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By Pastor Glenn Pease
In modern educational psychology we read such statements as, "Learning takes place only when the act that is performed is reinforced or rewarded."
And, "Without reward, people fail to learn."
Educators are more and more realizing that rewards play a major part in teaching that is effective.
God was well aware of this truth long before man.
In Heb.
11:6 we read, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him."
In Matt.
5:11-12 we read, "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven."
To want rewards is perfectly normal.
Intelligent beings take a course of action that results in the best reward by nature.
We are made that way by God.
James is only following the teaching of his divine brother when he tells us to count it all joy when we fall into trials, knowing there is great reward in endurance.
James is trying to teach us the secret of receiving a royal reward.
He breaks this practical lesson into two sections.
One is positive and the other is negative.
I. HE DECLARES A FINAL OBJECTIVE.
v. 12.
James says we are not suffering for sufferings sake just as the football players are not on the field taking those spills just for the sake of putting their body to a test.
They are enduring those trials because they have a goal to reach.
The Christian who endures trials also has a goal to reach, and it is the final objective for which he was created.
It is to receive the royal reward of the crown of life.
When Jesus spoke to the church of Smyrna thought the Apostle John in Rev. 2:10 he said, "Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.
I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for 10 days.
Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life."
One of the early church martyrs was Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna.
He refused to sacrifice to Caesar.
At his trial the Proconsul said, "Curse Christ and I will release you."
Polycarp spoke those words for which he has become famous.
"Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong.
How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"
He was put to the stake and the fire was kindled, but wing blew the flame around him, and so the executioner killed him with a sword.
He was faithful unto death, and, therefore, he received the reward that both Jesus and James speak of-the crown of life.
What is this crown of life that is worth dying for?
It is the ultimate goal, and final objective of our existence.
It is that quality of life which is in perfect harmony with God.
To live without fellowship with God is to have only the rags of life.
To live in perfect fellowship with God is to have the crown of life.
The crown of life goes only to those who endure all things for the sake of Christ.
It is that quality of life that enables a person to reign with Christ because they are in perfect harmony with the Lord of life.
It is the life of love, praise, and service which we see displayed by the saints in heaven as they are pictured in Revelation.
How do we receive this royal reward?
James says the road to this reward is the road of endurance.
Kings only want tried men in their army, and so how much more does the King of Kings want tried men and women to serve with Him?
The trials of life are training us for the day of our coronation when we receive the crown of life.
The requirement is that we endure.
It is not just suffering trials that is important, for that is as easy as falling off a log.
It is the enduring of the trials that is vital.
It is not blessed are they who escape, but blessed are they who endure.
Endurance is the key, and this means that we must be convinced that suffering can be successful, and that it prepares us for attaining our final objective of being Christlike.
Only as we are convinced that trials can be of worth can we endure.
Robert Service wrote,
And so in the strife of the battle of life,
Its easy to fight when you're winning;
Its easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;
The man who can fight to heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.
Endurance is being positive when circumstances are negative.
It is not just passive suffering, for many can do this.
Some pagan people's even let great injuries be inflicted on their bodies without a murmur.
This is not Christian endurance.
Christian endurance is like that of Christ when He endured the cross, and ask God to forgive those who crucified Him.
It is like Madam Chiang Kai Shek saying, after all the Japanese did to China, "There must be no bitterness.
No matter what we have undergone and suffered, we must try to forgive those who injured us, and remember only the lesson gained thereby."
Christian endurance is not only to go all the way, but to go all the way in the right spirit, and without self-pity, discontent, and giving up.
Some endure great trials to the end, but allow themselves to become bitter, and this is not being prepared for receiving the crown of life.
One fails the test who is not more Christlike for having taken it.
Both of the thieves endured the same suffering on the cross, but the suffering of one cause him to look to Christ and receive the crown of life.
The other bore it also, but he never looked to Christ, and so he was tried and failed.
No one suffers successfully and receives the reward who is not made more Christlike in their trials.
The secret of receiving the reward is endurance, and the secret of endurance is in looking to Christ.
Why should I fear the darkest hour,
Or tremble at the tempter's power?
Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower.
Though hot the fight, why quite the field?
Why must I either flee or yield,
Since Jesus is my mighty shield?
Against me earth and hell combined,
But on my side is power Divine;
Jesus is all, and He is mine.
Author Unknown
In declaring our final objective, James not only tells of the reward, and the road by which we reach it, but also the result in the present because of following that road to the ultimate reward.
The result is present happiness.
The man who by faith in the promise of God is enduring trials, and counting them joy, has found the secret of the happy life.
The world think happiness is found in having, but the Bible says it is found, not in what we have, but in whom we hope.
Happiness is that attitude of life that knows there is meaning and purpose no matter how rough the road gets.
Without this hope and expectation there can be no lasting happiness.
Solomon in Ecclesiastes says that he had everything.
He had wisdom, wealth, wine, and women, and yet he concluded that all was vanity, and he found no happiness in all that the world could offer.
Apart from hope in God there is no such thing as happiness, but with this hope, though we lose all else, we are yet blessed.
Ignatius was the Bishop of Antioch.
He was ordained by either Peter or Paul.
He was the first prominent Christian to be martyred after the Apostles.
When he was being taken by the Romans to be thrown to the wild beasts in the Coliseum, he wrote a letter to the Christians in Rome, and he said, "I bid all men know that of my own free will I die for God.
Let me be given to the wild beasts for through them I attain unto God.
I am God's wheat.
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