Thank you. It’s going to take me about a minute or two to revive. It’s true. It’s absolutely true. Everybody’s settled down. Good to see everybody. See everybody’s eyes. That’s good.
Today, we’re going to look at the Epistle of James. My handout is kind of a little outline. James’ epistle is a little hard to follow compared to a lot of them. It’s broken into a lot of little sections. It’s almost like Proverbs or the Beatitudes. If you look at it on the surface, he has a lot of little things.
This is just a list of the ESV subtitles of all the sections in the book. If it does you any good, welcome to it. But that’s what we have. Anyway, I thought we might look at this epistle that James wrote. You have a little outline.
I have to have an outline because my wife always says, “I don’t know what you were talking about.” I need a little outline.
Number one is an introduction. Number two: to whom was it written? Number three: there are two main spiritual encouragements, or principles, that James puts forth, and maybe we can see what those are. At least they were main to me. And then number four: what are some of the applications of James’ book?
James, this letter of James, is what they call one of the Catholic Epistles. It’s not the Catholic Church, by the way. It’s a general epistle, a general epistle to the whole church of God.
There is a group of seven of those Catholic Epistles: James; 1 Peter; 2 Peter; Jude; and 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. Paul wrote to problems. He wrote to the Corinthians because they had an issue, so he wrote to them. But this is a general epistle.
The James who wrote this is likely our Lord’s earthly brother, His older brother. James doesn’t seem to have been swept up in all this wonderful activity of the Lord when He was ministering for those three years. I wonder if he didn’t believe in the Lord at that time, if he was too close to home.
But we do know that James believed. If you look at 1 Corinthians 15:7, Paul was talking about those to whom the Lord appeared, and he said that He appeared to James. So we know He did appear to James, and James believed.
James was really one of the pillars of the church in Jerusalem. It wasn’t real visible, and there wasn’t a whole lot written about it, but he was a pillar in the church at Jerusalem.
He wrote early, in the forties or fifties AD, so he was early in the church. He was before Paul came along. Scroggie says:
James did not step out of Judaism into Pauline Christianity.
But to the day of his martyrdom, he represented Christianity within Judaism.
So it’s a little different perspective.
Now, number two: to whom was it written? Verse 1 says:
James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed: greetings.
It just really struck me, looking at this, that James considered himself a bondservant. He wasn’t serving the Lord out of duty. He wasn’t serving the Lord out of ambition. He was serving the Lord out of love. He was a bondservant of the Lord.
I just thought, what a great comfort that was to him, knowing he was a bondservant. Could we all be bondservants? It would just be a great encouragement to know we were serving the Lord clearly and out of love for Him.
This book was written to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. It was the Jews who were dispersed, spread around. They were the twelve tribes. They were still within Judaism, and they were Christians within Judaism. They were still in the synagogue.
So I think they needed some encouragement, because they weren’t understood in the synagogue for sure, and they were probably attacked by the world. They didn’t have a home. They were strangers and sojourners here on this earth, and James was going to encourage them.
Strangers and sojourners—does that sound familiar? Who feels like you’re a stranger and a sojourner in these evil days? Things just aren’t right on this earth, but they’re right in heaven.
The first spiritual encouragement is James’ message to the saints when they are in trials. He has a great encouragement for them.
I think the last few months—for me, four months now, right?—since the president said, “We’re going to try this for two weeks to see if the virus goes away in two weeks,” have been a trial. It didn’t work out too well. Then it became two months, whatever—I don’t know—for an extended period.
We’re still living under this sentence of death. But praise God, we have that sentence of death so that the power might be of God and not of ourselves. There is great value in this. Uncomfortable circumstances can bring us to the end of ourselves, and the things we’re under are extended circumstances. I think that’s not without purpose.
James says:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
This word endurance—the Lord is after increasing endurance in us. We’re being trained. He is training us up. It’s a great period of training so that we can live beyond our natural capacity and live in the heavenlies.
Wuest renders the passage this way:
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes, those in the dispersion.
Be constantly rejoicing.
Consider it a matter of unadulterated joy, without any admixture of sorrow, whenever you fall into the midst of variegated trials which surround you, knowing experientially that the approving of your faith—that faith having been put to the test for the purpose of being approved, and having met the test has been approved—that this approving process produces a patience which bears up and does not lose heart or courage under trials.
But be allowing the aforementioned patience to be having its complete work, in order that you may be spiritually mature and complete in every detail, lacking in nothing.
These trials—God has allowed these trials, at least for us. There is great purpose in them. In the process of lengthy trials, we come to the absolute end of ourselves and must call on the Lord.
We often call this the salvation of the soul. Psalm 131 is one we all know, but let me read it:
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high.
I do not concern myself with things too great
and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child, my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.
Like a weaned child with its mother, He is calling us to wean our souls from our natural environments and just to be at rest on His breast. We’re made in three parts—we’ve said this so often—spirit, soul, and body. Our soul, our natural life, is the thing that causes us so much unrest.
