The Importance of Struggle

Hard seasons have a way of telling the truth about us. They reveal what we really trust, what we run to for comfort, and what shows up when the pressure is high. Walking through James 1:1–17, we make the case that trials are not random interruptions to the Christian life but a tool God uses to build something steady, strong, and genuinely useful. Think old growth pine: dense, durable, and valuable because it grew slowly through harsh conditions, not because life was easy.

We follow James’s surprising command to “count it all joy” and clarify what that does and does not mean. Joy is not pretending hardship feels good; it is recognizing what God can produce through suffering: steadfastness, maturity, and deeper dependence. We talk about “testing” as refining gold, the moment when faith is separated from “not faith,” and why growth is not automatic. James points to a practical, repeatable response: ask God for wisdom. We explore what wisdom looks like in everyday trials like marriage stress, health struggles, financial strain, career roadblocks, and discouragement, and why James warns against being double-minded when we pray.

From there, the message turns toward what trials do to our confidence. Money, success, reputation, and even health can feel like stable foundations until they wobble. James reorients both the lowly and the successful toward humility and a hope that cannot be shaken. Finally, we draw a hard line between trials and temptation: God does not lure us into sin, our desires do. Pressure exposes the cracks so they can be repaired, and the clearest picture of steadfastness under unjust suffering is Jesus at the cross, who becomes both our mercy and our model.

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Transcript

Reading James 1 Aloud

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But that being said, I would invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word in James chapter 1. In verse 1, the word of God reads this way James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Count at 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. 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 no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death. And I'm going to go ahead and also read sixteen and seventeen. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, and you may be seated. May God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

Old Growth Pine And Lasting Strength

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The fishing cabin that we visit in Canada was built about a hundred years ago. And the structure of it always amazes me because it is sitting on these thick wooden posts, which themselves are just literally just sitting on top of rocks. And it's been that way for a hundred years. Part of the reason why it has lasted so long, however, is the same reason why a lot of old homes in Cincinnati and even this very building have lasted a long time. Three words, old growth pine. The pine that these old buildings are made of is superior in every way to the pine that you can buy at Home Depot today and that's used to build the houses today. The old growth pine, and actually you can see the difference here in the communion table, this is old growth pine on the top, and then this is just the stuff that you can buy at Home Depot. And it I encourage you sometime look at the grain on the crosscut and count how, or you won't be able to count them, but just look at how many growth lines there are compared to what you might find that, you know, pulling something off the shelf at a Home Depot. These pieces of wood came out of a tree that took about a hundred years to grow, whereas the other ones came out of a tree that grew up in maybe 20 years. So the old growth pine is harder, it's more resilient, it is more rot resistant, it is superior in every way. And the reason that old growth pine is much stronger than the pine that's used today can be summarized by what James says in verse 2. Old growth pine had to endure trials of various kinds. And that's what made it so strong. It grew up in dense forests, forests that were untouched, that were discovered by us when we expanded westward and found these forests and began to harvest them. It grew up in these forests. And uh because it grew up in a dense forest where it had little sunlight, it had to fight for that sunlight and just grow straight up and fight for survival. It didn't put out many branches, it used all of its energy to reach up toward the sun. And so it grew very slowly, but it grew very strong and very dense. And the lesson from Old Growth Pine is that in order to become strong and dense and substantial and valuable as a person, we must meet trials of various kinds. We must meet challenges and struggles. Life has to be somewhat difficult if you want to become strong and substantial. We are beginning a new series today in the book of James, James' Letter. And James opens his letter. It is what is called a Catholic letter, which means that it is not written to one particular church, but it's written to many churches. He says, to the dispersion. He's telling the believers around the world that we can meet trials of various kinds with joy, because trials in God's hands can be used for great good in our lives. In these first 15 or actually 17 verses now that we've read, we see three ways that God uses trials of various kinds.

