James begins his letter in a surprising way considering he is writing to people who have experienced suffering. He writes in verse 2, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…”
How about that for words of comfort for those who are going through a trial? Other translations say “Consider it pure joy…” We might read those words and think “What kind of encouragement is that?”
How would you feel if you were going through a painful time and a friend calls you up and the first words out of their mouth are, “I hope you are experiencing the joy of this!” That is not what you want to hear. You are looking for compassion. You are looking for people who will come along side you and say things like, “I am so sorry this is happening.” You are looking for people who will come alongside you and weep while you weep.
But James takes a different approach. James writes in verses 2-4: “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.“
James immediately took his readers beyond their physical reality of suffering and pain and he took them to the spiritual reality of their suffering and pain.
When you and I go through trials there are two realities occurring: the physical reality and the spiritual. Most of us tend to focus on what is happening in the physical which is a natural reaction because it is what we feel and see first.
If I am in physical pain, I am going to be thinking about the part of my body that is hurting. If I am in emotional pain, I am going to be thinking about that part of my life that is in struggling. If I am in financial distress, I am going to think about how I am going to pay my bills and meet my needs. Whatever the present earthly trial is that is where my thoughts tend to be focused.
And what James wanted his readers to immediately understand was that while the physical realities of these trials are real, there is something bigger happening here.
James wants us to understand that through these trials, there is something happening in your spiritual life that is far greater and far more significant than anything that you are enduring in this physical world. In fact, the thing that is happening in your spiritual life (through these earthly trials) is so life changing and so significant that you will literally consider these earthly trials as joy in light of what God is doing in your life.
Sit with that thought for a moment.
The thing that is happening in your spiritual life (through these earthly trials) is so life changing and so significant that you will literally consider these earthly trials as joyful.
How is that possible? It is possible to view them as joy when we begin to look at our life (not just our trials) but our entire life through the eternal lens of the Kingdom of God and what God is desiring to do through us for his glory.
James is not just referring to trials that comes through persecution but all kinds of trials that we experience in this world. The New Living Translation say “When trials of any kind come your way.”
This word “trial” in verse 2 refers to anything that brings “adversity, affliction and trouble into our life.” And so the trials James is referring to can be relational trials, workplace trials, financial trials, physical trials, emotional trials, and spiritual trials. It can be big trials and small trials. Whenever we face adversity, and affliction and trouble of various kinds, there is an opportunity for God to accomplish his purposes through us.
Now James does not say “if” you face trials but rather he says “when” you face trials. I think that is important to note because trials are not optional in this life. They are not something we outgrow, they are not something we mature out of. Trials are a part of our normal, human experience. It is one of the results of the fallen world. The moment Adam and Eve entered into sin they entered into trials, hardships and pain.
And nothing exempts us from trials.
Being a Christian does not exempt us from struggle and heartache. In fact, for James’ audience being a Christian was one of the very reasons they were experiencing trials. They were being persecuted for their faith.
And not only are trials a part of the human experience, but what James is going to show us here in these first four verses is that God is at work in our trials. In fact, James begins by saying there is a great benefit to trials which is why he wants us to think about earthly struggles and trials differently even connecting them to joy. Show me a person who knows true joy and I will show you a person who has experienced trials.
Now even if we recognize that God is at work in our trials, it doesn’t change the fact that trials can be devastating.
When James wrote “count it all joy when you face trials” he knew his audience had faced some very difficult things. He was not minimalizing their pain and heartache. He was not brushing it away. He was not saying it is not a big of deal. He knew it was a big deal. He knew trials can leave us in deeply hurting. He knew trials can leave us broken. This is why he was addressing this topic in verse 2. He knew he was writing to people who are broken and crushed. And he wants to give them hope in the midst of their pain. He wants them to know there is joy in the middle of this darkness.
To really understand what James is asking us to do, we need to understand what this word joy is that James is talking about.
When we think of the word joy we often think about being happy In fact, we often use those words interchangeably. To be happy is to be joyful and to be joyful is to be happy. But when the Bible talks about joy it is not simply talking about being happy.
My grandfather once compared these two words this way:
“Happiness is a fresh, cut flower while joy is a deep-rooted plant.”
Another way to compare happiness and joy. Happiness is the state of our emotions, joy is the state of our soul. One is temporary, one is eternal. As we go throughout our day and as our circumstances are changing so are our emotions.
Traffic can make us frustrated even angry.
A presentation at work can make us nervous.
A friend’s joke can make us laugh causing us to feel happy.
But our joy does not change because it is not rooted in our circumstances because joy is given to us by God. Galatians 5:22 tells us joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. As believers in Jesus Christ, the spirit of God is in us and one of the fruits that he produces in us through His spirit is joy.
And so two things that are important to understand about biblical joy is that 1) it comes from God and 2) God gives it to those who are believers in Jesus Christ. A non-believer cannot experience biblical joy because a non-believer does not have the Spirit of God in them.
