Let's turn into our Bibles tonight to the Book of James. We begin tonight a study that will Carry us through the spring We're turning to James one and we'll be studying together versus one through four So grateful for the hymns that we've been singing thus far tonight leading us into The teaching that James has for us and hopefully Comfort already to your hearts Let's pray together before we turn to God's word We pray, Father, that you'll teach us tonight We eagerly weigh that your feet We pray that you will instruct us That you'll strengthen us That you will comfort us through your word We pray, Lord, that you will give me grace boldness and faithfulness To teach your word well and we pray that you'll give us hearts That are fertile, that are tender, that are soft To receive the seed of your word We pray that your word would bear much fruit in our lives We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen
I was my freshman year in college and I was taking a theology class at Calvin And we were given an assignment to write a paper On a book of the Bible So we were going to be writing about The theme of the book, the audience of the book, the setting Structure all those kind of things that you would You know Look at as you're taking a look at the big picture Of the book and the way that we got our assignments is that the professor went around the room And just said this is your book. This is your book. So First person of course got Genesis the second person got Exodus the third person got Leviticus and by the time we got down to me I ended up with the book of Ecclesiastes I was like no no no you know of all the books of the Bible I don't want Ecclesiastes couldn't I have some other book couldn't I end up with a book like James or something You know you think about the book of Ecclesiastes and so maybe one of the more difficult books in the Bible to understand Somewhat confusing And then on the other end of the spectrum you have the book of James Direct straightforward A called by some the proverbs of the New Testament Kind of a wisdom book wisdom literature dealing with the nitty gritty things of life and Trying to apply godly wisdom in those nitty gritty things more practical than doctrinal 54 imperatives commands out of 108 verses Someone has called it a do this do that book This is how we're to live this is what we are to do And for all those reasons this is why so many people Love the book of James as it speaks to every day life Sherry said to me this afternoon. I'm excited about our study in the book of James Just so practical one of my favorite books. I was talking to David Chambers this week David said I'm excited about the series on James. It's my favorite book of the Bible so practical And that might be the case for many of you here tonight Not everyone has looked at James that way James is probably the earliest book written in the New Testament Around written around mid forties But it wasn't accepted into the New Testament canon until about the fourth century Some questioned this apostolic authority that said you know James Was not a follower of Jesus from the earliest days of Jesus ministry And therefore this book lacks the kind of apostolic authority that other books in the New Testament have But you probably know that the biggest issue with James Is that it seemed to contradict Paul Paul's emphasis on justification by faith James on obedience to the law Paul gospel and grace James works This is why Luther of course called The book of James an epistle of straw To be relegated to the end of the New Testament It didn't believe that there ought to be excluded from the canon simply that It didn't carry the same kind of weight That many of the other epistles of the New Testament carried But friends James is a gospel book James relies upon the words of Jesus more than any other New Testament book His emphasis is faith that works Not works apart from the gospel or works in place of the gospel But a faith that works flowing out of the gospel It's about gospel fruit or faith in action And James owned words we're not just to be heroes of the word But we are to be doers of the word And tonight he particularly speaks about faith in the midst of trials So let's read these first four verses chapter one This is God's word James a servant of God And of the Lord Jesus Christ Through the twelve tribes in the dispersion greetings Count it all joy my brothers When you meet trials of various kinds For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness And let steadfastness have its full effect That you may be perfect and complete lacking And nothing This is a book that is written by pastor James It is a pastoral book a pastoral letter And James identifies himself in that very first verse James a servant of God And of the Lord Jesus Christ There are three notable James in the New Testament There's the disciple James who's the son of alphius The other disciple who carried the same name James The son of Zebedee the brother of the Apostle John a prominent disciple Part of Jesus inner circle of Peter James and John And then James the brother of Jesus Which James wrote this book? Well Not James the son of alphius. He's a rather obscure disciple only mentioned in the lists of the disciples Not James the son of Zebedee martyred around 8044 who died too early to write this book It is James Jesus brother He began just like the rest of his family Not believing in Jesus as a Messiah at the beginning of Jesus ministry and throughout most of his ministry But what a change happened in James Jesus appeared to him this is first Corinthians 15 Jesus appeared to him following his resurrection and James became a believer In fact, he became a leader in the early church In the church at Jerusalem In Galatians 2 he is called a pillar in the church In Acts 12 when Peter was released from prison He told those in Mary's house to go tell James and the brothers What had happened James is singled out there And then James becomes a prominent voice in the early church We see the strength of his voice and Acts 15 at the council in Jerusalem when the church gathered To decide what to do about the Gentiles who