Trials Teach Dependence And Joy

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Trials teach, trials reorient, and trials expose. So first, trials teach. Trials help us to grow strong by teaching us dependence upon God. Look at verses two and three. James says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. What does James mean when he says trials of various kinds? Well, these are many kinds of difficulties that we face in life. It's not one specific thing. Health issues, marriage struggles, financial hardship, even persecution could be considered a trial. What James says here applies to all kinds of difficulties and discouragements. There's no life discouragement that you could face that is not covered by what James is saying here. In fact, there's no difficulty that we can face in life that we cannot meet with joy. He says, Count at all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. As you go throughout life, you will meet them, and when we do, we can count it joy. This does not mean that we enjoy facing difficulty. I don't enjoy challenges. I don't enjoy when life is hard. But because we know how God uses these things, we have reason for joy even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Notice also how James refers to these difficulties. He doesn't say, count at all joy, my brothers, when you meet difficulties or when you meet troubles of various kinds, but he says, when you meet trials, trials of various kinds. And he uses the language of trial and testing and contest, because difficulties and discouragements are designed by God to test our faith, as he says. Well, what does that mean to test our faith? It's not a test like you would take in college. The purpose of that test is to figure out whether or not you know the material. And God's purposes in these trials is not to figure out whether or not we have faith. It's not a test that is that we can pass or fail. It's a test in the sense that gold is tested. Gold, as it is taken out of the earth, is not pure. It's mixed with all other kinds of worthless materials that are not gold. But a goldsmith will take that unrefined ore and subject it to intense heat multiple times in order to separate the gold from the not gold. So he puts it in the furnace, and the I think the gold sinks to the bottom, and the not gold rises to the top, and it gets sloughed off. And that can that process can happen multiple times, even up to seven times, to have a highly, highly refined object. So what James is saying here is that God wants us to live by faith in all of life. He wants us to have a life of pure faith, a life of pure dependence upon Him. And when the heat is turned up in our lives, we have an incredible opportunity to separate the faith from the not faith. We have an incredible opportunity to grow in our dependence upon God. But it doesn't happen automatically. Trials don't just automatically make us better or make us more faithful. As a matter of fact, they can break us, they can expose us, as we will later see. We have a choice of how we will respond in the trial and when the heat is turned up. James says in verse 4 that we must let steadfastness have its full effect. We must not get in the way of the process that God is putting us through. We must not try to escape it or circumvent it or short circuit or short circuit it. We must let this work be accomplished. And how do we do

