This sermon on James 1:16-21 reflects on grief, trials, and God’s unwavering truth. Through Job’s suffering, Christ’s farewell words, and the power of hymns, it urges believers to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and to find comfort in God’s Word amid sorrow. Explore how faith, patience, and the Spirit’s guidance lead us through life’s darkest valleys to hope in our Redeemer.
Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org
Transcript
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in his farewell address with the disciples on Monday, Thursday, our Lord saw that sorrow had filled their hearts.
His words caused them grief and pain.
They could not comprehend why he must die or why he must return to the Father when he was to ascend into heaven.
He told them that he had much more to save them, but they could not bear it at the moment.
There are times like this in every man’s life.
Few years ago, a friend called to tell me that his daughter had died from cancer.
Neither he nor his daughter confessed Jesus as Lord.
What words of hope could be offered to him in such a case?
I simply stated, that’s terrible.
This is not the most profound observation in the world.
Certainly not spiritual.
It’s not that I would preach.
I would refuse.
Thank God.
Yet it’s true.
And in the silence, it followed my friend thinking.
You see, he called not to hear that his daughter was in a better place.
Not to get advice on having a funeral, not to ask if it was at all possible that she somehow went to heaven.
He wasn’t looking for me to fix anything.
He called to have a friend listen to his grief.
At such times, silence can be golden.
The Book of Job is the Bible’s manual on how not to comfort the bereaved.
Job was in deep sorrow because he lost everything, his wealth, his house, his servants, all ten of his sons and daughters.
He was covered head to toe in sores and wounds.
His loving wife came to him, not with an ointment or salve or bandages, but to advise him to curse God and to die.
Three of his friends who’d heard of his misfortune came to comfort him.
And for seven days, they do great.
They sit there quietly, saying nothing.
They saw his grief was very great.
And then once Joe began to talk, they proceed to scold him, telling him he’s clearly done something terrible for which he’s being punished by God.
He’s brought this catastrophe upon himself.
In the end, the Lord rebuked them for not speaking correctly of God and his ways of dealing with man.
God tells them to make a sacrifice and have Joe pray for them, lest God deal with them according to their folly.
James also had a lot to say about the tongue and how Christians are to speak.
So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
His advice, speaking of how to respond to temptations, trials, and tragedy, including to stop trying to debate with God.
Stop trying to tell God that it’s not fair, that it’s too much, or that God is somehow the cruel person.
And instead to hear his word, even when it may be a word that you dislike.
James began his letter stating, My brethren, count it all joy.
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
That patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
That any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all, liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Trials beset you, ask for wisdom from God, and he speaks to you through his word.
There’s a reason the praise, the patience of Job has come into our lexicon.
In all of his suffering, Job had never lost faith or trust in God.
He had demanded answers.
He had been angry.
Yet never once did he question his faith.
Never once did he lose hope.
In fact, one of the greatest confessions of our faith came during his laments.
Job writes, For I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth.
After my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
It took Job seven days, seven days to put together his thoughts, seven days of prayer, seven days of meditating on the Word of God, even as his wife and his friends had questioned his faith and righteousness.
In his grief, he ignored the wisdom and the emotions of man, and held fast to that which he knew to be true, the Word of God.
He delivered a clear testimony to the coming of his Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and he confessed the bodily resurrection to eternal life.
For when all earthly hope is lost, when family and friends fail, when despair is deep, God’s Word incarnate is the solid rock on which he stand.
Are those words familiar?
Do you now have a hymn, a melody running in your mind?
I don’t know if he does.
He played this game at home, named the hymn as he’d give a snippet of the lyrics, and she guesses she’s very good at it.
We should all be very good at it.
Perhaps you’re thinking, I know my Redeemer lives based on Job’s words, where my hope is built on nothing less.
Hymn number 575 in your hymn notes.
The second verse of which reads, when darkness fails his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
In all other words, veil us.
The hymn is a great tool to help us pray.
Cantate Domino, sing to the Lord.
Sing a new or old song.
It doesn’t matter.
But sing to the Lord, for he’s done great and marvelous things.
