James 1:3-4, What's So Great About Patience
James 1:3-4, “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
“Worketh patience.”
And what’s so great about patience? I’ve always heard the half-joke growing up, “Don’t pray for patience because the Lord will send it. Be careful what you ask for!” The response is generally a mild laugh with a nod of recognition that you really don’t want the thing in your life that works patience. But truthfully, we need patience!
Patience is well-defined as steadfastness, constancy, and endurance. 1 Corinthians 15:58 teaches, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” Being so resolute that we are unmovable and always abound in God’s work is not a natural quality—we must learn it. God must use trials in our life to teach it to us. We have to learn the qualities that aid to staying constantly in Jesus—in abiding in Him. We have to learn what we must lay aside as Hebrews 12:1 reminds us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” We must endure; we need patience.
“But let patience have her perfect work.”
It should be obvious by now that if God is allowing a trial that He has a purpose behind it. Why can’t we learn to trust Him more? Patience is working toward that end. These trials are developing patience in us that allows us to wait for God to deliver and provide. We get beyond our ability and can do nothing but wait for God. This is the perfect work of patience. Anything God is working is perfect, for God is perfect—He makes no mistakes. And the work that patience is doing is a perfecting work. God allows trials which teaches patience and helps bring us to be complete, wanting (or lacking) nothing.
Did you notice that we are to “let” patience have her perfect work? We need to allow God’s work in our lives. We need to not only accept it but also look to God and humbly let Him work. We can refuse to learn what we need, but then we have not grown. Will the trials just make us bitter? Will we patiently wait for God as He works and learn the endurance? What is your heart toward God’s work through trials? When God allows you to suffer a trial and He brings you through it, you become that much more enduring. An athlete improves by pushing the boundaries of his body to exhaustion so that the next time he can endure more. Over much time, he finds that he can accomplish more as he pushes more. God allows trials to push our boundaries so that we learn that we are able to endure more for the cause of Christ. Thank you, Lord, for working in our lives so that we “may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
James 1:2-3, The Trial of your Faith
James 1:2-3, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”
The joy of a trial is not the trial itself, but it is God working in our lives.
“Count it all joy.”
The Christians to whom this letter was directly written were familiar with trials. We notice in verse 1 that this letter is to “the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” Not all Jews were scattered, just those that followed Christ. Acts 1:8 describes the time: “And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.” We learn also in verse 4, “Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.” Praise the Lord that while being persecuted and driven from their homes they could preach God’s Word. But these were people who understood diverse temptations. They were driven from their homes, separated from their culture, separated sometimes from their family, imprisoned, tortured, seeing friends martyred, and more than we can only imagine. Yet here, James tells them to “count it all joy.” I believe the only way you can continue God’s work in the middle of a trial is to count the trial as joy, knowing that God is working.
“The trying of your faith.”
But joy in a trial? Rejoice over some difficulty for which I never asked but I fell into it? How is this possible? Understanding that God is working all things together for good is easy when life feels good, but our faith in God’s promise is tested when we cannot see the good in a situation. A loved one passes away, a job falls through, an expected and oversized bill shows up, a frightening medical condition is discovered—the diverse temptations really put our faith to the test. But it is when our faith survives these trials that the reality of what we believe becomes even more clear.
When I lost my best friend, knowing he was with our Savior made Heaven that much more real. I already knew by faith the reality of eternal life in Heaven with Jesus, but knowing my best friend was right there was a glimpse of when faith becomes sight! My faith was tried and strengthened, not because I am strong but because God is good and faithful. He used a trial to do a work in me. We can count the trials all joy because we can trust our loving God.
Let it be clear, it is our faith that is being tried in these temptations. Faith does not follow understanding; instead, we understand by faith (Hebrews 11:3a, “Through faith we understand…”). Our faith being tried produces patience in us. Our attitude becomes, “Lord, I don’t understand why I am going through this, but I know you are working and I trust that You will are working for good. I will wait for you as you do a work in me.” When we don’t understand and don’t know what to do, we are most ready to learn to wait on the Lord. We have to understand that we are at the end of ourselves before we further learn to trust God. God has used various financial trials in my life to show me time and again that He will always provide. And every time I trusted in the Lord, not only did He provide but also He showed me that I can trust Him more. Now, as a pastor, I am learning to trust Him not just for my own provisions but also for the provisions of an entire church body. Had the Lord not tried my faith, I would not have the patience for this new trial. We need the trials to teach us to trust Him more so that He can use us for even greater things. And through it all, we can do nothing but point to “God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)
James 1:2, What Happens When You Fall
James 1:2, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”
Notice with me two phrases from this verse.