Asking God For Wisdom With Faith

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that? Well, verse 5, he says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all, without reproach, and it will be given him. In any kind of difficulty that we face, often one of the things that we need the most is wisdom. In other words, we need to know what to do. We bump into a financial struggle, a marriage struggle, a health struggle, a career impasse, and we just need to know what to do. We need wisdom. How do I resolve this issue? How do I grow beyond it? How do I get past it? Thankfully, all wisdom for all of life comes from the Lord. That's what James says here, and he repeats it in verses 16 and 17. He says, Do not be deceived. Every good and perfect gift comes from above. These things come from God. You're not going to find them anywhere else. And God is generous to give wisdom to anyone who seeks it. He's not stingy with it, he's happy to give it. We can be sure that wisdom is one thing that we can ask for from the Lord, that he will always be happy and generous to give. All wisdom comes from God, and he is happy to give wisdom to all who seek it without reproach. He's not even going to criticize us. Why didn't you come to me sooner? He gives generously without reproach. But how must we ask? We'll look at verses 6 through 8. It says, 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's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Well, what does that mean? Well, James here is, I think, mainly talking about commitment. The Lord has all wisdom. He knows how to solve your problems. The ones that you're in right now, the ones that you run into this week, the ones that you don't even know are coming. God knows exactly what to do. And he's happy to help you grow in wisdom and to help you get through that problem and to grow as a result of it. But in order to receive it, we must submit ourselves to the Lord's instruction and commit ourselves to seeking wisdom from Him and not from anyone else. It's similar to if you wanted to lose weight and if you wanted to get in better shape. You might get a gym membership, that's a good place to start. You might even hire a personal trainer. That's not a bad move. But unless you are consistent and committed and you actually show up and you go multiple times a week and you do the things that your trainer tells you to do, unless you do that, you should not expect to see any results. Just because you got the membership or hired the trainer, if you are double-minded, if you're always going back and forth on whether or not you really want to do this thing, you should not expect to receive anything from that. You can't go to the gym twice a month and expect to see significant results. So also the double-minded man who goes back and forth between the tutelage of Jesus should not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. The Lord wants us to submit ourselves to him, and as we do, he will be generous to give us all wisdom. So even though trials are painful, they're good for us because they drive us to greater dependence upon God. If we will turn to the Lord for wisdom in the midst of trials, we will find wisdom, and more than this, we will grow strong and steadfast and durable and valuable. And this is why Spurgeon said in that famous line, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. That's what we need to do is to let, let steadfastness have its full effect. We will all leave from here today, and we will meet trials of various kinds this week. They're waiting for you. They're hiding just around the corner. For those of you leaving on vacation, I hope you have a wonderful vacation, and those trials don't find you where you're going. But they're coming for all of us. We're going to meet them. Some of them might be new, we've never encountered them before. Others might be frustrations and discouragements that we have long dealt with, and they just keep coming up again and again, and we're wondering when this will be resolved. If you are discouraged by these things when you meet them and continue to meet them, you're not seeing the opportunity that's in front of you. Because it is through these very things, through the things that we don't want, that God is able to make you wise and valuable and helpful to others, and most importantly, dependent upon Him, if we will only seek wisdom from Him in the midst of those trials. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Keep seeking and it will be and you will find. Keep knocking and it will be opened to you. It's not a matter of, I knocked once and I got no response, and I just give up. God has nothing for me. No, Jesus says, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. God generously gives wisdom, but wisdom takes time to learn. And so we must persistently keep praying, keep reading, keep searching the scriptures, keep seeking counsel until we have found the wisdom that we are looking for. So trials

