how life transforms us
Rev. Tom Cowan Guest Speaker English Congregation Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church Vancouver, British Columbia Theme of the Month Christlikeness Sunday Sermon for 13 February 2011 Scripture Passage James 1:2-4 2
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
I was reading recently the life story of a young man born and raised in a very dysfunctional family, the kind of family which operated on lying, intrigue, jealousy, suspicion, and added to that a false charge of rape. And the young man ended up in prison on that phony charge. Later, he was released, actually after about 13 years, and in spite of all he had suffered, he actually made a better life for himself. Then one day, the time came for a reunion with his brothers, the very same family members who had caused him so much pain and grief. Now it was his turn to get back at that. He was now in the position of power. He had the upper hand. What would he say? I will come back to that story in a moment and tell you what he did. Your theme for February: Christlikeness. The word is metamorphosis. And we are asking, how do we get there? It is what we desire and know we want, but the question is, how does this happen in our lives. What can we do to bring it about in our lives? We instantly think of all the internal things we should and can do to develop Christlikeness. We think about prayer; we say, we need to pray more, studying the Bible, being more open to the Spirit of God—all these inner forces and more. And they are all correct; we need these and so much more. But there is perhaps one force, one dimension that we seldom think about. Yet it is one of the major forces that God uses in our lives to bring about this metamorphosis in us, this inner change into the likeness of Christ. That force is simply life—what happens to us in daily life, how we respond to it, how we see it at work in us. We know that we need all the inner forces, but this metamorphosis does not happen in a vacuum, nor in a church service. Much of it actually happens and takes place in the rough and tumble of daily life. One short passage helps us to grasp this.
James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so 2 HOW LIFE TRANSFORMS US
that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4Â (The Message)
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way The best way I think we can understand this thrust of this passage today is to study it backwards. Start at the end of the passage and then work backwards. The goal we are seeking/striving for is at the end, that is, we would be mature, complete, not lacking anything. That could easily describe Jesus. That is the way Jesus was. He was mature. He was all that God intended him to be, and that is also to be our goal. Jesus calls us to be like children, a mark of the kingdom of God in us, but there is a huge difference between being childlike and being childish. We are called to be childlike, but we are also called to be mature. This is how maturity is described:
Hebrews 5:13-14
Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Mature people do not go over the same things again and again, but they have learned to distinguish good and evil, and make wise choices in life. Jesus was complete. There was nothing missing in his life. In the best sense of the word, Jesus was whole. Jesus was not lacking in anything. So we could say that these three qualities defined the life of Jesus, mature, complete, not lacking in anything, and so this then describes Christlikeness. We are working towards that same goal of also being mature, complete, not lacking in anything.
But how do we get there? But what lies between where we stand and this goal. Remember we are working backwards through this verse. James lays before us a key attitude, that of perseverance. “…Let perseverance finish its work…” In the Greek text of the New Testament, two different words are used very carefully in describing perseverance or patience.
I am convinced that sometimes we bail out of problems or difficult situations far too quickly, and the result is, we do not learn what God was wanting to teach us in that situation. There is a time to quit, perhaps on moral grounds or when it would damage us in some way, but many times I think we quit too soon. We get tired; we say it is too hard. It may be, but we will not learn when we give up too early. Where do we get this perseverance. Where does it come from? What produces perseverance?
1 . O n e G re e k w o rd a l w a y s re l a t e s t o perseverance or patience with difficult people. We would translate this word as meaning having a long fuse as opposed to having a short fuse.
Remember we are going backwards in this verse in James again, “whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
In one place, Paul uses the word to describe the patience of god with difficult people, who are the difficult people. That’s us!
What are the trials of life? There are three possibilities.
In church relationships, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
Fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, (or PATIENCE) kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 2. Another Greek word always relates and speaks to patience or perseverance in difficult circumstances. This is the word that is here in James. Think for a moment about your own personality. We need one kind of patience with difficult people, and a different kind of patience with difficult circumstances. Which one do you find easier to deal with? Difficult people or difficult situations? I tend to have a lot of stamina with difficult circumstances. I know that I need God at work more in my life when I have to deal with difficult people. James is saying here, we need the stamina, the endurance not to quit when things get tough. It is easy to pack up and give up, to walk away before something has done its work in us, then we fall short of being mature, complete, lacking in nothing. 3 HOW LIFE TRANSFORMS US
1. Some trials might be directly related to sin: where we have broken the moral law of God and so we think that this is a trial that is coming upon us from God. No, it is not what James means here. The Bible is very simple and clear about life: what we sow we reap—Hosea—sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Some parts of our society are finding out that there is a great cost to breaking the law of God in regard to sexuality and how we use, or rather abuse, the gift of sex. 2. Some trials may come just because we are Christians; we follow Jesus and we are children of the kingdom. Again, not directly what James means here. There is a unique word that is used in the New Testament to describe the trials and pressures that come upon us when we choose to bear the name of Jesus.
