Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gebhardt: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: This may seem strange, but I don't know of a more important message for you to really understand. You're going to see why in a moment, but I think of the one thing that we struggle with the most in our lives, and I have struggled the most with as a pastor, is your suffering, the trials that you face. We get ourselves so upset and so worked by the trials that we face, and we're going to see that that's not an option for us.

Tom Burgess is a newspaper writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Sometime ago he wrote this article entitled "Navy SEALs Go Through Hell." He writes: "They came up to this Ensign and they poured a glass of ice water down his back, and they threw another into his face. The Ensign, who had fallen asleep in the chow line after five sleepless nights, opened his eyes for a second just long enough to utter a dull 'thank you, sir.' A moment later his eyes rolled upward and then closed. His head went down again and he didn't touch his milk."

It's called Hell Week. It's part of the Navy's Basic Underwater Demolition School where sailors are turned into SEALs: Sea, Air and Land commandos. By undergoing a grueling regimen of sleepless nights and sleepless days, sensory overload, and physical testing, these men are transformed into some of the toughest human beings in this world. The effort to change the average man into commando starts at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego, California. The class commences in October with a 300-yard swim, and the physical regimen becomes increasingly difficult as it builds to the ultimate challenge known as Hell Week.

The final period of torturous physical and psychological training begins on Sunday night. Lights flash on as the recruits are awakened by an instructor. Next to one ear, a machine gun with blanks is fired. A jet from a garden hose is digging into the other ear, as the instructor shouts out instructions: "We have a mission to perform this evening. I want you to listen to every detail I have for you." The mission turns out to be exercising and lying wet and almost naked on a cold steel plate installed on a nearby pier.

On Monday, the six-man teams are ordered to run races with a 250-pound Zodiac rubber assault boat on their heads. On Tuesday, with less than an hour's sleep from the night before, they have to row those Zodiac boats to the Mexican waters and back, a trip of 18 miles. Because of sleep deprivation, many of the trainees confess drifting in and out of consciousness throughout the trip. Back at the base, most students learn to sleep while they are eating. On Wednesday, the men continue with the races and the boats bouncing on their heads, their combat boots sinking into the soft sand.

That evening they run again. At midnight, they are ordered to lie in the cold, pounding surf. Every ten minutes during the night, they are made to stand up so they can get the full effect of the wind. After the surf torture, the chance to disenroll awaits each student. All he has to do is ring a certain bell three times and say, "I quit." By Friday afternoon, everyone is hallucinating. The week is over and the new SEALs are lined up to be checked out by a doctor. He writes this: "Only in terms of the ugliness of war can punishment like this make any sense at all. By pushing these men to the very brink of insanity during times of peace, the Navy is giving them the best chance to be ready to face the cruelty of a real war when it comes."

This may seem strange, but this is sort of exactly what God does to you and to me. Now, it's not for a week; it's for a lifetime. In other words, God is going to train us. He is going to send enormous trials our way. With his first words in the epistle that he writes, James reminds suffering brothers and sisters in Christ that they should never be surprised at all when they experience these extreme times of trials and testing.

Would you open your Bibles to the book of James chapter 1. We're going to begin a study in the book of James. Let me just say right up front, if you have questions as we go through the book, keep them to yourself. No, you can ask anything you'd like. It's a difficult book. It has certain sections in it that have been very much misunderstood. It's kind of controversial.

In the past, someone like Martin Luther didn't like the book at all. He said it was a "right strawy" epistle; it had no good Gospel character to it at all. Luther had written a commentary on Galatians and that helped launch the Reformation, and Luther misunderstood what James, I believe, was talking about and so he saw James as a contradiction of Galatians, which it's not.

In our day, David Jeremiah says that the book of James is about the integrity of faith. Chuck Swindoll says that the theme of the book of James is that real faith brings about real results, real genuine results. John MacArthur says that the book of James is basically simply a short version of the Sermon on the Mount. And Warren Wiersbe says that the whole idea of the book of James is to confront the spiritual immaturity of the listeners.

The book is not doctrinal; it's really practical, and you'll see this as we go on. If there's a book in the Old Testament like James, it would probably be the book of Proverbs, which has to deal with wisdom. So James is going to start out, and in the first verse he simply says: "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." That's all he says.

Now, we have a question: who is he? What James are we talking about? There are five Jameses in the New Testament. Which one wrote this? There's one James, he's called James the father of Judas—not Iscariot—and that's kind of all we know about him. He didn't write this. Then there's the James that's pretty famous. James and John were brothers, the sons of Zebedee. He's pretty famous; he didn't write this. He was martyred in 44 AD, the first apostle to be martyred. This was written between 45 and 50, so he didn't write this.

