Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read James 1:1-11 together. What questions do you have?
2. Practically, how do we "count it all joy" when we are facing trials?
3. Should Christians expect to be "perfect, lacking in nothing" in this life?
4. What is the difference between "wishful prayer" and "faithful prayer"?
5. Practically, how do verses 9-11 apply within the life of the church?
Let me tell you a tale of two Toms,
One Tom you know. He was a star athlete and is known as the Greatest-of-All-Time in his sport.
Winner of 7 Super Bowls, 3-time NFL MVP, and eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer, Tom Brady
To know how committed he was to his profession, he once said, “If you want to compete
against me, you better be willing to give up your life because I’m giving up mine.” And that, he
did. He gave up his everything: his diet, his family, and his time.
His passion and zeal for the sport he loved propelled him to be recognized as the best.
But there’s another Tom, one you do not know. He was a pastor, a leader, and an ordinary man.
The only reason why I know who he is, is a book titled, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, written
by his son, Don Carson.
In Tom Carson’s old age, his wife had been struggling with ailments and shown symptoms of
Alzheimer’s. Yet through times of hardship as explained from his journal entries, he still found
joy in trials praising God for the lives he and his wife had been blessed with.
Not only did he find joy in trials, but he also faithfully depended on the Lord. In his early days in
ministry and further on, something he’d regularly do was he would spend 45 minutes or more
in a closed room kneeling before God in prayer. Tom was a man of prayer so much so, that a
roommate of his from seminary described his prayer life as a challenge and rebuke to many.
Tom’s life as a pastor was simple. He pastored a small church in Drummondville, Canada for 15
years that saw its highs and lows. He wasn’t a mega-church pastor, he didn’t write any books,
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nor was he the leader of some great revival. What he did, was he stewarded the gift that God
gave Him to preach the word in faith.
Tom Carson’s passion and zeal for Christ is what drove him to be the husband, father and
pastor he was.
As described, Tom Brady and Tom Carson are two completely different people. Tom Brady was
a football superstar and Tom Carson was an ordinary pastor. However different these men
were, both men were servants of something. To be a servant of something, you must devote
your time to the thing in which you choose to serve. Tom Brady gave up his life for football.
Because he had done so, he was a servant to football and self-glory. Tom Carson on the other
hand, gave up his life to the preaching of God’s word and the mission of the gospel. For such
reasons, he was a servant to God and not himself.
Having known who these two men are and what they chose to live in service to, which person’s
legacy would you rather have?
If you are like me, the sound of winning seven super bowls is more appealing than living a life
like Tom Carson’s as recognition and worth are things easily desired. Whether it be in our
families, our hobbies, or careers, we all crave the satisfaction that comes in doing things well
and receiving praise in the end.
However, if we were to open God’s word, we would find that life isn’t about the thrills, it’s not
about personal success or making our names great.
Instead, what we would find, is how God makes His name great through His sovereignty,
redemption and grace. He reigns supremely over all creation and calls upon us, his children, to
something larger than ourselves: to be servants of Him which was something Tom Carson
understood.
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To know the call of the servant in light of God’s word, turn with me to
James 1:1-11. In the pew Bibles underneath the chairs, that passage will be found on page
1011.
Here in James 1:1-11, we will find the call of the servant as the servant first, finds joy in trials,
second, faithfully asks God for wisdom, and thirdly, forfeits worldly prosperity for eternal glory.
Starting in verse 1,
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve 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 his ways.
Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a
flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the
grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also, will the rich man fade away in the midst
of his pursuits.
The grass withers, the flowers fade but the word of our Lord stands forever…
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Our passage today gives us a blueprint for living a life of a servant:
As servants we are first called to find joy in trials, second, faithfully ask God for wisdom, and
thirdly, forfeit worldly prosperity for eternal glory.
We begin by looking at verses 2-4 as the servant first, finds joy in trials as James writes,
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.