were coming to faith in Christ It was James who stood up And spoke to the rest of the leaders of the church declaring that Gentiles Did not need to be circumcised in order to be saved But that they should simply have stained from food sacrifice idols From sexual immorality and from eating blood James became this strong voice prominent leader among the early Christians And it's that James who penned this letter And notice how he identifies himself It says James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ He's a brother of the Lord but is not his physical relationship with Jesus That he highlights But it is a spiritual relationship He could have said James a brother of our Lord Jesus Christ But that is not what is prominent in James line. It's just not what he holds before the church and before us He is a servant of God And of the Lord Jesus Christ his identity is established by his faith in Christ Not by his family connection to Christ So he is a servant of God That testifies to the humility that James brings in this letter And he is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ He's submissive to the Lordship of Jesus He is a brother of the Lord Jesus Christ But even more importantly James became a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ And his message in this letter is all about Christ and his life changing gospel Notice he writes still in that first verse to the 12 tribes in the dispersion In other words James was writing to suffering believers The 12 tribes is an illusion of course to the 12 tribes of Israel These are primarily Jewish Christians that James is writing to And he writes to these Jewish Christians who are in the dispersion and illusion back to what Israel experienced in the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity When gods people were wiped out and they were brought from their own nation out to the Assyrians and to the Babylonians and uprooted And suffering through those captivity But more directly this is what the Jews of James day were experiencing as well Acts 8 verse 1 reminds us of what was going on in those early days of the church Who writes to us that a great persecution arose Against the church in Jerusalem And they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria and eventually beyond The very people who were members of James congregation And now been dispersed. They've been scattered Through persecution throughout Judea throughout Samaria and beyond those regions even further out And these suffering Jewish Christians that James is writing to have been uprooted from their homes. They had lost their jobs They were oppressed. They were suffering prejudice and poverty dragged into the courts The very kinds of things that James is going to allude to in this letter And to these members from his Jerusalem congregation Who were suffering and scattered. He writes us letter and he exhorts them To a living faith Keep living for Christ. Keep being obedient to Jesus Keep following after our Lord Put your faith into action and as he begins in this letter especially in the midst of trials
Notice his challenging command that he begins with in verse 2 Count it all joy my brothers When you meet trials of various kinds It's an arresting way to start this letter, isn't it Right out of the gate with an imperative with a command and probably one of the most difficult commands Or imperatives that you could hear or listen to You're facing trials Count that as joy It's sort of say to ourselves where is James pastoral tone what what happened to it where is his sensitivity as a pastor For his suffering followers suffering church members Note James words here It's important to look at them highlight them Count it all joy my brothers When you meet trials The word is not if but it's when suffering James says is going to happen Even for Christians And sometimes especially for Christians So that when suffering happens or when trials come or if they come but when they come You're going to meet them and they're going to meet you The idea of meeting is sort of like meeting up So when church is over tonight and you're making your way through the lobby and you Happen to bump into another member and you meet up with them You weren't looking for them. They weren't looking for you But there they are This is the kind of idea that James is bringing about the trials they come across our path one day life is smooth And then the next day We discover a lump Experience a miscarriage lose our job Our child tells us that they're turning their back on the faith These are things of course don't happen apart from the providence of God. They're fully in the hand of our God But this is the way that trials happen. We're living life in suddenly. We are faced with a trial We haven't planned on it. We didn't see it coming and suddenly it is there
And then James speaks about various trials That we meet In other words, there's not just one category that James has in mind But various trials covers all the kinds of trials that we go through There's not one of us here tonight that can say the kind of thing that I'm facing that I've dealt with the pastor It's present in my life is somehow excluded from what James is talking about But this category covers all the trials that we face that Christians go through
And James point here is to count it all joy when you face these things
How do you do that? What's important for us to understand what James is and isn't saying here James is not saying Count trials themselves Joy or that we somehow need to celebrate ALS or Alzheimer's COVID or cancer disappointment or depression When those things come into our life it's not as if we say God, I'm so thankful for the cancer diagnosis that I have That's not the kind of thing that James is saying here And he's also not calling us to a pasted On joy a veneer of happiness that is shallow and fake So that we go around in life saying well, it's a terrific Tuesday or if the wonderful Wednesday isn't it Despite the things that we're facing