Then there is James the son of Alphaeus and another James called James the Less. The reason he's called "the Less" is he's not the son of Zebedee, so they call him James the Less. Some say those two Jameses are the same James. I have no idea whether or not they are. But this James is none of them. This is James the son of Joseph and Mary. This is the brother of Jesus Christ.

This is the James who becomes the leader of the Jerusalem church. When we studied the book of Acts, you saw him as the center core of the church. He's an extremely spiritually minded man. His nickname was "Camel Knees" because of the time that apparently he spent in prayer. He's a very stern guy, and you'll be able to tell it as we go through this letter. Notice his humility. He says, "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." Is that what you would have written if you had been him?

I mean, he could have said "James of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David, the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate." He could have said all kinds of things. He doesn't. In fact, in English, regrettably, it says he simply says "I'm a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus." That word bondservant is the word "doulos." It means slave. Translators don't like to use the word slave, but they should. He said that's who I am; I'm a slave of God and a slave of Jesus Christ. He has a humility about him that's quite amazing.

He said to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: "Greeting." What's he mean, the twelve tribes? Is he talking about Israel? He's talking about believing Jews who—the word "scattered abroad" means—the word is called "diaspora." And that word means those who were scattered out of Judah and Israel. They've been scattered all over the world. The first part of the diaspora occurred with the Assyrians in 722 BC. The second part with the Babylonians in 586 BC. By the time James is writing, there are Jews in virtually every city of the Roman world.

The reason that he's writing to them is their life stinks. Things are about as bad for them as it could possibly be. They're believers in Jesus Christ. And because they're believers in Jesus Christ, they are persecuted by the Greeks, by the Romans, but most especially by the Jews. They are disowned by their families. They are disenfranchised from their friends. They are given no economic advantage. They are really going through a difficult time. They are praying that the Lord would come back soon to end their misery, and that's the group that he is writing to.

Why James is going to write right from the beginning on—and you hit this epistle running—he's going to say, "Look, I want to give you five steps to deal with the difficulties of your life. I know how hard things are for you and I'm going to give you five steps in these first twelve verses so that you know how to deal with the difficulties of your life."

This may seem strange, but I don't know of a more important message for you to really understand. You're going to see why in a moment, but I think of the one thing that we struggle with the most in our lives, and I have struggled the most with as a pastor, is your suffering, the trials that you face. We get ourselves so upset and so worked by the trials that we face, and we're going to see that that's not an option for us. Just like with the Navy SEAL being trained, this is not optional.

You'll see in just a moment. The first step, notice in verse 2, and this is shocking. He says, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." What? Yeah. Consider it all joy. Celebrate the reason behind your trials. That's the first thing he says. Now, you know and I know when you think about this, think of the worst times of your life, and you might be in one right now—the worst times. Let me ask you a question: how joyful were you?

You see, what's going on here? Why would he say that? "I got this diagnosis with this prognosis and you say consider it all joy? The person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with has left and said they're never coming back and they're filing for divorce, and you say consider it all joy?" What's he talking about here? Well, one thing that's different in that word joy probably throws us a little bit is this: he's not talking about your feelings. He's talking about your will.

It's commanded, by the way. This is an imperative mood, just like "thou shalt not bear false witness." Just like the Ten, this is a commandment from God: "Consider it all joy." This is an act of your will. It's not an act of how you feel. You know how you're going to feel in a situation like this. That word consider is the word "hegeomai." And it means to regard it as all joy. How do we do this? You see, he's saying your outlook is going to determine your outcome. How do I start from this perspective?

By the way, I know people do it. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 7 says this: "I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation." Now, you've got to know all the things that happened to him. You know that he was beaten with rods and that he was stoned and that he was shipwrecked and snakebitten and hated. You know all the things that happened. And Paul says, "I am exceedingly joyful in all of our tribulation." This is an act of Paul's will.

And it says: "Consider it all joy, my brethren," and don't miss this word, "when." Notice the word's not "if." He's not saying if you encounter a trial. He's said no, it's not going to work like that. You're going to encounter trials. "You consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter—" he said, "various trials." That word various is the word that we get for variegated. They come in all kinds of different ways. They come relationally, they come financially, they come emotionally, they come medically. They come in all kinds of ways that we have to face these things. And he says you've got to consider this.

In our day and age, this is not very popular. There's a whole wing of Christianity today that basically says none of this exists; if you just have your frame of mind right, you'll never have a bad day in your whole life. That's just wishful thinking, but that's not biblical at all. Homer Kent says this: "A matter worth pondering is the fact that the very first topic James discussed involved the difficulties encountered in the Christian life. Totally foreign to him was the curious modern notion that becoming a Christian will make your life easier, that all your problems will disappear, and that the prospect in this life for each believer is that he will live happily ever after."