Joy as we know, is an experience. It’s a sort of feeling inside of us that feels really good. In some
ways it’s comparative to happiness because happiness like joy is also a good feeling. However, it
must be different from happiness as happiness exists only for a short moment.
For example, you can be happy about your child getting an A on an exam, but that happiness
can be stripped away after your child is sent to the principal’s office the next day.
Imagine if we replaced joy with happiness in verse 2 and it read: Count it all happiness when
you endure trials of various kinds…
Like how much different would that sound?
Do you recall anyone throughout the Bible who lived “happily” as they faced whatever hardship
they went through?
Consider Noah, was he happily slaving away while building the ark while people were mocking
him? How about Abraham? Was Abraham jumping with exuberance as he walked his son Isaac
up to be offered up on the altar? What about David? Was David cheerfully running away from
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Saul knowing that he could be killed any second? And what about the many more in scripture
who faced trials of many kinds?
The heroes of our faith must have had a different attitude.
Did they experience happiness? I’m sure they did at times, but through times of great difficulty,
the attitude they possessed must have been greater than happiness. This attitude must have
been joy.
One of the best definitions on joy, comes from pastor John Piper as He describes joy as “a good
feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the
word and the world.”
“Joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty
of Christ in the word and the world.”
Like happiness, joy is a good feeling to be experienced. It’s not an idea that you can make up in
your mind and instantly believe it.
Piper illustrates this point by using an example of a hungry grizzly bear standing outside of a
tent as you wake up from camping for the night. When you awake and see the bear standing
outside, you don’t take a second to think about what you should feel, instead, your response to
the bear is reactionary based on understanding and experience. You know bears are dangerous
so you begin to feel fear of what could happen. No matter how hard you could try to control
that emotion, that emotion is what it is, and you cannot work your way around it.
Joy is not just a good feeling, but it is a good feeling in the soul produced by the spirit. The
apostle Paul explains joy as a fruit of the Spirit which reveals to us that we cannot produce it
ourselves. It’s a work of the Spirit and not of man. What joy does is it draws us to the
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magnificent beauty of Christ because one of the primary roles of the Spirit is to illuminate the
person of Jesus who is glorious.
And finally, where is Christ revealed? Christ is revealed in the word and the world. God makes
Himself manifest to us through such things and reveals His glory causing us to have eyes open
to see and hearts willing to accept the fulfillment that is found in Christ.
Now that we have a definition of what joy is, we must ask ourselves why are we to count it joy
through trials?
James in his wisdom answers that for us as move along in verse 3 of our text, he says:
James 1:3
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
When might’ve been the last time your faith was tested? What is a recent memory of yours
where steadfastness was produced in your life? This is what James is trying to help his readers
recollect as they take in the words of his letter. Our memories and experiences teach us about
God and how He has worked and produced steadfastness in us.
A helpful illustration would be to consider God as a surgeon and mankind as patients in need of
surgery. Like the good surgeon He is, He sees what’s necessary to take the wounded and
broken hearted to restore them for the better. And in doing so, He uses trials as to increase our
faith so that when we arrive at the end of them, we walk away far better and far more mature
than we ever have before.
As finite and weak patients we are, our tendency is to not see life as God sees ours. We are
often so fixed on our problems and pain that we fail to recognize that God is working things out
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for our good. It can seem as if instead of God being in control, it’s the total opposite where
Satan is in control and he’s doing everything he can to wreck us.
James is urging us here to put our feelings aside and cling to what we know about God from
what we remember. We know that God is working in us every day because we have seen that
to be true. God’s word reminds us that He desires to make us new creations and like the parent
who wants to see their child grow in maturity, this is the love of our Father.
One of the best ways we can learn to trust God is by looking back to what He’s done, so that, we
can look forward to what He will do later.
And what exactly will he do later? We find that in verse 4.
James 1:4
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in
nothing.
The phrase: “to be lacking in nothing”, should be key to knowing what James meant by being
perfect and complete. “To be” implies that there is an end goal in mind and that end goal as
some commentaries put it is, maturity or better, wholeness.
