Good morning and welcome to another glorious encounter with the Word of God. Today is quite the special day for me and the 5 Minute Challenge. We start the book of James. The book of James will always hold a special place with me, let me inform.
When Margie and I were in Maui serving at Lahaina Baptist Church, I started working with the youth. After attending youth camp with them, I inquired with the pastor about where the youth program was at. I’ll never forget that look on his face. One as if to say, "you just don’t get it, we’re not in the Bible belt anymore...we don’t have 6 seminary graduates that take care of the kids, there is no youth program." I committed to God at that moment to start one. It might be a total train wreck, but even something with God is better than everything with man. The pastor had a 17 year old son and he and I started teaching the youth on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. In addition, we also started up some fun youth activities the first Fridays of every month. As we started the youth studies, we grabbed whatever curriculum we could find, it was some of the pre-made bible study stuff for teens. We used it for a few weeks but it just wasn’t working. You see, Paul talks about babes in Christ needing milk versus grown up food and we were only giving these teens milk. There comes a time in each of our lives where someone realizes we are ready to move from milk to baby food and eventually to solid food. I saw these teens were hungry for real food, the real Word of God. I talked with the pastor and told him we wanted to start teaching straight from God’s Word. He agreed and asked what book. I thought a bit. I thought about a book that would be practical, real, easily applicable to real life and also somewhat easy to digest. The book of James. I had recently undergone a personal study of the book and it has and always will be one of my favorites. I look back now and realize that God had it all perfectly lined out. We started immediately studying the book of James. For some of these kids it was the first time they had been through an intensive study of a book in the Word of God. For me, it was the first time to teach God's Word. It was nothing less than amazing.
We went through that whole book and when we were done with James? Well, we just continued on right through the Bible the way God had designed it. James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude. When we left Maui that youth group had grown in God, and that resulted in it growing in numbers. God’s Word will bear fruit, you just have to open it up, speak it and study it. The book of James also has another special place in my heart. It was here in Maui and the book of James that God gave me the idea for the 5 minute challenge. In an effort to encourage the kids to read God’s Word outside of class, I asked them to read for a very short 5 minutes a day. But that in itself is not the challenge. The challenge is to do it for 30 days in a row. To create a new routine of spending daily time with God in His Word. We started a group text and we were all to chime in on it daily with our thoughts about what we had read. Well, the whole thing failed miserably. It lasted for about a week and then we all lost interest including myself. I take the blame here. If the leader loses interest, so do the followers. Fast forward 6 months to Destin, Florida and Margie and I are serving with Village Baptist for a few months. While there we were teaching the young adults. I noticed the same problem, no one spending personal time growing in the Word of God. I though back about the 5MC from Maui and decided to blow off the dust and give it another try. But this time I would not falter, I prayed to God to help me stay the course. We started in the book of Matthew and also started a group text so we could share our personal thoughts on the reading of the day. That first day was May 26, 2018. I still have every single 5MC writing and the first few days were just a few sentences. I have every single writing that was shared with those young adults in Destin, and it moves me to think about the path God has shown me with His Word and the 5MC. The 5MC has gone through 19 books in 8 months, from Matthew to James and done it in 5 minutes a day. And it all started with the book of James and a group of kids in Maui, Hawaii.
The book of James is quite the remarkable book. It is full of practical, usable content that is easy to grasp. Certain parts read more like Proverbs or Psalms. Some sound more like Paul’s practical segments. I think it’s just a great book for someone to tackle that might be newer to God’s Word. The book was of course written by James but what you might not know is that this James was the half brother of Jesus. This James grew up knowing Jesus as a brother but came to know his half brother as his Savior. James wrote this around 45-50AD, so it was 20 years or so before Paul’s missionary journeys which resulted in Paul’s many letters.
The only problem with chapter 1 of James? What to focus on. There is so much relevancy here it was REALLY hard for me to settle down this morning on just a few verses. This is one of those beautiful chapters where every single passage deserves to be greatly expounded upon. But for the sake of time I will have to go with one of my favorite passages in James, in fact I have it written on my board of Godly inspiration in my study…Count it all Joy.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:2-5
The first 13 words rock my world every time I read it. To me, the key word here is “when.” Trials WILL come our way. Death, loss, sickness, cancer, divorce, job loss, bankruptcy. It’s not IF trials will come our way, it’s WHEN trials come our way. You see many people think that becoming a Christian means that you walk easy street for the rest of your life. Not so. Trials WILL come. But why? Isn’t that the first thing that comes to our minds when we suffer trials of various kinds? Why God? Why would you do this to me? Why would you allow this to happen to me? Well, in our God we have a loving Heavenly Father that only wants the best for us. He wants us to be trained and prepared for not just the present trial, but future trials as well. Let’s look at a few key points from our verse on how we can have Joy in the Lord as we meet trials.