It's not true. You see, just like these Jews, we're the scattered people but we're not the sheltered people. It rains on the just and the unjust alike. To consider it all joy, what does that mean? I love the words of Philip Yancey here. Yancey writes this: "By those who rejoice, the apostle did not intend a 'grin and bear it' or 'act tough like nothing happened' attitude. No trace of those attitudes can be found in Christ's response to suffering or in Paul's. Nor is this a masochistic hint of enjoying the pain. Rejoice in suffering does not mean the Christian should act happy about tragedy and pain when they feel like crying. Such a view distorts honesty and true expression of feelings. Christianity is not phony.

The Bible spotlight is on the end result—the use God can make of suffering in our lives. Before he can produce that result, however, he first needs our commitment to trust him. And the process of giving him that commitment can be described here as rejoicing." See what he's talking about? I love that phrase: "The Bible spotlight is always on the end result." You see, that's what God's working toward. See, that's the point of a Navy SEAL, isn't it? Why do they go through all that training? The end result.

See, that's the whole point. The whole point isn't how's the process? It's awful. It's really awful. In fact, I had read not this week but a long time ago that if you were a Navy SEAL, you'd had a better chance of dying in training than you do in combat. It's astounding when you think about it. But the whole idea behind it is all based on the end. What is the product that we end up getting with here? And God says that's exactly the way I deal with you; my concern is the end product.

Now, we know what the end product is because the end product is that we become fully conformed to the image of Christ. The end product is my spiritual maturity. We know that. You see, and if you think about Christ as the example, it's not too bad because in Hebrews chapter 12, it said we are to consider Jesus as our example. And then the writer of Hebrews says: "who for the joy set before him he endured the cross."

Do you think Jesus laughed on the cross? Did he say "this doesn't hurt, there's nothing to this"? No, not at all. The physical pain is almost beyond belief. The spiritual pain is something we can't even describe except it caused him to cry out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." But that's not what the writer of Hebrews said; he said "who for the joy set before him." You see, it's out here. That's where the joy is. That's the joy we are to have. He says, "Celebrate the reason for your trials."

You need to trust God with this. He's going to use it. We know that; we know Romans 8:28. All things work together for what? For the good. That means everything's good? Absolutely not. You might be going through some of the worst experiences of your life right now, just terrible experiences. But see, he said you consider it all joy—not a matter of feeling, it's an act of the will.

The second thing he says to us, he says: know what God has in mind. Verse 3: "knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." You need to know something. If you're going to be joyful, there's something you need to know. It's the word "ginosko." He said you need to understand this part. You need to come to some sense of understanding here. You need to know that the testing of your faith—I don't know if you realize this, but God always tests faith. You see, he always does. And the reason is he wants to make sure it's not mental assent, that it's true trust and faith.

Think of Abraham. He's the father of faith, not just to the Jewish people, but Paul says to all people. He's the father. Well, think about this: when he first had his relationship with God, God said—and he was in Ur of the Chaldees—"Abram." "Yes?" "I want you to leave." "Where?" "I won't tell you. I just want you to go." And so he took off. Now, wait a minute. That's a test. You see, what would you have done? "Wait a minute, I'm not going anywhere until you tell me exactly where I'm going." He said he'd trust God. God said leave, I'll leave.

Now, go ahead decades, and you think of the whole miracle birth of Isaac. No one would have thought that was going to happen; Abraham didn't think it was going to happen. And now Isaac's growing up. So what's God say to this older man who's walked with God for all these years? Decades later: "offer him up to me." "What?" "Offer him up to me." Was that a test? Yeah, that's about as big a test—here is the apple of your eye, the fruition of everything you prayed for your whole life, and God says offer him to me.

You see, our faith is always being tested. And he says, notice: "knowing that the testing of your faith and it produces—" and we think well, what does it produce? And the English says it produces endurance. Not a really good word. I mean, it's an okay word, but it's not a great word. "Hupomone" is the word in Greek: endurance. What does it really produce? I can tell you this: it produces patience. Now, you're not going to like this because I know you want faith to give you everything you ever wanted in life.

But that's not—I don't see that in the Word of God. But I can tell you what faith does and what faith is: it's patience. You see, how much—you want to measure your faith? If you ever wanted to know how much faith do I really possess, I can tell you the answer: how patient would you be? How long will you wait? What will you endure? You see, because all you have is faith. You see, that's exactly what it is. He says look, we're going to test your faith and it's going to produce patience in you. You're going to become more and more patient like who? Like Jesus.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original form, that is, as a sermon that Pastor Bil delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bil's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bil Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.