Trials Reorient Confidence And Wealth

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teach. But secondly, trials reorient. Trials help us grow strong by reorienting where we place our confidence. In verses 9 through 11, James turns the subject to boasting. In verse 9, he says, 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. Is this an entirely new subject that James is turning to, or does it have any connection with suffering and with trials? Well, let's unpack it just a little bit. First of all, to boast in something, when James says, let the rich man, or let the poor man boast in this, and let the rich man boast in this, to boast means to place our confidence in it. James says that the lowly brother should place his confidence in his exaltation, and that the rich brother should humble himself and should not place his confidence in his riches. Why not? He says, because it will fade away. Earthly wealth, while useful, is notoriously unreliable, and it's never a safe place to put our confidence in life. Because we can accumulate it inevitably, something will come for it, many things will come forward. It's so easy to lose. It's not a good place to put our confidence in life. And this is a reversal of how we normally look at the world. Those who are lowly, who have, who have very little, are tempted to be discouraged because they don't have money, they don't have influence, they don't have control, they don't have reputation or power. And to them, James says that they should not be discouraged by their low estate, rather, they should focus their eyes on their exaltation. Even if they are low in the world, in Christ, they have become heirs of the world, all of their sins are forgiven, and they will reign with Christ forever. So the lowly, those who are poor and who have nothing, should not be discouraged. But they should boast, they should place their confidence in the Lord. And oftentimes they have no other choice. They have nowhere else to place their confidence, but they can place their confidence in the Lord. On the other hand, those who are rich, who do have a lot in terms of worldly advantage, should not boast in their riches, but they should recognize that they are humble stewards. The Lord has given, yes, praise God, and the Lord can take away just as easily. Their high estate in the world does not mean that they are more deserving, for they too are beggars at the throne of grace. James has already given us a wonderful example of this. He opens his letter saying, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. There, James uses the term doolos, that's the Greek word for servant. It can be translated as servant or even as slave. In the Greek world, the doulos was the lowest possible position in society. So James understands himself in very humble terms. He says, I am just a servant of Almighty God. I am no better than any other. James, a servant. But we know that James was more than that. We know that James was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, one of the most important churches in his day. We know that he was an ordained gospel minister, and we know that he was the brother of Jesus Christ, like the biological brother of Jesus. If I was James, and if I was writing this letter, I would say James, ordained minister of the gospel, past lead pastor of the church in Jerusalem, brother of your Lord. That is not what James does. He has many accolades and honors that he could claim, and he doesn't use any of them. He regards himself first and foremost as a dulos, a servant. So how is all of this related to trials of various kinds? Well, trials have a way of revealing where we have placed our confidence. And that's why they are can be so helpful to us. And the Lord sometimes graciously removes worldly blessings in order that we would no longer rest our hearts on them, but we would learn to rest our confidence totally on the Lord. There's a wonderful story. I told this before, it's just so good. There's a wonderful story about a timber cutter who was surveying an area of timber to harvest. And he noticed a bald eagle seeking to build a nest in one of the trees that was scheduled to come down. So he shook the tree to discourage the eagle until it flew away. But the problem was that it just flew to another nearby tree that was also scheduled for harvesting and began to build its nest there. So on and on the timber cutter went, disturbing the bird, until the bird flew up high and made its nest in the rock. Every tree in this world is going to come down. Every place that we are tempted to put our confidence in wealth, in power, in influence and popularity, in our own health. If we are blessed, we may enjoy these things for a brief time, but none of them are a safe place to put our confidence in life. So, making an application here, first to the lowly, if and when you are feeling low, money is low, marriage is difficult, business is frustrating, health is failing. Do not be overly discouraged. These are frustrating things, these are painful things. When all things in life are being shaken, take this opportunity to lay hold of and to hold fast to the things that cannot be shaken. That's why this is happening, so that you can hold on to the things that cannot be shaken. How do you know when you're making progress in this? James says, joy. He says, Count it all joy, my brothers. It's not that we enjoy suffering. I don't enjoy suffering. You should not enjoy suffering. But it's that in suffering we can be joyful because we have wonderful reasons to be joyful. So in your discouragement, is there any joy? Is there any joy? Are you just an eeor? And so morose, I've flipped off my mic. So morose and so discouraged and sad about everything. Yes, we we should lament, we should bring our lamentation to the Lord, but is there any joy? Is there any hope? Because there should be, there should be. We should count it all joy because God is at work in the midst of it, and and there are things in our life that are true that cannot be shaken. That we should set our eyes on our exaltation. Take this opportunity to anchor yourself into that hope. And now a word to the successful. If and when you are feeling successful and like you are winning in life, and money is high, and reputation is high, and and and everything is going well. Health is good. Beware. Beware of becoming arrogant. Beware of boasting in your success and placing your confidence on that feeble structure. Success comes from God, and we should thank God for any success that He blesses us with. And we should remain humble, knowing that we are undeserving. Even if we have worked very hard, success is not entitled to any of us. Even if we there I know many people who have worked very hard for their whole lives, and they're broke and they never made it. Success is not entitled to anybody. It comes from God. It's a gift of God, and he can take it away whenever he desires. This is the whole message of the book of Job. So if you don't believe me, go and read the book of Job. So collect your successes and your wins each day as flowers in a beautiful bouquet and hand them to God at the end of the day in thanksgiving and say, Thank you, God. I can't believe it. Amazing. This belongs to you. And pray for humility and associate with the lowly. Point three, trials expose.

