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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
Today we are beginning our summer message series on the book of James. It’s such great book to study. It’s a different book. It’s different in a lot of ways from say for example, a lot of Paul’s letters. And it gets a lot of attention because of that.
So here is what we need to keep in mind up front as we start. This book (letter) is mainly about the Life of Christ being expressed in us and through us.
See, when we look at Scripture and what this whole Christianity thing is even really about, what we see is that we can simply it down to this: LIFE IN CHRIST, LIFE TOGETHER, & LIFE EXPRESSED.
Christ gives us new life when we turn to Him and put our faith in Him for the forgiveness of our sins and to be our Lord and Savior…and that new life connects us with other believers as our brothers and sisters in Christ, so we are brought into a Life Together with Jesus and with others…
But Jesus does all of this work of bringing us new life in Him and with others so that He can begin to express His life through us.
- He begins to express His character through us in our speech and our behavior and our actions, and He uses us to bless other people and to bring new life to them as well.
And so sometimes when we begin to read the bible, we find ourselves in a section that is mainly teaching us about Life in Christ…
But at other times we see other sections are teaching us about our new Life Together w/others…
And then yet at other times, we see sections that are mainly about Life Expressed and how Jesus uses us to make impact in this world & in His Kingdom…
But then there are also times when some books of the Bible or sections within those books are weaving in & out of all 3 of those things.
Well, again James is mainly a book about Life Expressed.
We are calling this series “Faith in Action,” b/c James is going to be really practical about a lot of life and how Jesus expresses Himself through us…how when we live by faith in Christ it leads to action…in our own lives, in the situations/circumstances we find ourselves in, and in how we serve and treat others.
And it’s important that we know that because if we are looking to James to figure out salvation and life in Christ that’s not what James is really writing about and it can get very confusing.
And we’ll talk about that more as we go along, but let’s jump right in and see how James begins. James 1:1…
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
So this is an introduction of course. James is introducing himself as the writer of this letter first and foremost. And there are a lot of different James in the Bible, but most believe that this is the James who is the half-brother of Jesus…And I think it’s worth noting for those of us who sometimes doubt who Jesus really is that to have a half-brother come to understand and have the belief that Jesus, his own brother was God says a lot!
B/C you know how brothers are with each other…and if James became convinced that his own brother that he had grown up with was in fact the son of God then there must have been some pretty convincing evidence for him to come to that conclusion and risk his life for.
But anyway, James introduces himself and says that he is writing this letter to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, which most commentators believe to be just a general way of saying that it was being written to Jewish Christians who had been scattered among various nations due to persecution.
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
Notice that James says “whenever” you face trials…not “IF” you face trials. We should not expect to have a trial-free life for any reason & especially not for being Christians. We are going to face trials of many different kinds…
And as those trials come, James says to “consider” (count) them as joy. Now, James is not talking about being happy here. He isn’t saying that if you face a trial that you shouldn’t be sad or in pain or feel anything except happiness here.
He is talking about a joy that is within us…a peace that we have b/c even though the trial we are in may hurt & not be fun to go through, God is going to use it for something good. And that is what he says next
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Okay so here’s what I feel like a lot of us try to do when we face a trial: We try to get out of it as fast as we can! We think that this trial we are facing isn’t good & the best thing for us is to get out of it quickly! Or we may even feel like this is happening because God is mad at us because maybe we’ve done something to offend Him. And so we are looking for a way to make it up to Him so that we can get out of this trial.
But, what James is saying is that these trials produce perseverance in our lives and so we need to “LET” perseverance finish its’ work. In other words, we don’t need to try and get out of our trials as fast as we can, we need to stay in it and look for what God is trying to use that trial for in our lives until He brings us through it (in his timing).
And as we stay in it and walk by faith that Jesus is using our trial then James says that we’ll be made mature and complete, not lacking anything. Now here is what is interesting. The apostle Paul in Colossians 2:10 says,
10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ…
So Paul says that just through your union, through the new life that you receive in Christ when you first become a Christian you are complete… you are not lacking anything.
So, what does James mean here when he says that if we persevere through trials we’ll be complete and not lacking anything?
We’ll remember what we said earlier, James is a book that is a lot about Life Expressed…faith in action…He isn’t unpacking Life in Christ like Paul was doing in Col. 2:10.
And so here is what James is talking about…
There is an outworking of the completeness that we have in Christ.
It even comes out in the wording that James used in v. 3 about the testing of your faith. See that word “testing” is only used one other time in the N.T. and twice in the Greek translation of the O.T. And both times in the O.T. it is used to denote the process of refining silver or gold. Refining gold is a process of removing any impurities found in the gold. Now, it is gold…you are not taking something and turning it into gold. It is gold but there are sometimes things in the gold substance that are silver or other metals mixed in. So refining is a process of working out all of those things that don’t line up with what this really is…gold. When the process is over, it’s gold all the way through.
And James is saying this is what it’s like in the Christian life when we go through trials. There is this outworking of our faith and who we are in Christ. Just like a gold substance is gold but has some things in it that don’t line up with what it really is, we too as Christians are complete and made into a new creation in Christ, but we may have outward actions, thoughts, or feelings that don’t line up with who we really are now.
And trials are things that God can use to work out that stuff through us.
See, it’s possible to be made complete in Christ and have everything we need in Him but for us to live in such a way that we feel like we aren’t complete…to live in such a way that we feel like we are lacking something we are missing in our lives.
And so we go through a trial and we feel like we are missing out on the goodness of life & we need to get out of it and we need to change our situations & circumstances in order to get what we are missing…
But James is saying if we will quit trying to get out of our trials and instead actually persevere through them, God will mature/refine us through the trial & allow us to experience the completeness we have in Christ
He’ll use it to show us that we aren’t lacking anything in Christ…that we don’t find fullness and satisfaction in the comfort of life but rather in Jesus Himself.