The disciples, though, they could not bear to hear more of Jesus’ words.
We depart the upper room to head to the Garden of Gethsemane only after singing hymns.
As I watch my grandfather die, I clearly recall that after he had received the sacrament, after the prayers had been said, after scriptures were read, the family sang hymns.
We finished only after my grandfather had joined the heavenly chorus.
For there is power, there’s comfort in the words of our hymnody.
Consider another more modern hymn, by modern I mean 1955.
One of our favorites actually here at the congregation, Water, Blood, and Spirit Crying, number 597.
Though round us death is seething, God, his two-edged sword uncheathing.
By his spirit, life is breathing, through the living, active word.
The living, active word, this is what the Holy Spirit brings to each of us.
This echoes Christ’s promise to the disciples.
When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.
God’s word is truth.
And this is what the Spirit brings to us.
This is the two-edged sword of the Lord that pierces bones and marrow and reveals the truth of our hearts, our need for a Savior and his mercy for us.
Of course, Luther captured this quite clearly in the ninth verse of the hymn of the day this morning.
Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice.
To my Father, I depart from earth to heaven ascending, and heavenly wisdom to impart the Holy Spirit’s sending.
In trouble, he will comfort you and teach you always to be true, into truth and God to you.
And also, as James reminded the church, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.
Every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Of his own will, he brought us forth by word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
We each have been called to faith by the living, active word of God, the Holy Gospel.
This was not your choice.
This was not done through your own will.
It was done by God’s will, the unchanging God.
The same God who created all that exists is the God who died on the cross to redeem your life.
It is the same God who now comes to you to call you to new life in his word, the word that comforts, teaches, and guides you into every truth.
There are many strong and powerful moving hymns that speak this truth and which can help you find comfort and peace, even when words fail and grief abounds.
The behavior, the night of Maundy Thursday, teaches us that even we Christians do not always enjoy the words God has to speak to us.
We do not like to hear that the desires of our hearts are evil and wicked, contrary to the will of God.
We don’t always enjoy the tests, the trials, and the tragedies that God sends our way that are used to refine our faith.
Job, a righteous man by God’s own testimony, did not understand why God would allow the tragedies that came upon him to happen.
He knew though that in spite of such things, there is nothing more true or noble or powerful than the word of God.
In the end, his faith is rewarded.
The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
He also had seven sons and three daughters.
Why do we care about the numbers of donkeys?
Have you ever wondered, why does he tell us about the yoke of oxen?
The numbers reveal the mystery of God.
The Lord restored to Job double what was lost.
Double the number of sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys, yet only 10 more children.
For the 10 whom he buried were not dead.
Yes, they died in this life, but they live again in heaven.
For God is the God of the living, not the dead.
When Job at the last stood bodily before his Redeemer, and he beheld him with his own eyes, when he will behold him with his own eyes, he’ll do so in the presence of not just 10 children, but 20 children.
When he’s first ascended up into heaven in spirit, he’s there with his 10 children who have already preceded him.
For his Redeemer lives.
Every good gift is from the love.
Every good gift comes from the Father in heaven.
Even the gifts that we don’t yet appreciate.
This included Jesus Christ, our Redeemer who laid down his life on the altar, on the cross to destroy death and its sting forever.
A gift that the disciples did not quite appreciate on Good Friday.
Yet there on Good Friday, as their Lord died, he paid for the pain of all our losses.
He paid for the pain of the suffering that we experience when a loved one goes, when we suffer from illness, when we bear financial struggles, our doubts, our uncertainties, and even moments of unbelief.
Unbelief such as the disciples suffered on Monday, Thursday.
These are all crucible and bear on the cross on Good Friday.
And so we sing, Quintate Domino, that hearts be purged of evil, that we may see aright the Lord and raise eternal of resurrection light.
And listening to his accents, may hear so calm and plain his own, all kale.
And hearing, may raise the victor’s strain.
Sing to the Lord a new song, Hallelujah, for he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations, the righteousness of his song, that even amid all trials, we may rejoice, for he is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Hallelujah.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