Trials Expose Desire And Sin

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Trials help us grow strong by exposing sin and dysfunction. Look at verses 12 through 15. He said, he says, 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 no one say, when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. When the heat gets turned up, and when the pressure is on in our lives, it is crucial that we do what James says. He says, remain steadfast under trial. Hold the line, stay faithful, be consistent, that we stay near to the Lord and we submit ourselves to whatever it is he has to teach us. The alternative would be to yield to temptation. Because isn't it when we are sad and hungry and angry and lonely and frustrated and discouraged, isn't it then that we are sometimes most tempted to sin? In fact, when we do sin and when we're called out for it, aren't we often tempted to excuse ourselves because of whatever difficulties we're facing? And we point at those things and we say, Well, I didn't do this work the way that I should have because I was pressed on time. I was in a hurry, so I was rushing, and so that's why I that's why it looks that way. Well, I yelled at you because I was hungry and I hadn't eaten all day, and you were just, you just got on my case, and so I just blew up in anger. Well, I gave in to temptation because I was feeling so frustrated by the kids all week and all of these, all of these pressures. It was, of course I did that. Of course I sinned because all of these other things. Not because of me, because of these other things in my life. Well, according to James, there's something that we're missing. Trials and difficulties come from the Lord, so that so we can have joy in the midst of them, but the desire and temptation to sin does not come from God. God does not tempt us to sin. Rather, he subjects us to trials so that we may see the sin that dwells hidden within our hearts, and often does not bubble up until the pressure is on. In verse 14, he says, But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. When we are subjected to suffering and to struggle, it is remarkably easy to abandon God and to follow our own sinful desires. So trials of various kinds should never be used as an excuse or even as an explanation for sinful behavior. Don't do that. Rather, they are an opportunity to discover how unhealthy and how sinful we are underneath the surface and how much we need the healing work of Jesus. When plumbers, we don't have our plumber here today, but when plumbers finish their installations, they don't just walk away and hope for the best. They pressure test their water lines before they close before they let anybody close up the walls. They turn on the water pressure and they examine all the lines that they installed and all the joints that they installed to make sure that there is no failure. And, you know, maybe 30% of the time there is some little failure that needs to be corrected. The purpose of the test is to expose any failure so that it can be repaired before it gets buried by drywall and becomes very, very expensive down the road to fix. When the pressure is on in our lives, we burst all kinds of leaks, don't we? We see. We see where the problems are in our lives when the pressure is on. When the pressure is low, when life is easy, the dysfunctions that hide underneath the surface don't seem so serious. They don't even seem like they're there at all. But when the pressure is high, we realize that we actually maybe we do need some help. We do have some significant problems. God graciously subjects his children to pressure and to struggle in order that we would learn a greater dependence upon God, in order that we would learn to boast in the Lord, and in order to learn in order that we would better learn our own brokenness and our own need for repair, in order to seek deeper healing from the good physician. So I never want to hear you excuse or even explain sinful behavior. When you fail, and when someone calls you out on it, probably your spouse or your kids or those who are closest to you, there really is no excuse. It doesn't matter how difficult your day was, it doesn't matter how unfairly you were treated, it doesn't even matter that you were sinned against. None of these things excuse or even explain our sin. Our sin can only be explained by our fundamental brokenness and our distance from God and our need for a Savior. It makes me think of a man once who had a very difficult day, the most difficult day that any son of Adam will ever have. On that day, he was treated unfairly. He was falsely accused and unfairly condemned. He had no one to speak up for him or to defend him, not even God. On that day, he was sinned against. He was treated with unnecessary brutality. He was insulted and he was mocked and he was struck and whipped and he was hanged on a cross until he died. Have you ever had a day like that? But do you know what Jesus never did on that day? He never sinned, he never lashed out in anger or vengeance. Instead, streams of mercy poured forth from him as he prayed for his abusers, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know

Looking To The Cross Under Trial

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not what they do. On that very dark day, Jesus Christ was tested. And he passed that test and so secured eternal salvation for all who would boast in him. So if you want to know what you're supposed to be like under trial, look at the cross. That's what we're supposed to be like when we're mistreated. We will always fall short of the glory of God. We're not Jesus, praise God. But the cross of Jesus Christ secures mercy for our shortcomings and also shows us the way that we are to imitate ourselves. And so to these ends, let us pray. Our Father, we pray that you would add your blessing to this study in the book of James. And as we preach through these verses from the brother of Jesus, that you would help us to listen to him, and more importantly, to listen to his older brother who is still speaking through these living words. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and give glory to God.