A great passage on biblical joy is 1 Peter chapter 1 where Peter writes in verses 3-6
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.”
He continues in verse 8
“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
This is why we have joy. We have a new birth into a living hope—a present hope and a future hope that will not fade. Our hope and our identity are not anchored in our circumstances. Our hope and our identity are anchored in the person of Jesus Christ which is why as Christians we are able to experience a deep rooted, supernatural contentment in our soul no matter what we are going through – that is biblical joy.
This is why the apostle Paul is able to say in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
Because our hope and our identity are not in our circumstances, but in the person of Jesus Christ, we can experience a deep-rooted divine joy.
And so in James 1:2, James writes these challenging words: count it all joy. James was saying count it all God-given, Christ-anchored, eternally secured, peace that goes beyond understanding joy.
But Why? Because God is doing something through these trials that is connected to our living hope, that is connected to the work of Christ and that is connected to the kingdom of God for the glory of God.
It may appear that you are being crushed right now, but in fact, you are being supernaturally built-up as God is transforming you into the image of His son to accomplish his purposes in you and through you. It may not be producing the emotion of happiness, but from a Kingdom of God perspective, it should be producing a biblical, Christ-centered joy.
James continues in writes in verses 3-4:
“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.”
When we go through adversity, challenges, hardships and struggles, those situations are providing an opportunity for our faith to be tested. Those trials now reveal where your true hope lies.
You see, sometimes, we say God is our hope but that is only because our family relationships are going well, and we feel financially comfortable and generally happy. And it is in those times we are quick to praise God and say God is good.
But then your faith is tested and the things that gave you earthly hope are gone and then you are faced with the question, “where is my hope?”
When we are able to say, ‘God, you and you alone are my hope’, that is when the genuineness of our faith is made known. And that is also when we produce a spiritual characteristic in our lives called steadfastness. Other translations use the word perseverance or endurance.
Why is it important to produce steadfastness? Because steadfastness is the ability not give up or give in.
And why is that significant?
Because as believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to live by faith. And yet there are so many things in this life that can cause us to let go of our faith in Christ. We live in a fallen and wicked world that is constantly saying to us “If your God was good or if he was even real he wouldn’t allow these things to happen to you. Abandon your faith and look out for yourself. Trust in your own wisdom and create your own future and your own hope.”
And yet when we seek to lean on our own understandings that is when we truly begin to encounter despair and hopelessness.
Every time we walk through a trial trusting in God our life becomes less and less about us and more and more about Christ. And the more we give ourselves more to Christ, not only do we experience more and more of the joy and hope of Christ but more and more do we get to become a part of the work of Christ. It is the daily act of taking up your cross, dying to self and following Christ.
When we allow the work of steadfastness to accomplish its work, we are allowing God’s Spirit to accomplish His sanctifying work in us as we are being transformed into the image of Christ. This is why James says in verse 4 “let steadfastness have its full effect.”
Every moment you continue in that trial trusting in God, surrendering to God, you are laying down your own selfishness and learning to fully embrace the grace and mercy of God. You are learning that God’s grace is sufficient as the Apostle Paul acknowledges (2 Cor. 12:9). You are learning that he alone is enough. You are learning that you truly need nothing else but Christ and Christ alone.
Too often we never truly learn that because we bail too soon and we begin to lean on our own strength and understanding. This is why James says, “let steadfastness have its full effect. Other translations say let steadfastness finish it’s work. James is urging us to allow the work of steadfastness in the midst of trials to strip away the selfishness and the pride in us letting only the thing remain be Christ at work in you.
James finishes verse 4 by saying “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” This is not “perfection” in the sense that we are now sinless. This is not “complete” in the sense that we can reach a point in which we are a fully finished product. It is perfect and complete in the sense that you are being made mature.
James is calling his readers to a spiritual maturity in which they are living out the Christian faith with endurance and perseverance–not giving in to the temptation of the culture, not taking the easy road, not becoming infatuated with the riches of this world. But rather being people who are fully devoted followers of Jesus living out the mission of Christ for the glory of Christ.
If you have ever uttered the phrase, ‘God, I want you to use my life! God, I want my life to be about you’ then please know that God desires the same thing. But for us to know the life that God has called us to, it requires that we let go of our own life and the stripping away of our self-sufficiency.
This is why Jesus says in Matthew 16, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The joy of our life is not holding on to our life, but to know Christ as our life.
This is also why Paul says, “I no longer live but Christ lives in me.”
The trials of our life allow us to let go and recognize that Christ is sufficient. We will never know joy in our own sufficiency.
And so when James hears Christians asking the question, “what do I do with all these trials that we are going through” he is eager to begin his letter with the words: “rejoice” because it is an opportunity to know the grace and mercy and sufficiency of Christ. It is an opportunity for steadfastness to complete its work so that our faith may be mature so that we are able to run the race with endurance for the purpose of Christ and the glory of Christ.