Lord has a trophy case that he’s really eager to put us in so that we just look pretty disconnected from what he’s doing.

But we must understand that we are the nobility of the new creation in training. We are the nobility of the new creation in training. When Paul says that we’ve been seated with Christ in the heavenly realm, that is royal language. That is care paravel language.

You have been allowed to sit on thrones in Narnia, as it were, of being ruling vice regents of the king as his kingdom spreads throughout all the land. That’s what that’s getting at. And that takes testing and trials and forging to be able to execute the dignity of that role. Well, what’s true is we often don’t see ourselves with the same royal dignity that Jesus does and has pronounced upon us.

We have small thoughts about the high office of being co-heirs of the king. This is something Paul labored to get the hot mess that was the Corinthian church to grasp. They gave him many reasons to bang his head against the wall. Shocking, embarrassing sexual immorality, getting drunk at communion, that’s bad. But there’s an interesting one in 1 Corinthians 6.

And it’s that they would debase themselves by bringing lawsuits against one another in front of pagan courts. They would ask pagans to sort out their toddler tantrums with one another. And Paul just looks at them, as it were, with the expression, only a bewildered parent can conjure. And he says, don’t you realize that you will judge angels one day?

Don’t you understand who you are? That’s the characters you are becoming in the story. Nobility of the new creation, wise, mature, discerning. And yet you’re so immature that you can’t even sort out your tangles and have to go to pagans to ask them to judge you? Those who will one day judge angels? That’s what he’s trying to get them to see, to wake up and understand who you are in Christ.

the dignified role that you’ve been given as a co-heir in the kingdom. And even though we’re not facing the same issues Corinth was here, Paul’s rebuke is instructive in that it does help us better understand the great dignity that we are invested with as co-heirs with Christ. Kings and queens called to rule well in the story that is playing out through the gospel.

to grow up and to mature. Well, this takes training. This takes trials. This takes discipline, which is a dignity that one grasp should take our breath away. So let us embrace them joyfully.

Quick aside before moving on, this should also be a warning to us who are parents at the dangers of bubble-wrapping our children so that they would never scrape their knees or never face any adversity or never experience natural consequences for foolish behavior or never struggle through something that’s hard. It might feel loving to always run cover, to try to shield every burden, every consequence, but it’s not. Children must feel age-appropriate struggles.

This is how they grow up. This is how their soul thickens. This is how they grow in the grace of gaining some grit. Now, of course, we’re with them in the struggle, but we aren’t always lifting every ounce of weight all the time. It is possible to be kind and compassionate without coddling. Indeed, this is precisely how the Lord deals with us.

Parental kindness is not measured by how the child feels about something in the moment. It’s measured in the trajectory you’re helping set them on over the long haul. So we should seek to protect our children, but not to bubble wrap them, just like the Lord does with us.

Okay, so one way we cultivate the virtue of flinching forward, as I’ve called it, is by understanding the dignity of godly discipline, understanding the ends of where we’re headed. This is why this is happening. He is training us. Another is this. We do so by fixing our eyes moment by moment on purpose on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12, one and two. Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. Who? For the joy.

set before him, endured the cross, despised its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And notice, as we look to Jesus, we’ll find Jesus modeling the very thing we just spoke of. How could he endure the cross?

It’s because he saw the joy on the other side of it, that the cross was the path to the crown. His being lifted up on Calvary was the path to his ascension to the throne. And we see that there is nothing the Lord will call us to do that our Lord Jesus has not already done. The Lord Jesus blazed the trail to glory by enduring great trials for us.

And he was not guarded from the jagged edges. Jesus did not hover over the earth two feet above it during the incarnation. Now listen to Hebrews 5.8 and really listen to this. The writer of Hebrews says, this is actually beginning in 7. In the days of Jesus’ flesh, he offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

And he was heard because of his reference. Although he was a son, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

Now, to be clear and to state the obvious, this does not mean that he was disobedient and learned how to become obedient. Obviously not what it’s saying, made like us in every way, but without sin. Rather, it’s saying he grew in greater obedience as greater tests came.

He grew in greater obedience. He grew in wisdom and stature before God and man. With the final exam being willingly nailed to a Roman cross because of the snarling envy of men that he had created. But he did it that we might be saved. And all suffering that a Christian faces is done in union with the Lord Jesus Christ who knows experientially just how real the suffering is

and who walks the path with us. So Christian in the fray, Christian in the good fight, Christian whose trials are not something you’re waiting for, but are very thick today, take great comfort. Your captain has not only gone before you, but he has a knowing sympathy for you. And he is with you in them, both to strengthen your heart and to strengthen your hands. So where is the battle forefront right now?

Where does this hit the ground for you today, this text? What trial are you in right now, or you might face this week, where you need to get a jovial fighter’s stance right now to receive something hard with great gratitude? Are you slandered for righteousness’ sake, be it at work or walking to church or even within your own family after reading a propaganda piece? Jesus endured that too.

Even his family called him a madman, with the elites deriding him. Perhaps it’s a belt-tightening season because of the economy or because in God’s providence, you’re underemployed. Jesus knows that trial. He knows the trial of belt-tightening. Do you know why his mom and dad offered birds at the temple? It’s because that was the provision made for poor people.

if you couldn’t actually afford the real sacrifice. That was the family in God’s providence Jesus was born into. He gets economic hardship experientially. Or maybe your trial is one of grief over the loss of a family member or just feeling the mortality keenly as parents age and seasons change. Jesus knows this as he almost certainly lost his father during his life.

which is why he made provision for his dear mother while on the cross to John, behold your mother, man, behold your mom. There is no category of trial that Jesus does not know and does not sympathize with. There is no pain you’ll face on the path to glory that he has not endured as he bore the cross before the crown.

So look to him, beloved, both as your kingly example and as your sympathetic high priest. Look to him and be strengthened. But not all trials are existential. They come in all shapes and sizes, from the very hard to the seemingly silly but real. Moms, you’re at the bank with three kids when the baby has a blowout, and you have that sinking feeling as you unzip the diaper bag and realize you are fresh out. Ha, ha, ha.

Even the Lord sees and knows that and is working something through it. Probably a combination of patience and creative puddling of sorts. So add the sanctified laugh track, swallow your pride, roll up your sleeves, and count it all joy. The Lord says he’s numbered every one of our hairs, which means he is not with us just in crisis mode, but every second of every day, and he cares.

There’s never a moment or never a trial too big or too small that he’s not with you in working through with the skill of a sculptor to bring you to full maturity. So hold fast in the trial, beloved, with your eyes fixed on Christ. Let us be like Bravo, hunkered down, burrowed up in the cleft of the rock, bruised but moving with praise on our lips while waiting for deliverance. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our Lord and our God, we pray.

that you would do it, that you would mature us in Christ, not into a spiritual stoicism, but that we really would be happy warriors because we are seeing the crown on the other side of the cross as we look to the Lord Jesus. And now we would pray the way our Lord taught us to pray.

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