Enduring Various Trials

Weekly Update – February 1st, 2024

Trials are never an easy thing to handle.  No matter how callous you become towards a particular hardship, or how mature you deal with a certain difficulty, a trial of any sort can still disrupt your life, wreak havoc on your emotions and even change the course of the future.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, “How does the Bible view trials?”  That has been the subject of the last two weeks of our time together as we have been looking at James chapter 1. 

James 1:2 indicates that we will “meet trials of various kinds” in the Christian life.  For starters, this means that, as Christians, we are not immune to difficulties, nor are we exempt from challenges to our faith.  We are not expecting a life full of health, wealth and prosperity, but instead, the opposite is often true, as we live our lives “grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:6).  In fact, a better word for “meet” in James 1:2, when James tells us that we will “meet trials”, is better explained by saying that we will fall into trials of various kinds.  So then, we can’t plan for what might happen next, as James warns us in 4:13-17, but we can grow now as we trust that when something does come our way in the future, we won’t crumble under its weight.

James doesn’t stop with the reminder to us about difficult times though.  He continues to tell us of two possible outcomes that trials may have.  One, trials can lead to the “testing of your faith” (James 1:3) where when we have “stood the test” (James 1:12) there is the promised crown of life awaiting us at the end.  Or trials can turn to temptations which eventually lead to sin and then finally death (James 1:13-15).  In fact, the word for trial (peirasmos) can either be translated as test or tempt.  How we understand which direction to go with the word, test or tempt, is determined by the context of what is around it. 

The next question we should ask is, “How do trials come to us?”  Well, God is the one who brings trials into our lives.  We know that because Jesus tested his disciples in the gospels (John 6:6) and God tested Abraham with his son Isaac (Hebrews 11:7).  The reason for the testing is clearly explained in 1 Peter 1:6-7 as the result of “praise and glory and honor” on the last day.  Just as in James 1:12, the testing of your faith leads to “the crown of life.”  The goal of testing our faith is not so that God might determine if we truly have faith.  Instead, it is to test it, so that it is refined, strengthened and complete on that final day.  We are not walking into eternity with a halfhearted hope that still longs for the world but is happy to be with Jesus too.  No, we are looking to eternity with our only hope being in Jesus, as we reach for the crown of life he gives to all who endure.

Lets go back to the word for trial (peirasmos) for a second though. Again, that word for trial is the same word for test or tempt.  Meaning that our third question for the day is, “If God tests me, does he also tempt me?”  Well James, I think, knows that this must be on the mind of his readers because he says in James 1:13, “…God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”  What this means is that James is making a distinction between the testing that God brings into every believer’s life, and the tempting that God cannot do and never does.  Instead, James says that temptation comes from the desire within (1:14).  Then, when that desire is given into, it leads to sin, and sin, if not overcome will lead to death (1:15).

What does this mean for us then?  Every trial is, in a sense, a test or a temptation.  In other words, every test is a temptation, and every temptation is a test.  With every trial, our hope in God is being tested to either endure trusting in the Lord, which is why we are told to ask God for wisdom (1:5), or tempted to forsake our hope, give into sin, and follow the path of unrepentance unto eternal death (1:13-15).  So when James says in 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life,” that promise is for all who remain faithful through testing as well as to all who resist temptation and repent of sin as well. 

Therefore,

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”  (Hebrews 10:23)

Serving Him with You,
Pastor Michael Nelson