Wednesday after Invocabit + James 1:2-15 + March 8, 2017
Order of Matins - Pg. 32
Hymn # 447 Fight the Good Fight
Psalm 32
Antiphon: BE GLAD || in the Lord and rejoice, you | right- | eous; *And shout for joy, all you up- | right | in | heart!
|| 1 Blessèd is he whose transgression is for- | giv- | en, *
Whose sin | is | co- | vered.
|| 2 Blessèd is the man to whom the Lord does not impute in- | i-qui- ∙ | ty, *
And in whose spirit there is | no | de- | ceit.
|| 3 When I kept | si- | lent, *
my bones grew old through my groaning all | the | day | long.
|| 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy up- | on | me; *
My vitality was turned into the drought | of | sum- | mer.
|| 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not | hid- | den. *
I said, ―I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,‖ and You forgave the iniquity | of | my | sin.
|| 6 For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You in a time when You may be | found; | - *
Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not | come | near | him.
|| 7 You are my hiding place; (+) You shall preserve me from | trou- | ble; *
You shall surround me with songs of de- | liv- | er- | ance.
|| 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should | go; | - *
I will guide you | with | My | eye.
|| 9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no under- | stand- | ing, *
Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not | come | near | you. || 10 Many sorrows shall be to the | wick- | ed; *
But he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall | sur- | round | him.
|| 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you | right- | eous; *
And shout for joy, all you up- | right | in | heart!
GLO- RY || be to the Father, and to the | Son: | - *
and to the | Ho- | ly | Ghost;
AS IT || was in the begin -ning, (+) is now, and ever | shall | be: *
world without | end. | A- | men.
Collect 1
O Lord, mercifully hear our prayer and stretch forth the right hand of Thy majesty to defend us from them that rise up against us; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
Collect 2
We beseech Thee, O Lord, by the mystery of our Savior’s fasting and temptation, to endow us with the same mind that was in Him toward all evil and sin; and give us grace to keep our bodies in such holy discipline that our minds may always be ready to resist Satan and obey the promptings of Thy Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Readings
Sermon
Grace
and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) St.
James tell us to “count it all joy when
you fall into various trials.” This has to be revealed to us by the Word,
because we, by nature, run from all kinds of trials and think them a terrible
hardship. When hardships come upon us, when we are afflicted in body our soul,
or when we face any kind of suffering, we are to rejoice when it happens. We
are not commanded to seek our suffering. Nor are we to think suffering under
the cross merits us anything in God’s sight. We joyfully bear our cross,
whatever it may be, because it is from God. James tells us that we are to “count it all joy when you fall into various
trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” By sending
trial, suffering, and affliction to you, God your heavenly Father is testing
your faith. He is giving you an opportunity to exercise your faith in His
goodness and promises. This is why the apostle writes that we are to bear up
under afflictions joyfully, because we know the affliction is from God not for
our harm, but for our good. We never see it that way in the middle of a
hardship. Our flesh, wanting to run from the cross, assumes that God has sent
it to us to harm us, to avenge our sins, or even to kill us. But this is not
the case. God sends it to produce patience and endurance, so that you exercise
your faith and bear up under your affliction, trusting that the Lord who has
sent it knows best how to remove it in His own good time according to His own
gracious wisdom. James shows us the goal of such trials from God in verse 4. “Let patience have its perfect work, that
you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
2) None
of us are up to this task of bearing up under suffering and cross. The flesh
hates suffering and always assumes it is a thing of wrath and punishment. The
patience we need to bear up under our crosses can only come from God Himself. In
every affliction and trial God wants us to joyfully pray to Him for an increase
of faith and a strengthening of our confidence in His promises. James writes, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask
God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to
him.” The wisdom you need in order to bear up patiently under your
affliction is faith. It is a holy wisdom which sees beyond the external
circumstances to see God’s gracious hand in the trial. Human wisdom faces trial
and says, “This is a terrible suffering. How can I get out of this as quickly
as possible?” Divine Wisdom encounters suffering and affliction and says, “This
affliction is from the Lord and He wants to exercise me through it. I cannot
remove it on my own or by my own plans or striving. I must rely upon Him to
remove it, for He knows how to remove it so that it is beneficial for me.” This
is foreign to human reason, which hates affliction and flees it. Faith in
Christ bears trial patiently. Faith is Christ is wise in that is knows that the
trial is ultimately for our good, even it if kills us, because then Christ has
used that affliction to bring us to our heavenly home. The key in affliction is
faith. And when your faith falters, James says to ask God for wisdom. He gives
liberally to His baptized children.
