In this episode, Pastors Whit George and Ethan Vanse unpack James 1:2–12 and the true meaning of faith, doubt, and joy through endurance.
The letter of James was written to first-generation Christians—men and women who didn’t grow up in a Christian culture, who didn’t have shelves of devotionals, or a long tradition of church to lean on. They were navigating life in a world often hostile to their new faith, figuring out what it meant to follow Jesus when everything around them seemed uncertain.
It’s not unlike our moment.
We live in a time when many are increasingly uninterested in church or the Bible. There’s a temptation to ask: how can we package this better? How can we make it more appealing? But what people are really hungry for isn’t clever packaging. They don’t want just morals, platitudes, or an alliterative sermon. People want the real thing—the fullness of God’s Word.
Our culture is tired of thin religion.
We’re not looking for a faith bloated with self-help clichés; we’re looking for the kind of faith that goes deep enough to carry us through suffering, confusion, and life itself.
And that’s exactly what James offers.
James opens his letter with four shocking words: “Count it all joy.” Not just when things are good, but in trials. Not because pain feels good, but because of what endurance produces.
Joy and endurance James tells us, belong together.
Joy is not a smile pasted over hardship—it’s a perspective anchored in the outcome God is working toward.
Adversity does one of two things in people:
It deepens thin faith into something unshakable.
Or it crushes faith that was never rooted.
The same sun that melts ice hardens clay. Trials reveal what’s inside us. You may not be able to control the trial, but you can control how you react in it.
Pain without purpose feels like punishment. But endurance always promises that there is something on the other side.
That’s why joy is the fuel of Christian endurance.
Romans 8:28 reminds us that God is at work in all things—both good and bad—for our good. James presses us to ask: Could I possibly look at what I’m facing right now and see cause for joy? Not because the trial itself is pleasant, but because God is at work in the midst of it.
Wisdom, James says, is the perspective from above—God’s point of view. It’s not knowing everything, but knowing what God wants and doing it. And when we ask, God gives wisdom wholeheartedly. The only question is whether we will receive it wholeheartedly.
James also touches on the tension between faith and doubt. Too often, we treat faith like a spiritual force field: if I have enough of it, I can bend the universe to my will. And we see doubt as its opposite—a negative spiritual energy that cancels everything out.
But that’s not how Scripture treats it.
Think of the Passover story: two men put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. One did it with bold confidence, the other with trembling fear. Both were saved. Why? Because the object of their faith was strong enough.
Weak faith in a strong Savior gets the job done; strong faith in a weak object does nothing.
That’s why the most faithful prayer you can pray in the middle of doubt is: “God, I trust You enough to bring You the stuff I don’t understand.”
Pray out your doubts with God—or your doubts will prey on you.
James isn’t naïve. He doesn’t say things will work out immediately. He assumes trials will come, endurance will be required, and that something is missing in us still.
The work of salvation is finished, but we are construction zones—works in progress.
The perfection of our faith isn’t a single moment but a lifelong project. And joy is the fuel that keeps us enduring, because endurance promises that God is forming us into something whole.
So when James tells us to “count it all joy,” he’s not calling us to deny reality.
He’s inviting us to see reality differently. To look beyond our circumstances, both good and bad, and anchor ourselves in what is most true: that God is working, and He is faithful.
Check out Pastor Whit’s Weekend Message: Suffering in Perspective
Check out Pastor Ethan’s Weekend Message: You Lead Your Trial, Don’t Let Trials Lead You
In this episode, they reference the article Full-fat Faith by James Marriott: The Times: Full-fat Faith
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