“Count it all joy.”
Wisely, this verse starts with the joy before the temptation. Often, we need to be assured before we understand the difficulty. If God is working—and He is—then there is reason to rejoice. God takes pleasure in working in you both to will and to do, and as we see God uses trials to build us, meaning that we can have joy in difficulties. The joy we can experience is not because we love the temptation or trial, but we rejoice knowing that God is working on us by the trial. I can have joy because I know God is working for good as He already assured us. I can rejoice assuredly because the end result, described in verse 4 of this chapter, will guide me toward being “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Trials are part of making us fully complete and equipped for a closer walk with God and more dedicated service.
“When ye fall.”
Falling into temptation is inevitable. The Holy Spirit could have just as easily directed this verse to read “if ye fall,” but falling into temptation is a fact of life. Notice, though, the fall is into temptation but not to sin. The reality is that we sin as we are drawn of our own lust and enticed. Our lust brings us to sin; we do not “fall” into sin. When referring to the sin of Adam and Eve that resulted in sin nature being passed down to all mankind, we often use the term “the fall of man.” Probably a more appropriate phrase would be “the jump of man.” Sinful man is guilty not by accident but by the work of the flesh.
But we do fall into temptations as in the sense of trials. Nobody in his right mind seeks out a trial or a difficulty. But trials are necessary in this life to mold us into a Christian that is “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” In order to be completely equipped as needed, we have to accept that trials are essential. And of course, God does not leave us to ourselves in our trials to fend for ourselves. 1 Corinthians 10:13 reminds us, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” God is faithful always, even during times of temptation when we most realize our need for Him. So, what happens “when ye fall”?
The word translated ye fall here in James 1:2 is used two other times in Scripture. The first is when a man fell among thieves and was stripped of his raiment, wounded, and left for dead. I imagine that this man had a completely different plan for his day; nevertheless, this is what happened. In fact, it pretty well ruined a few days in a row. This man’s account is the one we remember by the “the good Samaritan” who would sacrificially save this man’s life. God used this Samaritan to rescue and care for this total stranger who had fallen into this terrible trial.
The second time we can find this word in Scripture is in Acts 27 when Paul found himself imprisoned on a ship and caught in a great storm. The crew attempted to bring the ship to a safe harbor but fell “into a place where two seas met” causing the ship to run aground on the bow and the stern to be broken into pieces. The soldiers guarding the prisoners wanted to kill all the prisoners, including Paul, to prevent their escape. Verse 43 retells, “But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose.” God used that centurion to save Paul’s life. The common theme in each of these verses of those who fell into a temptation is that God provided a way of escape. For every fall, God is faithful. So “when ye fall,” you know that our faithful God “will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Look to God for the way of escape. Look to God so that ye can bear it.
Be Strong in the Grace
2 Timothy 2:1-2, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
As God allows and directs, my heart is to commit to the faithful what God has taught me. If we will reach the next generation and those to follow with the grace of Christ Jesus, we first must be strong in that grace and commit what we know to the faithful who will teach others also. We can no longer afford generational gaps of teaching Biblical truth! We need to increase in our learning from God’s Word and be faithful to teach others also.
With this blog, I hope to encourage who I can to be strong enough to walk the path of Christ while teaching and strengthening others along the way. As a teacher within a church environment for almost two decades, I have had opportunity to see God work in the lives of those that He has so graciously allowed me to influence. I am humbled now to serve as a pastor and to see God use the preaching of His Word to affect hearts for Him. I pray this to be an avenue that God will use to stir the hearts of His people to follow and be encouraged in Him, and then that God’s people will transmit this knowledge to someone else.
Of course, much of the teaching will not mean a lot to a person who has not accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. You cannot be encouraged in God’s Word if you have not placed your faith in Jesus as the only way of salvation. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is no salvation in any other. It is only by the salvation that God freely offers by grace through faith that the wages of sin, which is death, can be satisfied. You will only find peace and purpose in Jesus Christ, who by His death and resurrection offers eternal life to “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord.” The way of salvation is simple: you must realize you are a sinner (“all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”), repent of your sin (turn from the way of your sin to Christ), receive Jesus as your Savior (‘as many as received him, to them gave he power to be the sons of God), and you can rejoice in your new life!