The idea of being perfect comes across very strong and doesn’t sound as attainable as growing
in maturity, but I believe that James is intentional about his usage of the term “perfect”.
Let’s take a brief second to call back the words of Christ in His sermon on the Mount as found in
Matt. 5:48 where He says:
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
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These words came from our Lord after he taught from the law concerning various issues. Christ
spoke from the Law and expounded upon it to cause listeners to see their sin. The standard was
set extremely high, so high that no matter how hard you could work at being obedient to the
law you never would be fully obedient to it because only God is holy and perfect as we are not.
Yet, even after explaining how impossible it is to live perfectly, Christ commands us to be
perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect!
So, how is that the only perfect one can give us the task to be perfect as well?
Is perfection attainable and if so, where might we find our answer to this problem of
perfection?
I firmly believe our answer is right in front of us as it was in front of the crowds who heard from
Jesus in His sermon on the Mount as perfection is attainable in the person of Christ.
It’s the very reason that God sent His Son because of us in our sin and wretchedness we needed
someone (God in the flesh) to take our punishment and die the death that we deserved. God
knew that we could never be perfect no matter how hard we could try.
Remember how God delivered Israel out of Egypt by a pillar of light? He even gave them kings
and leaders to demonstrate His love and authority and so much more. No matter what means
He took, His people turned their backs on Him and choose to be servants of their own sin and
die in their sin.
And how about you (Christian)? How about the many times God has helped you, been there for
you, and revealed Himself to you? How often have you chosen to turn your back on Him?
Know that despite this problem of sin, there is hope. While perfection is seemingly
unattainable, it is attainable only in the person of Christ!
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While we were sinners, Christ died and rose from the grave so that by faith in Him we would be
counted righteous with God, made whole, perfect, and complete!
So Christian, it is good to endure trials because in them, steadfastness is produced. In
steadfastness you are held in the hands of God who is making you perfect and complete,
lacking nothing in Christ.
How great a truth is this? There is no better joy than the joy that comes in Christ!
So as servants we first find our joy in trials through the person of Jesus and now secondly, we
must faithfully turn to God in asking for wisdom as the servant faithfully asks God for Wisdom
We continue in verse 5 as James writes,
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it
will be given him.
James makes a great transition here as he turns our attention from lacking nothing in verse 4 to
something that can specifically be lacked, that being, wisdom.
As we walk in steadfastness and move toward reflecting the image of Christ, what the servant is
in dire need of is wisdom which can only be given by God.
Now what is wisdom exactly?
If we pulled from what James teaches later in this letter concerning wisdom, we would find
what wisdom is not.
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In James 3, he describes 3 kinds of wisdom that are unrelated to God. Those three kinds of false
wisdom are 1) Earthly, 2) Unspiritual, and 3) Demonic. He defines these three modes of wrong
wisdom in relation to having jealousy, selfish ambition, wrongful boasting and being false to the
truth.
Later after explaining what wisdom is not in chapter 3, he explains the wisdom from above in
relation to God as it is pure, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and
sincere, as well as a harvest of righteousness sown in peace by those who make peace.
Wisdom from above is one of the highest forms of good as it pertains to who God is as God
Himself is pure, gentle, open to reason, and all the things James uses to describe wisdom. He is
wisdom and He is the one who grants it.
Having known what wisdom is, what might it look like in practice? If you and I as Christians
were to demonstrate what wisdom is, how should that look?
Looking at God’s word for what it is, my best way of explaining wisdom is this: it is the ability to
discern between right and wrong and act on it accordingly.
Wisdom is the ability to discern between right and wrong and act on it accordingly.
To keep ourselves in thinking about the book of Ecclesiastes and Solomon, I believe Solomon to
be an example of a man who was able to discern between right and wrong and act on it
accordingly.
In 1 Kings 3 there is a story of two women who had been disputing over whose baby was who’s.