1) Don’t be surprised! Remember, its not IF trials come but WHEN trials come. Life will have problems and obstacles so don’t be surprised when they happen. Listen to what Peter says about the same topic. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12. Peter lays it out clearly. It’s like a huge billboard on the side of the road. He says, “HEY! They’re coming! Don’t be surprised! Don’t be shocked! I’m telling you right now they’re coming!” When Marge and I lived out in San Angelo, I was managing 5 retail stores in West Texas. With that many stores, problems were like breathing, it seems they came very regularly. At first, every time a big problem would arise, my first reaction was to get upset, to get anxious or angry. After a while though, I adopted a saying, “when you get up every morning, be looking for the first problem so when it finds you you’re not surprised.” That’s what both James and Peter are telling us here. Trials WILL come, don’t let them catch you off guard, be looking for them.
2) Count it all Joy. The word joy is the same as rejoice. Not only are we to not be surprised by the trial but we are to rejoice when it happens! What? Why in the world would I rejoice when a huge trial or problem hits me in the face? Well, for that answer, keep reading, but just remember this point because it will make much more sense later.
3) God has a test for you to pass. “for you know that the testing of your faith.” Have you ever seen how they process gold? Gold being a metal that is extracted from the Earth, will always have some form of contaminant within it. After the gold is mined it has to be purified. Nobody wants 2 karat gold, we want the purest, shiniest gold we can get. We want 24 karat gold. We want it to be pure. So how do you separate the pure gold from the unpure elements? Fire. You purify the gold by fire. You heat up the gold until the materials separate and then you pour off the less desired metal. You see the whole process might look brutal from the gold’s standpoint, but it is essential in purifying the gold. My friends it is no different with what God does to us with trials. God does not want a 2 karat son or daughter. He wants a 24 karat son or daughter. He exposes us to the fires of trials so that He can refine us into something pure and precious. Through the trials in our life He is testing our faith. When big problems arise in your life what do you do with them? Do you first try to solve them yourself? Do you ask others for help first? Or do you take it to God and lay it at His feet? Laying your trial at the feet of Jesus…that folks, is faith. After various trials have refined you, hopefully your first reaction to a trial is to give it to God. If so, you have passed the test.
4) God has a goal. “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Read steadfastness as patience. God wants us to have patience. Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and God knows how important it is for us. Patience will make you a full-grown, mature follower of Christ. Trials teach us patience by testing our faith and our faith rests in Christ alone. It makes a full circle, all coming back to Christ.
5) You’re not meant to understand. Throughout this entire process of God refining you and testing you, please notice nowhere in the verse does it say that God will explain it all to you carefully. God will tell you what you need to know and that is all. God doesn’t owe us an explanation for everything He does, so don’t expect one. The more you look for sense in the process, the more frustrated you will get and frustration is the opposite of patience. Frustration is us wanting answers or solutions on a time schedule that we deem appropriate. That is not faith and that is not patience.
6) What tools do I need to work through trials? We’ve looked at faith. We’ve looked at the test. We’ve seen that they create patience. Now that we’ve got patience, we’re in a good place, let’s look at the tools God will give us to work on this trial that looms before us. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” First, we will need wisdom. Where do we get wisdom? Wisdom is the application of knowledge and knowledge comes from? Yep, you guessed it, the Word of God. And how do you get this wisdom? It says to ask for it. That my friends is prayer. So, the tools we use to handle these trials? Daily time studying God’s Word and prayer to God. If you are regular follower of the 5MC, hopefully you’re beginning to see that this is not rocket science or brain surgery we’re dealing with here. God has made this as simple as He possibly could. His Son is the only way. Admit you’re a sinner and ask Jesus to save you from your sins. Once you’ve accepted Jesus, stay close to God by reading His Holy Word every day for knowledge. Applying the knowledge of God’s Word into your daily life is wisdom. Wisdom is being allowed to see a situation through God’s eyes. And finally pray. Talk to God as your Heavenly Father. Cast your cares and anxieties upon Him. Ask him for wisdom and He will give generously to all that ask. And finally…rejoice in the whole process. I told you we would come back to it! As you walk with God and know this process, you know that you will come out stronger and closer to Him as a result. In that my friends, we can count is as Joy when we suffer trials of various kinds.
What an unbelievable passage we have before us today. I pray that our study this morning blessed you as much as it did me. What a comfort we have before us in God’s Word. He is in control. He has a plan. He loves us enough to test us, purify us and equip us for future trials that He knows will be in our path before we even do. I also pray that you are equipping yourself with the tools that God tells us we will need to deal with various trials. Spend time growing closer to God by studying His Word daily. Spend time in prayer with God every day. God has laid the tools that you need at your feet, you must simply reach down and pick them up.
God bless.
Pic details....this photo has such meaning to me. As we started the study of the book of James one of the students snapped this as I taught. Notice his Bible is on chapter one of James. It all started here.
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