The Trial of Your Faith, Part 4

We closed out our last meditation pointing out that God tries our faith in order to develop patience. The trial of our faith is distressing.  It is sometimes downright painful.  It is a condition of suffering.  That is why it is called tribulation, since tribulation is something we suffer.

1 Thessalonians 3:4  For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know.

When we know that suffering can be productive of good, it gives it meaning and thus makes it more bearable. People are quite willing to endure goal-directed suffering.  This is why athletes, soldiers, and expectant mothers are willing to undergo suffering.  As they suffer, they have an end in view that justifies what they endure.  In this life we will never understand all that God intends by permitting us to go through tribulation, but this much we can know:  He permits it to develop patience in us.

Romans 5:3  And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience….

Now we need to define patience.

Patience - The suffering or enduring (of pain, trouble, or evil) with calmness and composure; the quality or capacity of so suffering or enduring. Forbearance, longsuffering, longanimity under provocation of any kind. The calm abiding of the issue of time, processes, etc., quiet and self-possessed waiting for something; the quality of expecting long without rage or discontent.

We can see from this definition that we would never know patience if we had no tribulation.  If we never had any pain, if we never were provoked, if we never had to wait, we would never know patience.  It is in going through disturbing circumstances and having to await a resolution or an outcome that we learn patience. And we are not bearing those circumstances patiently if we lose our composure and collapse into anger and discontent. Therefore, “tribulation worketh patience.” Tribulation provides an opportunity to endure trouble without losing it, as we say. It is interesting to note that the Greek word that is translated patience in Romans 5:3 and James 1:3 is also rendered “patient continuance” in Romans 2:7. 

Romans 2:7  To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life….

Tribulation works patience in that it provides us with an occasion to continue “in well doing,” in doing the right thing and keeping the faith when under pressure to give it up.  In confirmation of this point, notice this important verse:

Revelation 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Patient saints keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus rather than abandoning them under pressure.  They just keep trusting Jesus and doing what God says, even if it seems for the time being to not be worth it.  They hold it together.

Now we’ll let James weigh in on this subject.

James 1:2  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

3  Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

4  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

You can “count it all joy” when you are suffering divers (different) temptations or tribulations because you know what they are designed to accomplish, and that is, the working of patience. You realize that your suffering is goal-directed.  There is something worthwhile to come of it. 

Now whilst we are under the pressure of the temptation, James tells us to “let patience have her perfect work.” Our problem is that too often we let passion have its work rather than patience.  We become angry over what we are experiencing and sometimes take it out on others.  We might even curse the situation in bitter discontent.  We murmur at “how long” it is going on. We ask, “When will this ever end?”  We question God’s reasons for allowing it.  We may not express that in so many words, but the doubt nonetheless lingers beneath the surface.  When this happens, we frustrate the whole purpose of the trial.  It is then that we have to go back to the drawing board, seek forgiveness for our sin of anger and discontent, and then reset our thinking as to what is going on in our life.  We need to come back to the realization of those three things we mentioned in the last meditation.  Those three things are: (1) God is in control and is, therefore, permitting the tribulation, (2) God understands why the tribulation is there, (3) God loves us, and, therefore, cares for us and intends good for us. 

Now James tells us that patience has its “perfect work,” that is, its work is fully accomplished, when we are “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”  To be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing” is to be fully mature. Think of your tribulations as growing pains.  They are serving their purpose when you are growing through them, when you are becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what Christian growth is all about.

Ephesians 4:13  Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ….          

When you are “perfect and entire, wanting nothing” you are standing “perfect and complete in all the will of God.” 

Colossians 4:12  Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

This means you are doing whatsoever the Lord commands.  There is nothing wanting in your obedience. You are a “blameless and harmless” son of God that requires no rebuke (Philippians 2:15).  You are holding “fast the profession of our faith without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23).  You are hanging on to what you believe no matter whatever else you have to let go, be it health, wealth, friends, family, or life itself.  Just as gold emerges purified when it passes through the fire, so the tried, patient believer emerges perfect when he is tried. When you come through a trial with the same faith, only stronger and purer, patience is having her perfect work.

Ah, but you say, I have not as yet arrived at that stage of being “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”  Of course, you haven’t and you won’t arrive at the ultimate perfection until you see Jesus coming again in glory.  And that is why you still experience the trial of your faith!  The work of perfecting you is still going on.  You are, as we say, “a work in progress.”  And until we reach that perfection, we must just keep patiently pressing forward in pursuit of it until at last it is attained. 

Philippians 3:12  Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

James 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

8  Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

1 John 3:2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

3  And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

And when you are bearing your tribulations with patience, you are being like the Lord Jesus Christ. But further comment on that will have to wait until our next installment, God willing.