Though the darkness hide me, thou wilt be present with me, thou wilt guide me home. We're singing of that wonderful passage in Philippians chapter 2 of the Lord Jesus Christ, who being equal with God, thought it not robbery, not something to be clutched or grasped onto, being God, but made himself in a form of a servant in the likeness of men, suffered death, even the death of the cross. The Lord Jesus in His life, in His human life as God, knew what it was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knew what it was to have a family that misunderstood Him for a period of time. He knew what it was to suffer without sleep and hunger and thirst. He knew all those things. He knew betrayal from the closest of His friends. And that's a comforting thing to know when you consider the experiences of life, isn't it? Let me introduce you to some people this morning whose names I've changed in the interest of protecting their privacy. Let me introduce you to Rick, who arrives at school excited about the beginning of his new endeavor and earning a graduate degree and lands in the hospital for three weeks with pneumonia. Or what about Bob, for example, who stopped me actually in the hallway not many weeks ago and told me that his parents, after a whole lifetime of marriage together, have now filed for divorce? Or what about Jill? who from a distance watches her father and mother and six siblings as her mother struggles with a vicious brain tumor that eventually claims her life. Or a friend of mine I know who, operating a small business, had one of the employees embezzle multi-thousands of dollars from which he and his family have struggled and in time of need have found it very difficult to meet their own obligations. These are all real people. And they're having real trials. And what's more, they're all Christians. And to a guy, to a girl, to a man, to a woman, as I've named them, to my knowledge, are people seeking to follow the Lord and be faithful in the work of God. By anybody's estimation, we would say bad things are happening to good people. And none of these folks, not one of them, chose those things. You know, for the non-Christian, these things like I've just described, and I could have spent the balance of my time this morning describing occasions or incidents like this in the lives of non-believers and believers. But for non-Christians, things like this are the tortures, really, of life. Trials like this don't make people who don't know Christ better. They make people who don't know Christ increasingly bitter. They have no answers for why things like this happen. They're not built up by these things that they are broken down by these things. And all they can do, then, is just throw themselves in dependence on alcohol or tranquilizers or antidepressants or or even worse, the narcotic of some sin from which they get distraction and pleasure and relief for a while until they are engulfed again by the blackness and the darkness and the despair of the problems that are crushing them in life. But for the Christian, for the believer in great distinction From all that gloom and that despair and that darkness, I want you to see a remarkable, a remarkable supernatural ideal this morning. I'd like you to turn in your Bible to James chapter 1, please. James chapter 1. There's an introductory verse in verse 1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes which were scattered abroad, greeting. But it's verse 2. that presents this remarkable supernatural ideal that I hope will, just at this moment now as we read it, leave you a little stunned. Because this is the revealed Word of God. This is the inspired revelation of God. What I'm about to read you is absolutely true and should become absolutely a reality in our experience as believing people. And that makes the statement even more remarkable. And here it is. My brethren. Counted all joy. When you fall into divers temptations. Trials or troubles, that's what temptations mean. Read it again. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, trials, troubles, difficulties, tough experiences that we face in life. Count it pure joy. Count it highest joy. Now, that is not natural. That is not normal. What would be the natural and normal response or reaction to all sort and manner of trial and trouble? The natural reaction to that would be to recoil from it, to run from it, to look for immediate relief or rescue from it. That's normal, isn't it? That's natural. That's very human, isn't it? And then there's really what we could call more a simple response to this, which is is to become confused with trouble and difficulty in trial, to become angry, to become bitter, to become despairing, to become sadly resigned and just slip into a dark life of self-consumed pity. That begins and just continues on and on endlessly. That's a normal, natural, sinful human response. In contrast, my brethren, count it all joy, purest joy, complete joy, absolute joy. Now, that is just counter reality, it seems, really, doesn't it? What should the Christians response be to this urgent command that's presented in the Bible? Count it all joy. Reckon it or regard it as something to rejoice over. I think what the Scriptures is teaching us here is that through Christ. Through Christ. We can face inevitable trouble. With incredible joy. with a settled, calm assurance of God's good intentions through the difficulties that we face. We embrace the idea that our God is, in fact, a God of testing and trials and trouble, and He uses these things actually on purpose to transform us as a means of making us more like His Son, more holy, more sanctified, shaped in His image, which, of course, we don't arrange. We don't plan. We don't choose. In fact, would never choose. And I think that's part of the secret here to this is that God being God can make these choices and does make these choices for us. But in fact, even though it is God who is good and has good intentions and is the God of trouble and trial and makes these choices for us, we can and should respond to these things and participate in this process triumphantly. And we have to ask the question, how do we do this? How do we do that? That