Background
It is about 60 ad: the Church is about 30 years old. As people have been dispersed - scattered all over the Roman Empire the good News of Jesus has gone with them, and in particular, one man, Paul, has been at the centre of the spread of the Jesus message. But now Paul is in prison, and the rush of enthusiasm and passion to spread the Gospel is dying down. In some places, false ideas are beginning to emerge as people struggle to understand and interpret their faith and travelling preachers sometime turn up with wrong ideas. The church is increasingly seen as a rival or a threat by governments and other religions, so attitudes are hardening. The promised return of Jesus is delayed.
There is a very real danger for Christians and the church across the world, of responding in the wrong way to this situation: of a retreat into a "fortress" mentality, where the church digs itself in, pulls up the drawbridge, and waits for the cavalry to arrive, for Jesus to return. It is the danger of individual Christians thinking that, having put their trust in Jesus, they are saved and sorted: Christian faith becomes a matter of agreeing with a set of doctrines, and is robbed of its dynamic, life-changing heart. How are we going to ensure that we don't go there? How are we meant to survive in the challenging world we live in? How do we keep our faith alive, and more than that, how do we grow? It's not staying alive on life support. It's staying meaningfully, actively, dynamically alive. It's keeping the kind of life that interacts with and changes the world in which we live. That's where the book of James comes in. For a church in challenging times, he writes a booklet that brings together the teaching of Jesus and Paul as well as John and Peter. It's a wonderful wee book about putting our faith in Jesus to work, so as to survive and thrive, whatever the world throws at us.
James deals with survival, and the threats to survival...
These "trials, temptations", (verse 2, 13) are the same word. In Greek it is "peirasmos", which means being tested, to prove what a person or thing is really like. They may be difficult circumstances that expose how feeble our faith is. They may be the allure of things that we are not meant to have. It's like e taking the driving test to find out whether you are capable of taking a car out on the road. It's like putting silver in the crucible to make it pure, to burn off the other chemicals.
Testing, whether trouble or temptation, works like velcro. Our faith, our commitment to Jesus, and our standards of behaviour, are tested when two pieces come together: one from outside of us, and the other from inside us. We have inside us, "hooks" like Velcro that connect with things that happen around us. It may be the offer of some chocolate, that connects with a desire inside us, and we break the post-Christmas diet. It may be that someone insults us: their words connect with pride, insecurity or anger inside us and we lash out and punch the person, or else we lash out and say something back, or maybe we talk about the person to someone else. It may be that some difficult circumstance - redundancy for example - connects with self-pity inside us and we feel that God doesnt' care about us any more.
All in the Mind
And the key to dealing with temptations, tests and trials is in how you think about them. "Count it all joy when you meet various trials" (verse 2). "Don't even think about blaming God for your difficulties... he doesn't send temptation" (verse 13) What we need to do is think in the right way.
1. If we see trials as something all bad, we are wrong. James says, "Count it all joy". This is upside-down, kingdom thinking. The world says "be happy when good things happen." And James says count it joy, when things happen that test you."
2. And if we think God brutally sends these things along, we are wrong. God doesn't test anyone; and he doesn't tempt anyone (there is only one word in Greek, remember!) And he cannot be tested. We are not in the position to put him on trial, even thought we may want to. What makes a trial into a temptation is our own set of inner "lusts" as we have been discovering. Our God is a good and generous God from whom every good act of giving and every perfect (heaven-connected) gift comes.
- So we shouldn't "blame God" for the things that test us - whether they are internal things or external things. I get quite concerned when I hear Christians saying "God put me through this or that in order to teach me...." Or "God allowed such and such so that..." Sure, God uses testing things: he works all things out for good for those who love him. But he doesn't send theses things along. If God gets a bad press, if His Name is slandered, then the accuser, the enemy is at work.
- And don't yield to fatalism. If you think God sends everything, who are you to pray or work to prevent difficulties. If God sends illness, who are we to pray for healing. It's good to do what you can do to bring the time of testing to an end. After all Jesus taught us to pray "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."
Testing produces steadfastness. This is the stubborn-ness of the Spirit, the doggedness of the hound of heaven. Last year, in the midst of all the snow, you would have been forgiven for thinking that every living thing in the soil would have died. And yet... with impudence, sheer audacity, snowdrops and crocuses survive, and even use that chilling cold as part of their life cycle, and up they come, even breaking through the snow... and like that, the Spirit of God uses the temptations and trials in our lives, to bring something good to flourish... And steadfastness produces the real growth stuff, makes us "perfect, complete, lacking nothing". Look around you this morning. Do you see a perfect Christian? People have misunderstood John Wesley's - and the Bible's - teaching about perfection. It doesn't mean we never sin. James knew that: See James 3. 2 "We stumble in many ways..." What in fact "Perfect" means is "fully developed". It is related to the word for the end of time. What perfection does mean is that we are fully committed, 100% intent upon living as people who are connected with heaven. We are kingdom people. But we do have unfinished parts. We do find ourselves lacking...in lots of areas. James introduces three themes here that he will come back to later in the booklet. But we need to have a quick look at them now...
1. We lack wisdom... James says more on the nature of wisdom in chapter 3). But for now, just note that wisdom is practical. It's not just about knowing what's in the book but about applying what's in the book. How do I respond in a tricky situation that could pull me out of shape and dismantle part of my witness? I need wisdom. James says if we lack it, we are to ask for it. And God gives unstintingly...
2. Then faith... James warns us that when we ask, we must do so in single-minded faith: no room for doubt. If we even allow ourselves to entertain the possibility of God not answering, how can we expect top receive something from God? This reflects to word of Jesus: Unwavering, undoubting faith can move mountains. The simple faith of a child who trusts a heavenly father. Yes there are always issues about when to believe God and when to do something; on whether we're just using "faith" to get what we want from God. But James deals with these issues later in the booklet. (More on faith and works in ch 2; on faith and motives in 4v3; and 5v13ff on the prayer of faith)
3. Then a right view of status... whether rich or poor... And again, that theme of eternity cuts in. We're all tiny specks in the pig picture of eternity. James will have a lot more to say about prosperity and attitudes to wealth and the wealthy. see 2v1ff; 4v13, 5v1ff. He recognised that a lot of the troubles affecting ordinary Christians started with the actions of the rich. But for now he sets he scene by saying to the poor, "Be proud of the fact that God has called you." John Wesley preached in Kingswood, Bristol, a mining area (like Fife!) to a crowd of miners who were the lowest of the low. But these men heard the Gospel with tears running down their faces and sang a hymn that said "On all the kings on earth, with pity I look down" And to the rich "Be proud of the fact that your wealth is nothing in God's eyes. It makes you no bigger and no better than anyone else!"
Thinking and ideas are not what the Christian faith is all about. Faith is intended to transform us and shape us. Methodist scholar Leslie Mitton says, "Faith is not true faith unless it is the motive power that produces Christian living." But faith must hold on to the right ideas - about our troubles; about our heavenly father; about wisdom, prayer and perspective. And as we learn to think right, we will find we do survive; and not only will we survive. We will thrive.
© Gilmour Lilly January 2012
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