One of the women had a baby that died after birth and attempted to steal the other woman’s
child. They argued for some time and then later brought the issue before King Solomon. After
listening to the women, Solomon called for a sword to be brought to him so that he could
divide the child in two between them. The call he made to have a sword brought to him was
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because he knew that by doing so, the real mother of the child would reveal herself by being
willing to do whatever it took to keep the child alive which is exactly what happened.
Solomon demonstrated a great act of wisdom and it’s the same wisdom God desires to bestow
on us! The best news about wisdom is that it comes freely from our generous without reproach
Lord! When He hears our plea for wisdom, He is joyfully willing to hand us the very thing we
lack.
I mentioned how Solomon was a man of great wisdom but let me ask, do you have any idea of
how he received it? The wisdom he was given was because he asked God but not only did he
ask, he asked in faith. This way of asking in faith, is the same way James wants tells us to ask
God for wisdom as found in verses 6-8 of our text.
Hear what James has to say in verses 6-8,
James 1:6–8
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 his ways.
Earlier I made a distinction between happiness and joy, now I want to make another distinction
but this time between wishful requests and faithful requests.
Wishful requests look like empty prayers to God not expecting anything to come of them.
An example might be such as a person who prays “Lord help me be committed to the reading of
your word” and then after praying they fail to act on it as they go an entire week without
opening their Bible.
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I think so often we (even I) treat our prayers, and ultimately God like that person. We hope to
see change and blessing in our lives but only for a short moment. When a trial or temptation
comes our way, we buckle and submit to the desires of our heart.
Faithful requests are much more than wishful requests.
Faithful requests unlike wishful requests require a surrendering of will to God. The same man
who prayed about being more committed to God’s word doesn’t just pray “Help me God spend
more time in your word” and hope for the best. What he does is he prays that prayer and
follows through on it being a man of action. He also continues to pray fervently like his life
depends on it so when any moment of temptation approaches Him, He knows how to rightly
respond by turning to God in faith.
This way of living is what separates the faithful man from the double-minded man as spoken of
in verse 8.
The double-minded, doubtful man lives like a non-believer. He acts lost and appears as if He
does not belong to the family of God because He doesn’t know who to turn to.
Like the foolish man who built his house on the sand and when the wind comes it blows away
unlike the wise man who builds his house on the rock, his house remains. The man of faith as
John Calvin puts it in his commentary on James, feels the weight of the wind but by the power
of God and what sustains Him, he will not be moved!
Brothers and sisters, as we go through trials, know that the wisdom that we have in God keeps
us firm and grounded. We certainly will feel the power of the wind especially as it gets heavier,
but just because you feel the wind, that does not mean you waver. As you are in Christ, He
keeps you still. He is our Good Shepherd and like the good shepherd, He will not us let us waver
outside of the sheepfold.
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In James 1 it appears as if James is speaking of the double-minded as a non-believer. But we
know that the reality is, even as Christians, we can look and smell like a non-believer who does
waver all over the place. When we are out of tune with God, we look like we belong to
someone else. This is why the prescription from James later in his letter is to draw near to God.
In Christ we may not wander outside of the sheepfold because we are forever in His grasp, but
that doesn’t mean we can’t try everything in our power to resist His care.
The enemy is crafty and does everything He can to deceive us so it’s vital that we cling to God.
The best resources that we must cling to God are through His word and prayer. God is active
and the only way we can see His activity is in light of scripture and communion with Him. If you
want wisdom and desire to know more about who God is, the answers are in front of us. We
don’t serve a God who is distant and far off, we serve a God who is personal as well as
relational.
As I mentioned earlier in Piper’s quote, joy causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word
and the world. What better way to experience joy and know wisdom by asking in faith as well
as drawing near to Him through His word and prayer.
When we cling to God, we will find how faithful He is and that He promises something so much
better in the life to come. This is what the servant trusts and looks ahead to as he forfeits
worldly prosperity for eternal glory.