is an important question, brothers and sisters in Christ. Look, I know something. You are either headed into trouble, you are in trouble, you are coming just out of trouble, or you won't have to think long before you can think of and remember some trial or difficulty you've experienced. How's that for a very bright, uplifting, encouraging thought this morning? Hey, it's real, isn't it? It's real. So what do we do? How do we respond in this divinely controlled process? How do we react to this God of ours whom we love and serve? This Savior and Lord of ours? Who thought it not robbery to be equal with God and came and suffered and was acquitted with sorrow and grief and died and rose again and ascended and is at the right hand of God the Father. Well, now I'd like you to read at verse two again with me and let's read right on up through eight verse eight and we're going to see the process presented to us about how to respond to my brethren. Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations knowing this. That the trying of your faith work of patience, but let patience have her perfect work that she may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that give it to all men liberally and upgrade it not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. One of the great beauties of this process that's described that includes for us our responses to the inevitable trouble that will come in life is that it's simple. It really is. There are really just two things. They're presented in this process described in verse 2 through 8 of our response. to the inevitable trouble that comes in life. I mean, Job said it and said it so beautifully as sparks fly upward from a fire. Cement is born to trouble. And here is how we respond, we respond by knowing and we respond by praying. Knowing, not worrying and fretting and planning, but knowing, and not just talking and discussing and complaining, no, but praying. Now, let's think together about those responses. Knowing what and praying for what? Through Christ, we can face inevitable troubles with inconceivable, incredible joy that actually is possible. Instead of the darkness and the gloom, that is a typical human reaction by knowing God's good intentions all along in the process. What is this knowing? Think carefully with me now for a moment, would you, as you look at that, as you place your eyes on that word, knowing this. That is a continual present awareness in the experience of these good intentions of God, and it is in spite of the nature of the trials themselves. Notice now, please, closely, verse two, count on joy. When you fall into divers temptations, when you fall into divers temptations, when he fall, you know what we could say to translate that in good American English today? Stuff happens. Unexpected, untimely, it seems to us, can't you just hear yourself saying this this way? Why now of all times? This couldn't come at a worse time in my life than at this moment. I've got deadlines. I've got obligations. I've got projects to do. I don't have time for this. I know all of you are very spiritual and you never respond that way, but take it from somebody who does. OK. These are unsought after. These are unexpected. These are unwelcome. When ye fall into divers temptations, and then just let's just let it get heaped on here, you know, divers temptations. Now, this isn't something that you face when you're involved in deep sea diving. OK, divers means various trials and troubles when stuff happens. Externally, internally, they are varied and sometimes they are combined. Think along with me for a while. Let's rejoice in the catalog of troubles this morning. Family trouble. Money trouble. Friend trouble. Health trouble. Yes, students here this morning. Academic trouble. Relationship trouble. There's church troubles, spiritual troubles, wife trouble, husband trouble, children troubles, troubles, troubles and doubles, troubles and triples, troubles and quadruples all at once. Boy, the light's shining bright this morning, you know. You must remain continually, trustingly aware of the divinely orchestrated nature of this song. God's. This is God's song. You're hearing it. Listen carefully to the symphony of grace that is about to come into your life. This is God's grand story. You need to play your part in it. In response to him, it is God's message to you in this trouble. He's communicating to you. Open your heart and receive the message that he's communicating. So I've got to know something and I've got to know this, that it's that I must always be knowing that God's intentions are always good all along in this process, in spite of the nature of the trial, some of them brought on by my foolish choices, my own wrongful decisions, some of them nothing to do whatsoever with anything I chose or did or planned to do, and others I'm baffled over. Why? I don't know. I can't figure this out. I have not a clue. Did I do something? Did I say something? Was it yesterday? A month ago? A year ago? Men and women, regardless of the nature of those trials and whether we can put our finger on the cause of those trials, God wants us, in spite of the nature of them and the cause of them, to trust in His good intentions and how He'll use them. And we trust in those good intentions in light of his greatest goals for us through those trials and verses three and four wonderfully present these magnificent goals. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith work of patience, but let patience have a perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. That the trying the testing of your faith Works patient actually one of God's greatest goals clearly right at the outset of the statement that I just read from the text of scripture is that you would develop have developed into a pure faith, a more complete trust in God. Now, when a teacher goes into a classroom and teaches and instructs and then later tests the students, what in part is being measured by that testing is whether or not the students had the good sense and discipline and the belief in trust that what the teacher was saying and how the teacher was directing was, in fact, the right way and the right things for them to know and learn and absorb. And the test will then reveal whether their trust in what the teacher said and how the teacher instructed them and guided them was taken really seriously. And it revealed the purity of that trust or the impurity of that trust on the part of the student, the coach who drills hard and makes that player train with great strain and great effort. over and over for hours and hours and days and months is doing so because he'll be put to the task to see if he was purely trusting in the guidance of his coach. Parents do this in a thousand ways, a thousand times with their children, but they say, do this, don't do this. No, don't say that behave this way. You know, will the child be trusting? Will they be believing, accepting and receiving or responding in a hard hearted and unresponsive manner and not get the guidance and not get the instruction that they need in every case? What the teacher is doing and the coach is doing and the parent is doing is presenting things to be trusted, to be believed. And when the test comes, it reveals whether the trust of the child, the one being coached, the student was pure or not. The testing has a revealing quality about it, and it should also have a purifying quality about it in that if it becomes apparent, in fact, that that one being coached or taught or led as a child was not purely trusting and believing and following the coach, teacher or parent's instruction, then they should follow it and they should respond differently than they have responded. It's actually there is in this passage an allusion to a process that we'll come to in a little while about refinement. A kind of burning and crushing process that causes purity. The greater the trouble and the quantity and the types of it, the greater effort God is making, the greater testing God is bringing to reveal to you and to me the purity or impurity of our trust. How much we enjoy our friend Ron's ministry week after week. As he leads us in music and one of the songs of his that I think all of us find particularly heartwarming is the one that he wrote after he lost his eye to cancer. God never moves without purpose or plan when trying his servant and molding a man. We see Ron at some point read a verse which most of you, I'm sure, have read and perhaps even memorized from first Peter one seven. That was what was in his mind and in the background to him writing this. Because the Bible says that the trial of your faith being much more precious than a gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be founded to the praise and honor and glory of the appearing of Jesus Christ. So he concluded that song with these words, for when I am tried and purified, I shall come forth as gold. I want you to notice that the text continues and understand that the goals that God has are not mutually exclusive. They are not all separated from each other. They're all interrelated, one with the other. God is looking to build your trust. God is looking to make your faith a pure faith. On next. And in the process of building that faith, He's also looking to build stronger endurance in you. Knowing that God's intentions have always been good, now we have this settled assurance. The trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work. We could say rightly in explaining that phrase, the trying of our faith works or creates endurance. Stronger endurance. Now that process a minute ago I talked about of the crushing and the burning. That's really what is being alluded to in this whole process of testing. And that's what's simply called pyrometallurgy. It's where ore is taken and crushed and then that crushed ore is mixed with chemicals and heated to extreme degrees and the impurities of the ore are separated from the precious metal, giving a pure silver or a pure gold. Extreme burning, incinerating heat, crushing and pounding and grinding. This is describing The process of trial. The process of becoming what we ought to become, you know what this teaches me, it profoundly teaches me how deep seated. How deep seated my weaknesses and my personal failings and shortcomings are, how stubborn and deeply rooted. The things that the matters of sin in my own regenerate nature and character of a Christian are that these extremes, which I would never choose the doubles, the triples, the quadruples, the crushing, the grinding, the fire. I would never elect these things. There's only one. Who can elect those things, there's only one. who has the heart and the graciousness and the compassion and the love and the mercy and the wisdom and knowledge to select those things, to orchestrate those things. It is He whom we serve. It is the one to whom we bow. It is our God who we look to. in the dark, difficult times, as well as in the light and the bright and the happy times. You know, we all have in us, don't we, an inclination. And isn't this so true? And it's really so tragic, but it's true. And what's shocking is that it'll surprise you, it'll catch you at times, almost off guard. When you think you're really running the race with great endurance and things are going well and suddenly you're really winded and suddenly you're really tired and suddenly you're really fed up and you're really ready to do what? To give up, to give out, to just give in, to stop trusting in the work, in the ministry, in the life that God has given you to do. You know what God wants to do with us? He wants to develop. staying power. He wants to develop endurance, perseverance. It's great to read the history of the church and the stories of people in it, remarkable people, people like William Carey, who is often described as the father of the modern missionary movement. Now, that means modern in the sense of of categories of history in the last few centuries, in other words. Kerry went as a missionary near the end of the 18th century to India. He was one of the very first of foreign missionaries to a foreign land from England. In this, what we call more modern era, he was quite a remarkable character, largely self-educated. He spent many years almost reaching no one with the gospel. There was no positive response to the truth. And then