John 16:33
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. Trouble = pressure. The stress and load that comes upon you because you have chosen to follow Jesus. 3. This is what James is getting at when James talks about trials of many kinds. I suggest to you, he is talking about what happens in life, what life
puts in front of us, what stands in our way as we live and walk. If we were able to sit down and talk, and I asked you tell me your story, somewhere in your story would be some dark threads of disappointment and pain. Perhaps you were passed over for a job or promotion, and it was not fair. You were next in line. You’re a woman and one day in the shower you felt a lump in your breast, and it is the start of your worse fears—cancer. Perhaps as a husband or wife, you lost a child to some disease. You faced financial struggle in spite of all your hard work and honesty. It is all this and more; I do not know your story. If we shared our family story, I might tell you that three years ago we lost a daughter-in-law to cystic fibrosis. She left two small children. We were just coming out of all that pain when our other son was hit by a car and suffered a severe head injury. We have been in church ministry for forty-three years. We love the church. The manifold wisdom of God is made known to the world through the church. Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it. There are times that we have been deeply cared for in churches, and to be honest, there are times that we have been abandoned and almost left for dead. The trials of life are all the stuff that happens to us that we did not deserve, did not ask for, did nothing to warrant. It was in no way our fault. It was the stuff of life that fell upon us that we did not deserve, when we least expected it, and we cannot avoid it. We had no choice in it. Being a Christian, having the Holy Spirit in us does not mean that we can escape the trials of life. We need to realise that truth and not run away it, trying to run away from it will only damage and hurt us. We have one more backward step to make in this verse. James says, “Consider it pure joy…” What is he thinking about? Are we supposed to be happy this falls on us? 4 HOW LIFE TRANSFORMS US
He does not say, Be happy; at best that would be superficial and silly, at worst it would be hypocritical and false; rather he calls us to joy, one of the big words in the Christian life.
Jesus said in John 15
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My definition of joy, connecting the events of life to the greater purposes of God. Joy comes when we connect what is happening to us to the larger purpose of God. Sometimes we can see what these are; sometimes we may not. Joy comes to us as a gift of God when we can connect what is happening to our hope and faith in God. We may not always know why, but we know why we trust in God who knows why. In Hebrews, Jesus teaches us that who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. He connected the pain and separation he would endure in the cross to the larger purposes of God, and so he faced it with joy. Without joy, unless we can break through to joy, trials and struggles just make us bitter. It causes anger to grow and fester inside us. My wife Harriet always says, nothing in life is wasted provided we are not bitter. Everything we face can teach us something. Many times in the midst of struggle we cry out: God, why me? What are you doing to me? Henri Nouwen in Out of Solitude says we need to learn to ask a different and deeper and a wiser question: What is the secret that lies hidden in this event? So God uses the events we face in life, the trials and struggles we face, if we will embrace them with joy rather than fight and oppose them, if we will stay the course and persevere rather than quit, if we will learn the lesson that lies in them rather than just admit defeat, God will find a way to use them to make us perfect, complete, lacking in nothing, and that is the Christlikeness that we say we desire and want. I believe that the trials of life that all of us face will only be able to do their spiritual work in us if we will break through to joy. Without joy we become
bitter, without joy we become hard, without joy we do not become students. We simply do not learn the lessons they hold for us.
So let’s agree, life is not always easy and life is not always fair. Even following Jesus does not make life easy or fair.
That is not an easy path for us to walk, but neither was the path that led to the cross for our Lord.
I don’t know what you are facing right now. I don’t know what may come upon you this next week, but what would it mean to ask the question, “Dear God, what is the secret that lies hidden in this event and can you accept it with joy?”
Hebrews 5 says of Jesus, he learned; he learned obedience through the things he suffered. Let me finish the story I was reading about this young man to whom life had been anything but fair. A messed-up family, falsely accused of rape, wrongly ends up in prison, then gets out, makes a better life for himself. Then the day comes when he meets his brothers, the ones who really caused the entire mess he faced in his life, who were responsible for everything that happened to him. Now it is his turn; he has all the power. Here is what he said to them: You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. You may know who this young man is. His name was Joseph. You can read his story in Genesis. Somewhere in those years prison Joseph asked himself a question. He got beyond, “Why is this happening to me?” And he asked, “What is the secret that lies in this event?” Somewhere in some dark cell, he broke through to joy. He put bitterness aside, he surrendered savouring the taste of revenge, and he had come to forgive his brothers and accept the purpose of God long before he came face to face with them. What is the secret that lies in this event? Sometimes the secret will be the way in which God will work in us to make us mature, complete, lacking in nothing, which is who Jesus was.
2 Corinthians 4
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 5 HOW LIFE TRANSFORMS US