So consider it joy when in a trial b/c God is going to use it to grow your faith and to experience true joy and life in Him rather than settling for a counterfeit joy that comes through good situations and circumstances… V5
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
In other words, if you lack the wisdom to persevere through the trial then ask God for it because He is generous and will give it to you. And wisdom is needed to see what God is up to in our trials.
One of the commentaries I read this week was written by Warren Wiersbe, and in it, he tells a story of how a church member of his was going through several trials: she had a stroke, her husband went blind, & then later he was taken to the hospital where everyone thought he was going to die. And all of this was just hitting her at one time, and it was a lot…
And Wiersbe said that he saw her at church one day & said to her, “Hey I’m sorry you’re going through all of this, please know that I am praying for you.” And she said, “Thank you so much, but can I ask you what exactly are you asking God to do?” And he said, “Well, I’m asking that you’ll feel God’s presence, for healing, and that God will give you strength to get through this,” and she said, “Oh Pastor Warren I appreciate that, I really do, but can I ask you to also pray for something else?” “Yeah, sure, anything,”… “Please pray that I’ll have the wisdom to not waste this trial?”
This is what James was talking about. This was someone who knew that God uses the trials of our lives to grow us and to help us experience the life we have in Christ and what He wants to do through us in those trials…and she didn’t want to miss it, so she was asking for Warren to pray for God to give her wisdom to show her what it was and to stay focused on what He was doing…to let perseverance finish its work.
And may each of us do the same thing. Now, James does give a warning here when it comes to asking God to give us wisdom. V6
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
When James mentions doubts here, he is not talking about intellectual doubt. The word James uses here is talking about undivided loyalties…When you ask, you must not have undivided loyalties…
Meaning, looking to God as one of the options to go to during trials. We sometimes go immediately to other people or to other resources or a number of options to deal with a trial, and then we come to God as a last resort or as just one of the options. “I’m covering all of my bases here.”
And James says if that’s the case, you will be blown back and forth among the waves of the sea and miss what God has for you in the trial. James says that we must cling to Christ and Him alone as the One who is going to give us the wisdom to see what He is up to in this trial for us…for our good and for His glory. V9
9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
James says, hey if you are going through trials & you are poor the tendency can be to lament your poverty & focus on your low position & how you are lacking so much…the thinking is that you would have so much more…be so much more complete if you had money and could get out of this trial
But James says actually that God’s wisdom will show you that you already have a high position in Christ. That you are so rich in Christ… you have so much in Him…stop thinking that your life would be great & all your problems would be solved if you could get your hands on more money.
But he also says that if you are rich that you should take pride in a trial bringing you a low position because you’ll find out that your worth/status is so much higher in who you are in Christ than who you are in other people’s eyes b/c you have money. And besides it’s all going to fade away eventually anyway, so whether you are poor or rich, James says to persevere through the trial & allow God’s wisdom to show you your true identity, your true worth, and how rich you are in Christ!
Then as James gets into v. 12, he shows that there is a reward for persevering through trials…look what he says…
12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
This crown that James is talking about is not like a physical object. It’s a spiritual reward. Now there’s a lot of discussion around this, but Jesus of course says in John 10:10 that He came to give us abundant life. And then he says in Jn 11:25 and 14:6 that He is that life.
And we of course have Jesus in our lives the moment we put our faith and trust in Him for salvation…we are filled with abundant life, which is Jesus. But once again, we can continue to live our lives as if nothing has changed…as if we don’t have abundant life, even though we do have it in Jesus!
So James with his focus on the life we have in Christ being expressed through us says that when we persevere through trials with w/the wisdom that God gives us, we will begin to experience Jesus as our life over and above the situations/circumstances that we instead try to find it in most of the time.
We think the reward is the better circumstance we could be in outside of the trial but what God shows us as we go through trials is that Jesus is the reward… we have life in Him! V13
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Okay so when you and I go through trials, we may feel the temptation to cope with what is going on in illegitimate ways. And that of course does not come from God…
That comes from Satan and Him enticing our fleshly desires to deal with things on our own apart from God.
And James uses these fishing terms (enticed and dragged away) to describe what is going on in these moments…
A fisherman will try and entice a fish to bite something that is less than the real thing. And when the fish does, he is dragged away into a boat and outside of his environment of life and experiences death.
And we are kind of the same way…in our flesh, we can be enticed to deal with w/trials in various ways… through alcohol, drugs, or pornography. We can be enticed to deal with it by shopping and buying things to make us feel better while we are in a trial. Or we can run from the problems or lash out in anger at others, or a number of other ways that Satan entices us to cope with trials
And as we do fall for them, we are dragged away from God’s good plan to show us something in the trial. We get dragged away from experiencing the life of Christ and the fullness of Christ and we settle for something less than the real thing.
And James doesn’t want us to miss what God is up to and settle for less than the real thing (Jesus)…
He doesn’t want us to be deceived and miss God’s goodness, which is what he says last…
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
In other words, God is good and He’s given us a new spiritual birth where we have everything we now need in Him…He is our life…
SO, don’t be deceived easily and miss what God is wanting to do through trials and temptations to point us to the real, abundant life being found in Jesus and not in our situations and circumstances.
So, I don’t know what trial you are going through at the moment, but James says to consider it pure joy and to look for God’s wisdom to show you how He is working for your good and His glory as you walk through this with Him.
And don’t be deceived by temptations to get out of the trial and find real life in better situations or circumstances, but know and experience Jesus as your abundant life even in the trial and on the other side of it as well.