people began to be converted to Christ. He eventually established a college for the training of men for the ministry. He translated all our parts of the Bible in over 40 different Indian dialects. Himself. Several of these were stored in a warehouse in 1812, that warehouse burnt and destroyed completely several of those whole translations and some grammar books he had written for some of those languages. You know what he did? He just turned right around and started over on the ones that were lost. And we completed them. He later wrote a letter to his nephew, which revealed something interesting about what God had done in William Carey's life. He said, I can plod. To this, I owe everything. What was he giving a testimony to his own personal character or disposition? I don't think so. What he was testifying to was that God had worked in him A settled determination and resolve and endurance that said, I'm not quitting. I'm not giving up, giving in, giving out. And I would suggest to you that God even used that very tragic event in his life to, in part, build that quality of life into him, that constancy. Think about it for just a minute. What good really in relationship with people and in ministry as well, is fluctuating love. What about intermittent zeal? Occasional joy? Or momentary peace, for example? Or on again and off again compassion? Now, any joy, any zeal, any compassion, any love is a good thing. Sure. But what God wants from us is a constancy and endurance in these things. How is God going to work that endurance in these things? This passage tells us in a process that we would very likely never choose. God isn't finished. God is interested in developing this enduring trust that He has as another great goal presented in this passage of Scripture in verse 4. That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Let patience have her perfect work. Let this trying that purifies faith and create endurance bring to pass something else that God is after. That she may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. God simply wants greater spiritual maturity out of you, out of me, out of every one of us. That the trials would yield, as it says in the verse, Someone who is perfect, and that means mature. Entire just means whole. Wanting nothing. A well-balanced, well-rounded, beautiful human demonstration of what Christlikeness actually is in human flesh. A recreation of the image of Jesus Christ in us. This is what God is after in this process. The fire may be hot and the blows may be crushing. The result will be a quality of life that is utterly remarkable. I just spent the last several days in Baltimore preaching at the American Council of Christian Churches, their 69th annual convention, and one of the fellow speakers with me in that convention was Pastor John Vaughn. I don't know if many of you know Pastor Vaughn, who for 30 years pastored the Faith Baptist Church in Greenville, was the president of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship. The story of his life is absolutely compelling. It's remarkable. Early in his married life, his very little baby and his wife were burned horribly in a house fire. They've chronicled that whole tragic, what we would call tragic event in a book, more precious than gold. Which is a compelling story of all of the surgeries and all the accompanying health challenges and difficulties that have come. Men and women, not just for a year or two and some physical scarring, but literally for their entire lives. Tremendous health difficulties and challenges. Faithfully serving God. Just not more than two years ago, and I think even less than that. In the providence of God, I was scheduled to preach at Faith Baptist Church. And a week before preaching there, his 30 year old son, 31 year old son was killed in a pedestrian automobile accident in Greenville. They just keep serving God. His wife now is in a very serious health complication because of the fire that happened 30 years ago. They just keep serving God. and loving God and glorifying God. And I tell you, I was frankly both magnificently encouraged and somewhat chided and shamed as I saw his continual joy, his rejoicing, his buoyant spirit the entire time we were together. We spent a lot of time together this week. And yet, if you look at the chronicle of his life, men and women, it's a life of trial. Now, what is going on there? What has happened there? Well, something magnificent has happened. There's been a knowing, a knowing that God's intentions were good all along in this process and that God was going to accomplish things that could be accomplished no other way. That God was not intending to destroy or harm or leave disabled, but rather rather to purify faith and increase endurance and bring to glorious maturity. And there is in this process also to be for us another step. Our response, you know, I'm not made of metal. I'm not made of wood. I'm not made of clay. Neither are you. We're human beings. We have an ability, do we not, to respond and to cooperate and engage and enter into by our choice what God is doing. And that leads to the second and major step in the process, and that is that we pray for wisdom in this process. Notice verse five. If any of you lack wisdom, Let him ask of God to give it to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. You know, if we turn away, if we stiffen our necks, so to speak, resist or wander or run from the pressure or the difficulty, we will miss the benefit that God intends. I read recently about the secretary of a Christian leader, a godly woman. who suffered a stroke. True story. And her husband was already blind and had recently gone into a very difficult health circumstance and landed in the hospital and was really teetering on the precipice of life and death with a terminal illness. A fellow Christian met her at church and said, you know, I'm just so sorry to hear about what's happening. And I want you to know, I'm really praying for you. And those are words that every one of us love to hear from our fellow believers. And the woman looked at her and said, I will thank you for praying. I appreciate that so much for you thinking about me and