3) This
is key, that we ask God our Father for the wisdom to see our afflictions as He
means for them to be seen, and that we are wise to see past the earthly
circumstances and rejoice that God is exercising our faith to drive us to
prayer and the Word. In that moment it is imperative that we pray and not
doubt. James says that God “gives
liberally.” Consider the words of your Savior in Luke 11:11-13. “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he
give him a stone? Or if he asks for
a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg,
will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” You are a child of the heavenly Father through Holy Baptism. He has
promised to give you every good thing. To show you this He has even given you
His Only-Begotten Son as your substitute under all of His wrath for sin upon the
cross. This is why we can ask for wisdom, patience, and faith without a shred
of doubt. James goes on: “Let him ask in
faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and
tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything
from the Lord; he is a
double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” When you pray for wisdom, you
approach your heavenly Father. The one who is exercising your faith by affliction
He has send is the same one who promises to liberally and lavishly give you His
holy Spirit so that you may not doubt and grow faint-hearted, but that you may
rejoice that God your Father has drawn you closer to Him through cross and
trial. Blessed are you, the Apostle writes, when you endure trials; “for when he has been approved, he will
receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
4) There is another kind of trial, though, of which the
Apostle speaks, one that does not come from God but comes from elsewhere. This
is the temptation to sin. This is called a trial because in Greek the word for testing
and temptation are the same. The difference is the source and purpose. James
writes, “Let no one say when he is
tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil,
nor does He Himself tempt anyone.” God tests with affliction, cross, and
hardship to exercise faith. But the Lord God never tempts you to sin. David
says, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in Psalm 5:4, “For You are
not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with you.”
God cannot lead us into temptation because that would make God the author of
evil, which would mean we cannot firmly believe that God will be merciful and
gracious to us in every situation. If God is the author of evil and tempts men
with false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice, then we become uncertain
about His will for us because in the moment of temptation, if God is the one
doing the tempting, then we cannot be certain that He will provide a way of
escape from the temptation. God tempts no one to sin, for it is
contrary to His holy character and would make Him untrustworthy and His Word
unreliable.
5) God
tempts no one. On Sunday we heard that Christ Himself was led into the wilderness
to be tempted by the Devil. Satan wanted to lead Christ to sin, to disbelieve the
Word of His heavenly Father in His baptism. He wanted Christ to believe that
the heavenly Father would not take care of Him. He tempted Christ to violate
the First Commandment, not only in the temptation to bow down and worship the
devil, but in the first temptation to turn stones into bread. Christ’s
temptations are our temptations to sin as well. The Devil wants us to believe
that God our Father is treating us poorly and that He won’t take care of us,
that He won’t give us everything we need, and that He doesn’t give us only good things. So in the moment of
trial and affliction, of are from God as an exercise of faith, the devil comes
along and tempts us to look upon God as a stingy Father who is withholding
blessings from us. Satan wants us to believe that we have to provide our own
good things and thus he tempts us to be our own god, because a God is that to
which we look for every good thing. He tempts us as He did Christ, to put God
to the test, to make God prove His promises to us as if they were not true, or
as if God had no intention on being faithful to them. In all his temptations to
sin, Satan really has only one temptation for us: forsake God your heavenly
Father and His promises and believe that you have to provide and care for
yourself in all things. But as Christ taught us, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
6) There is also our own flesh which tempts us to
sin. James writes, “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;
and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” Besides the devil, we have to content with our very flesh which entices
us to sin. The flesh is by nature greedy for more wealth and discontent with
what God gives. The flesh lusts for fleshly pleasures of the body, not content
with what God has given us in the bounds of marriage. The flesh entices us into
hatred of our neighbor, jealousy towards other’s lives and circumstances and discontent
with our lot in life, as well as all sorts of other sins against God’s
commandments. It is important to remember that we must watch against our own
flesh, which is just as active in desiring sin as the devil.
7) The answer that the Scriptures give us to stand in the
hour of temptation to sin is the same as God gives us for the hour of
affliction and cross sent from God. We are not to look upon temptation to sin
as something from God, as we do with affliction and suffering, but we are to
look to Christ’s promises for strengthened faith and the Holy Spirit. Divine
Wisdom, that for which James says we ought to pray, causes us to see our
temptations for what they are so that we, in the moment when desire begins
within us, are able to apply the Word of God to it and extinguish it, lest it conceive
and give birth sin in our life. In this, God is faithful. He has promised to
give us what we need in the hour of testing and the hour of temptation: and
that is faith in Christ’s promises given to us in the means of grace. St. Paul
writes , “No temptation
has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who
will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation
will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Your way of escape is faith in Christ’s Word to you, not so that the temptation
will go away and never return, not to make you immune to ever being tempted
again, but to make you “be able to bear
it.” Go in peace with the promises of God on your lips and tucked away in
your hearts. In the moment of affliction, rejoice that your Father exercises
you and strengthens your faith. In the moment of temptation, cling to His
promises as your only way of escape. Finally, rejoice that God tempts no one
but that He gives you everything you need to patiently overcome, so that you
can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. Amen.
May
the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and
minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.