These trials allow us to come to the end of our natural strength and to trust the Lord. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, says:
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
May the Lord give us strength of spirit—an increase in that strength of spirit—in these days.
James 1:4 says:
Let steadfastness have its perfect effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
The Lord is training us, raising us up.
I have a little story to tell about patience this last week. We knew that we could try to get the children back to their classes this week, and we also heard last Sunday that there were yellow jackets on the back ramp again. I thought, “Oh, man.” So I said, “Let me try and get somebody out here. I’ll try right away.”
Monday morning, I called the exterminator and said, “When can we get somebody out to do this?” This is an exterminator we’ve used for years who has sold out to an international company now, and it’s totally gone to pot.
I asked, “When can I get somebody to work on these bees?” They said, “Well, let me see here. I think about next February.” I said, “No, can you do better than that?” It was almost that bad. I said, “How about in two weeks?” Well, that wasn’t good.
We’ve got a guy who comes out and services our account. He’s been out before, and he knows how to do it. He suits up and takes care of them. “Okay, let me check around. I’ll call you back.” I said, “Okay.”
Talk about patience. I get really upset with bureaucrats, you know? Then she called me back and said, “Okay, here’s what I’ve got for you. I can have him out there between eight and nine on Tuesday, or between one and three,” or something like that. I said, “Okay, how about eight and nine?”
So I got over here at eight. When I wait for people, I sit out in the dining room at that table and read, and then I can watch the drive and see them coming in. So I waited until eight, then I waited until 9:15, and I said, “You know what? I’m going home.” No guy, no show.
I got home, and my phone rang about 11:30. This kid says, “Yeah, I’m over here.” I just let it go to voicemail. I didn’t take it. So we’re getting a new exterminator.
Then my oldest son, Matt, and Becky had a guy who worked on bees at their house—a country boy who raises bees and knows all about them. So I called him and said, “Yes, I need to get some yellow jackets taken care of.” He said, “Sure, I can do that. Let me look at my schedule. How about Thursday at 11:30?” I said, “That’s great.”
So I’m sitting in the window reading a book at 11:30. It’s a no-show. I said, “Okay.” So I called the guy and said, “How about 11:30?” “Oh yeah, I’m running late. I’m going to be an hour and a half late.”
I said, “Let’s have a time certain. Let’s say two.” He said, “Okay, two o’clock. I’ll be there.”
So I got over here. At 1:45, I called him just to make sure, and he said, “Oh yeah, I’m on my way. I’m going to be there in twelve minutes.” He must have had a GPS on his phone or something. Okay, I’m waiting for you.
He showed up. He was here. He had an old pickup truck that was rusting out, with ladders and junk all hanging out the back of it. He said, “Let me show you where I think these things are.”
He walked all around the grounds, and he gave me a lot of pointers on maintenance of the property. While we were on our walk, he told me how I could fill a crack in the concrete and that I needed to clean some dirt out somewhere. I said, “Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.”
I came in and said, “You go ahead and knock on the door when you’re done, okay?” He said, “Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll get to you.” So I’m sitting there reading away, and all of a sudden I thought he was going to knock the front door down.
I went to the front door, and he had a yellow plastic bag. He opened it up, and he had the biggest nest of yellow jackets I’ve ever seen. That thing was full of yellow jackets.
He said, “You know, I haven’t seen one like this in a long time. That’s five tiers deep.” So it was five layers of yellow-jacket nest. He had his pen, and he was poking in it. I said, “Well, those things are moving around.” He said, “Yeah, yeah, they’re dead. They just don’t know it yet.”
Anyway, my patience development—my training for the week—was learning to wait for the yellow-jacket man. But I had great reward. I’m sorry somebody got stung last night. I think he got them out in the middle of the day, so there are probably still some characters out there looking for a place to go.
Those who wait upon the Lord and don’t get so stirred up and anxious—great reward. We got a huge yellow-jacket nest out of there. That’s a practical application. Sharon said I could give that one.
This is another encouragement that James gives to us: faith without works is dead. James 2:26 says:
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
That’s why this book can seem kind of weird. We’ve spent our whole lives learning salvation by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not as a result of works, so that no one can boast.
How can James stress works? Martin Luther had just about lost his life recovering salvation by grace through faith, and then all of a sudden he read this book. He said it was terrible. It was a straw book. He couldn’t fight with it, so it drove him crazy.
But the last time I shared, it was out of Galatians. When we come to the end of Galatians, it talks about the fruit of the Spirit. We are justified by faith, for sure. We are justified, saved, and made right with God by grace through faith.
But after that beginning faith, we are to continue on by faith, walking in the Spirit. We talked about that. In other words, I think Paul was saying, “Show me your faith by your works,” in chapter 5. There ought to be spiritual evidence of our faith as Christians.
That’s part of our testimony: Christ in us, the hope of glory. That’s why Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit. I think that’s what James is after here.
James says:
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”
Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
Brother Kong helped me a lot with this. He talked about the Sermon on the Mount. He says, “To be accurate, the Sermon on the Mount is not the Lord Jesus trying to give us a new set of laws. The Sermon on the Mount is the Lord Jesus describing a kind of life which the sons of the kingdom live.”