What he is saying is this that when we meet trials We count it Count it all joy Joy a good feeling in the soul something much deeper of course than happiness that is contingent upon outward circumstances, but something deep down in our hearts That makes a study that makes a solid that Gives us comfort and James says we are to consider Or count it all joy When we meet trials We are to take into account Tries as joy
What he's teaching us is that there needs to be a conscious embrace Of a Christian understanding of life That puts our trials into a new perspective. Let me say that again James is teaching us that there needs to be a conscious embrace of a Christian understanding Of life a faith understanding of life That puts our trials into a new perspective Or a view of our trials based on our faith A faith that helps us to see through the trials to the beauty of Christ A view of our trials based on our faith that helps us see through our trials To the beauty of Christ And this happens when we see God at work in them Friends what James is saying here Shouldn't really be surprising to us Because this is not an isolated teaching But James received this kind of teaching And is teaching emanates from Jesus himself his own brother We read it tonight Stuart read it for us tonight Matthew 5 11 and 12 The end of the Beatitudes blessed are you When others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil Against you falsely on my account rejoice And be glad Why for your reward is great in heaven And for so for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you Paul teaches us this Romans 5 3 and 4 We rejoice in our sufferings How Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance character and character hope Peter picks up on this Verse Peter 1 6 and 7 And this you rejoice Though now for a little while if necessary You have been grieved by various trials So that the tested genuineness of your faith Maybe found a result in praise and glory and honor At the revelation of Jesus Christ
James is saying to us tonight is we are called to joy in the midst of trials knowing That the trials we face have spiritual value Because God is doing something through them
God is shaping us God is molding us Well, what is he doing? James tells us ultimately he is maturing us this is a path to maturity There are two things That James specifically says The trials are at work in our life to produce The first is steadfastness Counted all joy when you meet trials of various kinds for you know That the testing of your faith produces steadfastness Our trials are an opportunity for the testing of our faith Trials are a proving ground for our faith This ought not to surprise us James Is going to highlight for us later on in this book two saints whose faith was greatly put to the test Not not to be surprised when we're going through a testing of our faith All of God's people have gone through things like this But James highlights two particularly Abraham Abraham called to offer up his one and only son Isaac and Job His family his fortune all of it stripped away from him And if these great saints were tested We're going to be tested We can expect it But what's key is the purpose of the test What's the testing about the word in verse three the testing of your faith is an important word It's the Greek word ducky myon And it means a positive testing Sometimes we test some things to see if they might fail don't we So you might be sitting in school this week boys and girls and you got your pencil in your hand and you're Playing around with your pencil. Well the teacher is talking and kind of bending your pencils now I wonder how far this pencil can bend before my pencil snaps Can see how far it can go before it fails That's not what James is speaking of here When he talks about testing he's not talking about a kind of testing that we are put through to see if we fail But this is a positive testing this is a testing to make us stronger The two times this word is used in the old testament and the other times that's used in the new testament Is the image of testing metals in a furnace And When you put metals into a fire you burn off the impurities and you forge the metal into something stronger Don't put it in the fire to make it fail you put it into the fire to make it Stronger than it was before put iron or another minerals into a furnace. What do you get you get steel Metal that is stronger than those other metals And James is saying that's what God is doing That's what the kind of work that God is up to in our lives when trials come what what are they meant to produce in us They're meant to make us stronger. They're meant to produce steadfastness Perseverance Endurance This is the steel of the Christian who has gone through the fire of trials Through trials God is forging our faith To make it more lasting to make it tougher To make it steadfast We know that this is how things we know that that this is how things work in our own life Your endurance as a runner doesn't grow Unless you push yourself to run farther and faster Our muscles don't get stronger unless we stretch them with heavier weights and more reps And so also God uses trials to help us grow In persevering faith We would be steadfast when the trials come That we would be steadfast when the challenges to our faith faces that we would be faithful to God not just for the short term But for the long term But friends it doesn't stop there Because even the steadfastness is meant to produce something else in us steadfastness isn't the ultimate goal of trials steadfastness leads us as James says To becoming perfect and complete Lacking in nothing verse four