We servants must first find joy in trials, second, faithfully ask God for wisdom and finally, forfeit
worldly prosperity for eternal glory.
We conclude with our last set of verses in James 1:9-11
James 1:9–11
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Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a
flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the
grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also, will the rich man fade away in the midst
of his pursuits.
James adds a third distinction for us between two persons, the lowly brother and the rich man.
The lowly brother is exalted and somehow the rich man is left in humiliation. This truth is
difficult for our brains to comprehend because we live in a world that preaches the exact
opposite.
Looking back at my intro to the example of the two Toms, if I asked you which Tom will likely be
more remembered one hundred years from now, I’m certain we would all share the same
answer. Tom Brady’s successes that he had in his profession appear more notable than Tom
Carson’s. Thousands of men have preached the name of Christ on the pulpit, but only one Tom
Brady played football as great as Tom Brady.
You see our world attempts to convince us of one thing about earthly success, but our God
wants to teach us of something greater in His word: the lowly, steadfast, faithful brother who
lived the quiet life will be exalted. As for the rich man, despite his fame, his successes, the dent
that he left in society, all will wither like the flower of the grass.
What seemingly sets up the lowly/poor individual from verse 9 in a better position to trust God
is that they recognize they have nothing of their own power to depend on. They have come to
the end of themselves in humility which causes them to see their need of savior who lifts them
up. The rich man on the other hand, sees the work they’ve been able to accomplish in this life
giving them the feeling of exaltation here and now, but once this life comes to end, they shall
be humbled because everything they did was vanity.
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Something well worth highlighting is the phrase “his pursuits” from verse 11 as the this is the
key issue for the rich man. His pursuits reveal the desires of his heart as the desires of his heart
do not align with the things of God. Another problem found in the rich man is that he often
wants more of what he already has and in wanting more, he is blinded by his own wealth and
the things of this perishable world.
This begs a question for us all, rich or poor, what do you love? What are your pursuits? Are you
pursuing the praise of your boss or the respect of your colleagues? Are you pursuing more
wealth and financial freedom so that you can do all the things that you want to do? We all have
things in our lives that appeal to us and distract us from what is of importance: God and
eternity!
Nothing that we desire compares to the goodness of God. In Him we find fulfillment, In Him we
find truth, and rest and joy. Knowing how magnificent He is should compel us to make Him the
desire of our hearts.
The best things on this earth are nothing but shadows God’s glory and this is something that
the lowly brother understands.
Whatever we do in this life will pass. We can break records like Tom Brady, we can acquire
great wealth and pass it on to our kids, we can invent something new, but eventually whatever
that thing we worked towards will get diminished.
However, there is one kind of work that we can do that will not be diminished, and that’s the
work of the great commission: preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth.
One thing I believe we emphasize in Christian culture is this idea of looking to Jesus. While that
is very true and must be preached what’s often a missing proponent of that message is looking
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to Jesus while also pointing others to look to Jesus. The gospel is not excluded to you and I; it’s
meant for everyone. The joy we have in Christ should be enjoyed by everyone we interact with.
And don’t think that you need be a pastor or a missionary to share the gospel with others.
Sharing the gospel isn’t dependent upon circumstances and being in the right place at the right
time. Where it starts is in the home with your children, with your friends or colleagues at work.
It starts wherever you’re at and it starts now.
We only get one life and if you truly do somehow want to make it count, make it count by living
for the kingdom and not yourself because the harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few and
Christ came to serve and not be served.
The life of the servant is not easy. There will be trials but as servants we must remember to first
find joy in them knowing that they mold us into the image of Christ who is perfect. Second, we
then must faithfully ask God for wisdom because wisdom is a thing we often lack. And lastly, we
must forfeit worldly prosperity for eternal glory because what God has in store for us is far
better than what this earth has to offer.
For Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will
receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Let us anticipate that day when we see God in full glory and all His promises fulfilled,
Amen, let’s close in prayer…