So, show me your faith by your works. The same thing is true with the letter of James. This is not giving us more laws, more regulations, more rules for us as Christians to keep.
The letter of James is simply describing to us the kind of life we should live as believers, and what good works should be exhibited before the world, so that our faith may be proven and perfected.
Isn’t that the testimony of Jesus? A life—an indestructible life.
Faith without works is dead. What are some applications? The first one I want to talk about is freedom from the world.
In a time like this, when we’re set apart, what can we gain? How can we benefit? I was going to combine warning against worldliness, boasting about tomorrow, and warning to the rich. I believe James would have us be set free from the world.
The world is a system. It’s an evil cosmos, and it is after our souls. It wants to possess our souls. It demands our attention—our full attention—even now, more than ever, with all these things going on. It wants to get us involved and caught up with the world.
It’s subtle. Sometimes we even feel so good about being successful in the world. It gives us a reward and makes us feel good. But it’s a system, and we need to be set free from it.
I think this is a time that we have to stop and look back, get a distance from this world, and say, “My life is not in this world. My life is in Christ.”
How many people can’t watch the news anymore? How many turn the news off? It’s disgusting. You can be like me and just get mad and stirred up, or we can just turn it off and turn to the Lord.
It’s a good time to turn away from this world—not to be ignorant, not to fail to pray and take a stand against what the enemy is doing—but praise God, we can get free from this world.
James gives us a little thought on how to handle that. James 4:4-10 says:
Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us”?
But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
This is a time, a time set apart, to draw near to the Lord.
Another application is hearing and doing the Word of God. In this time of trial, this time of quiet, how important the Word of God can be. James 1:19-21 says:
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness,
and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
The implanted Word. The implanted Word. The Word of God is an inheritance. It’s a great thing we have, and let’s not leave it locked up in the vault. Let’s get it out and deal with it.
It’s a living Word. It’s not just pen and ink. It’s meant to be a living Word. John 1:1 says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That’s the Word we want to touch. John 1:14 says:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
Hebrews 4:12 says:
The word is living and active.
So we meditate, wait upon God in His Word, and be encouraged. These are great opportunities for this living Word to be implanted.
Tozer talks about this:
I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book, and when the book was finished, lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood.
Tozer can be a little dry. But with notions like that in our heads, how can we believe? The fact is that God is not silent and has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak.
The second person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us, put into our familiar human words.
Tozer continues:
I think a new world will arise out of the rigid religious myths when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. If we would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to open the Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very living Word of God.
Trying times, difficult times—we can be in the Word and receive with meekness the implanted Word.
Another application is the prayer of faith. The other thing that this set-apart time can be used for is prayer.
The verses in this section might talk about intercessory prayer, maybe more public prayer, but what we’re talking about is persevering in trials. We want to talk about personal prayer—learning to pray, learning to draw near to God.
James 4:8 says:
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
James 4:10 says:
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Hebrews 4:16 says:
Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
I always think of how good it is to look at how David, in the Psalms, approached the Lord in prayer. The first thing he did was praise the Lord consistently, no matter what his circumstances. So as we are praying and approaching the Lord, begin with worship.
He always humbled himself before the Lord, buried his soul, and humbled himself. He expressed his belief and abandonment to God and trust in the Lord. Then he always, always poured out his heart before Him.
Psalm 62:8 says:
Trust in Him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah.
Times of trial are times to learn to pray. Hopefully, this independent, individual prayer would, as time goes on, give us a burden for corporate prayer.
Corporate prayer—our praying together—we always talk so much about our testimony. Corporate prayer is very much right in the heart of our testimony as an assembly. So: prayer, prayer in the evil time.
The last word is from James 5:19-20:
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,
let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death
and will cover a multitude of sins.
In these times of trial, let’s keep our eyes out for one another. These are days of great trial, and if any among you wanders from the truth, it’s so easy to wander. It’s easy to be isolated and separated, but let’s not let this coronavirus separate us from one another. Let’s keep our eyes and our spirits out for each other.
James has a word of encouragement for those of us in trial. We’re in a trial, and I believe he has some encouragements for us.
I’m just going to read two verses to close. Might we be those who draw near to God and learn the capacity of His life in us, in His Spirit, in these days.
James 1:2-4 says:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
Don’t let this slip. God has got us in this crucible for training and preparing—to grow up in Christ and be prepared for His return.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
So that we might be mature, grown-up Christians, full of the Spirit and the strength of God, to stand in the evil day.
Romans 5:1-5 says something not dissimilar:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.
And we exult in hope of the glory of God.
And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
May we draw near to God and gain perseverance and hope in these difficult days.
Lord, we thank You that even though it’s perplexing what we see going on, we believe there is a great provision and something to satisfy Your heart as we draw near to You. We don’t run and hide and try to just get away from everything, but we draw near to You.
Would You strengthen us and give us that persevering faith to trust You and grow strong in the Lord, and be prepared for Your return. In Jesus’ name.