Another way of talking about perfection and completeness here is to talk about spiritual maturity Our full development as believers as Christians a character That is fully shaped by the spirit of God A will that aligns with the will of God Desires that match God's desires steadfastness let it have its full effect It's doing something in us. It's changing us. It's molding us. It's shaping us. God is using it so that we might be perfect and complete But those words together and it's the idea that there is an incremental step by step An increasing righteousness That is developed in us until The time when we lack nothing The end goal That we would be fully shaped into the image of Christ Jesus More and more taking on his character's image And that will come of course either at the end of time or when God calls us to glory But this is the process at which God is working in our lives The long view The long process that God is using to change us Some of you might have listened to Kevin's podcast his most recent one. Tim Keller was on it speaking about His Badly doesn't like that word But it's condition of pancreatic cancer And I was struck by Tim saying he says I'm not fighting cancer. I'm fighting my sin Not fighting cancer. I'm fighting my own sin. This is the process that I'm in And he went on to say if it wasn't for my sin, I would be completely resting in Christ My sin keeps me from the spiritual realities that would buoy me up How do I face cancer by fighting my sin so that I'm ready To meet Christ God is getting us ready Through the trials that we face and it isn't so much the trials himself that we're fighting It's their own sin God what would you do in my life through this trial to shape me to mold me to cause me to Turn from my sin and to turn to you more and more so that I might be steadfast in one day
Be perfect and complete and lacking in nothing
There was a silversmith who put silver into the fire and there was somebody watching this process Person came up to the silversmith and said How do you know how long you're to keep the silver in the fire? And the silversmith said well if I take the silver out too quickly Then all of the impurities will not be burned away from the silver If I leave the silver in the fire too long then the silver might be damaged And so I need to take it out at just the right moment and the person Said to the silversmith again ask the question Well, how do you know when it's just the right time to take the silver Out of the fire and the silversmith said I know it's time When I can see my face reflected Perfectly in the silver friends. This is the work that God is doing You know, it's when we go through the testing of our faith when we are put into the furnace of trials What is he up to? What is he doing? How do we count it all joy? Consider it It's joy because we know that what Christ is doing is He wants his face to be perfectly reflected in our life to display Our life to display the beauty of Christ
Dean Orland said this if you take the sovereign provenance of God in scripture straight and undeluted You settle into the liberating realization That setbacks in your life are never setbacks but always and only Accelerations God is accelerating our growth and our sanctification With face trials How do we know that that is really true
How do we know that God Isn't really out to destroy us Through our trials and friends it's because of Christ And his sufferings in his trials He was despised and rejected A man of sorrows familiar with suffering despised That we might be loved Rejected that we might be welcomed in Facing sorrow So that we can find joy
Teller again puts it like this Jesus took that So that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond and the suffering of a person in Christ Only turns you into somebody gorgeous
It seems to me that there may be two groups of people that need this message tonight It's all of us but you might find yourself in two different categories First of all you may be a suffering Christian you're in the midst of it right now The furnace of testing To make no mistake about it our trials are painful book of Hebrews reminds us of that doesn't it So the discipline of the Lord it is not pleasant At the time but painful The trials they hurt But remember tonight that God loves you and he is at work to shape and to sanctify you He's doing something in your heart in your life And so be steadfast By his grace and faith And then there's another category of people those who will suffer in the future So that may not be you tonight You might say I there's not many trials that I'm facing Sure, and I have often said that in our life Let's say to each other I wonder when our time is coming Well the time's gonna come for all of us The trials are going to come And people of God steady yourself now With God's means of grace Ready yourself remembering that when the trials come God is at work We sang the song and Nathan referred to it earlier tonight The song God moves in mysterious way by William Cowper Cooper many a man of many trials Might know something about his life suffered deep debilitating depression That lasted year after year after year
Well, he wrote this wonderful hymn for us You fearful saints Fresh courage take The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head remember that
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense That's what our sense is isn't it's feeble it's frail We try to understand It's going on in the trials Judge not the Lord by feeble sense But trust him for his grace Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face
You're going through trials You're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ God is smiling I mean, I feel like it God is at work To produce steadfastness To make you perfect and complete Lacking in nothing Let's pray together Father in heaven we do pray for grace Grace to count it all joy When we meet trials of various kinds
We pray Lord that your spirit will be at work to remind us of this truth of what you are doing And how you are working We pray that we might remember the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ In the suffering that Jesus endured for us So that we might know That when we suffer you are not out to break us or destroy us We may be going through your fatherly discipline, but even in that You were out to produce the harvest of righteousness In peace and so we pray that we'd be willing to be shaped By your hand Father help us with these things We pray Lord for those who are in the midst of trial right now We pray Lord that they would be comforted and strengthened We pray Lord for those of us who will face trials in this period of calm We pray Lord that through your means of grace we would be strengthened to face the trials when they come We pray this in Jesus name amen