about my husband in these circumstances. And she said, but what are you praying for? And the woman said, well, I'm praying for God to give you grace and strength and help you endure in this. And well, thank you. I need that. I really need that. But would you pray for something else? She said. And the woman who had said she was praying for us will fly. I'd be glad to pray for anything else you need me to pray for. She said, I want you to pray that I will make the right choices to respond as I should in these circumstances. And I won't waste this. You see what that woman was saying was that she recognized she needed to pray to God and have from God wisdom. Motivated by the recognition of the need for it, we need to be motivated by our own recognition of the need for if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. If any of you lack wisdom, we could rightly say when the time comes that every one of us will need it. What should I do? How do we respond when difficulty comes? What should I do? I don't know how to respond to this. What choices should I make in the midst of financial or personal difficulty of some kind? You see, it really isn't men and women, intelligence or knowledge we need. It's wisdom that we need the ability to make right choices for our own spiritual good and for the glory of God, the ability to see things from God's omniscient, all knowing perspective. That's what we need, isn't it? And the first step is recognizing we lack it and getting really motivated to get it. And I see, as I look at this statement in Scripture, there's one way to get it. Now, wisdom comes through the Word and wisdom comes by the Spirit working in me. But if I don't ask for it, if I don't ask God to impart it to me directly, I won't have what I need from God. And I can come and do that asking fully assured that God is willing to grant it. See that in verse five, let him ask God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. This is a persistent asking. If we ask, if we seek, if we knock, we shall receive. And God is willing to continually give, generously give, and gladly give this wisdom to us as believing people. The unbeliever sees God as someone with a clenched fist. We see God as a Father with an open hand who continually, generously, and gladly is willing to give to us. And see what the text says? That's exactly what it says. He giveth to all men liberally, upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. He continually gives, liberally gives, and gladly gives as a father. His perspective, his view. And it's critical that we have that wisdom. And we know that it's right to pray for this, and we can be determined to pray for this with great singleness of mind, men and women, because of Christ, motivated, fully assured by this promise of God and determined because of what Christ has done for us. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. And let not that man think he'll receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." This is being fixed in faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, who is full of grace and full of wisdom, who Himself is wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1.30 says. Who in whom is all the treasure of wisdom? Colossians 2, 3. Ready to give us this principle thing, wisdom, this perspective of God, as we pray with our faith fixed. Not like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. Now these aren't the steady rollers coming into the beach. Okay? These are the cross seas of a hurricane. Think of a small boat just sitting on the top of those waves being tossed all around at any moment, feeling like you're going to be capsized and lost in the storm. That's the picture. No calm. Steady. Fixed faith. Not a double mind with a civil war going on in your soul. Trust and distrust of God. Focus on the problems, the difficulties, the stresses and strains. And then, oh, yes, I do need to trust the Lord. Oh, but I don't know. Oh, my. This is going to kill me. It's going to crush us. It's going to ruin us. But maybe I should know it's fixed faith. Single minded trust. Not a brainstorm of perplexity and indecision. Not, as John Bunyan said in Pilgrim's Progress, the man facing both ways. It's a fixed faith. Because he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he's the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. A single-souled confidence. Because the double minded man is unstable in all his ways. The double minded man is in trouble. Not long ago, we bought our daughter, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, a GPS. We got it for Christmas for her. She tends to be a little directionally challenged. And so we thought that would be something good for her to have. And recently, sadly, someone broke into both of their vehicles at their house, stole a number of things out of the car and stole the GPS out of her van. And she was recounting to the children that some things had been stolen from the van. And my little four year old grandson, Ethan, was listening to the recounting of it and taking things very calmly. And as she went along describing the things that had been stolen until she mentioned that the Garmin, which is the met the type, the form of GPS, the Garmin GPS had been stolen. And all of a sudden he just went nuts, ballistic, crying. Oh, no, the GPS has been stolen. The Garmin has been stolen. What will we do? What will we do? And she calmed him down. Ethan, it'll be OK, Ethan. It'll be all right. Honey, you know, we can get another one. We can replace this. But, Mommy, Mommy, how will we ever find our way home when we get lost? It's that way, isn't it? Oh, Lord, what will we do? How will we ever find our way home, Lord? How will we ever get out of this dark place, Lord? Well, you see, there's the garment. for the dark places. There's a GPS for the dark places, the troubled places, the inevitable trouble in which we can have incredible joy by knowing that your God has always had good intentions and that your God, in spite of the nature of the trials, has great goals and that He will impart wisdom to you as a single-minded person of faith and how to respond in the midst of those troubles.