Please take your Bibles and turn to James. You may not have read there in a while. It's a very interesting and helpful letter. It's right after Hebrews toward the end of your New Testament. James the Epistle. Now while you're turning, let me give you some background on James. We begin a study this morning that you'll go through the summer and I encourage you to devote yourselves to the wonderful truths that are found in this book. Just not yet. Think about it. Pray about it. Go from each Lord's day and seek the Lord's help that you might apply what we've been studying that morning out of the Scriptures. This book is vast. It has so much great advice and encouragement and instruction and guidance in it that it's very difficult to deal with it in one summer, but we'll go slowly enough so that we can pick up its major themes. There are four James in the Bible, two of them who are particularly renowned. One of them was James, the son of Zebedee, the brother of John, the Apostle, and James was an Apostle, and we know clearly that this is not written by James, son of Zebedee because those of you who have read the book of Acts recently know that that James was beheaded early on in the history of the Church and so we could not yet have written this letter. The second most renowned James is the one we believe to have written the letter. He's James, the blood brother of Jesus Christ. Jesus, of course, was the oldest one in the family, but he had some half siblings. Obviously, Jesus only shared the heritage of Mary, not Joseph's, but Joseph. Mary did not conceive Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Spirit did, so Jesus was a half brother to James and to Jude who wrote the next of the last book of the Bible and James and Jude are then the authors of two of the epistles to be found after the book of Hebrews. James is a somewhat disputed book early in the years of the Church. It wasn't until the year 180 AD that we have any evidence of the existence of James manuscripts. And yet, origin, who was an early church father, he died in 254 AD, he said very clearly that James was inspired and belonged in the canon of sacred scripture. And in the next century, a Jerome, who you may know was the translator of the scriptures into Latin and a very fine scholar, and now that Latin translation called the Volgate, is the basis of Roman Catholic translations, Jerome included James, of course, in the canon, and then drawing closer to the year of the Council of Calcedon where the canon was finally established, Augustine, who lived the next century and died around 431 AD, Augustine insisted of course that James was part of sacred scripture, belonged in the canon, and the church canonized or finalized the canon in that fifth century at the Council. And ever since then, of course, James along with the other New Testament books had been recognized as ultimately authored by the Holy Spirit and written through eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus Christ, which of course, brother James was, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15. Now later on, at the reformation, John Calvin, very clearly included James in his understanding of the New Testament canon, but Martin Luther, the great man that he was, also made some great mistakes, and one of them was in basically rejecting James. He said, James contradicts the Pauline epistles. He called James a strawy, a strawy epistle, and what he meant by that, there was not much of Christ in it, not much of the gospel that he could find. I'd like to suggest that Martin Luther was wrong again. There were many right things about Martin Luther and on reformation that, of course, we celebrate our heritage with Luther and Calvin and his wingly and others, but I believe Martin Luther was badly mistaken here. The name Christ is only mentioned twice at the beginning of chapter 1, beginning of chapter 2, but the faith of the gospel is implicit and sometimes explicit throughout James. I think what Mr. Luther, Dr. Luther did not understand, perhaps, was that this is kind of like the New Testament Proverbs. And you could look at the Proverbs and say, well, that's just strawy. There's no gospel there. Well, there's a lot of gospel there. So what the Proverbs are generally trying to show us is how we live the life that flows out of putting our trust in Christ. And we'll see later on when we get into chapter 2, how James and the Apostle Paul are clearly singing out the same page. It's not immediately evident, but it will be made evident to you. I trust as we study what the Bible actually says. But James was concerned primarily with this. If you have put your trust in Christ, and if you have professed you're going to follow him, what difference does it make in your real life? And I think that this is a message desperately needed in our day, especially in the so-called Bible-believing churches, where many people will nod their heads and say, yes, we agree to the historical facts of the gospel, or, yes, I want to be numbered among the people of God. And yet we find the lives not being dramatically changed. In fact, if the Christian nominal Christian community were to be polled on some significant moral and ethical issues, we would find very little difference between them and the public at large. So it seems to me that James' epistle far from being straw is meat and milk and water and sustenance for the hungry Christian soul. And the most interesting thing about it is that James, as the blood brother of Jesus, although in his early years did not recognize Jesus for who he was, thought Jesus was a fruitcake that had to be rescued, he was going insane, and his siblings, you know, tried to rescue him from these claims he was making about himself and James was one of them. The later James came to see clearly who Jesus Christ was, we'll see that in the epistle. And as he came to see who he was, he remembered the teachings he heard Jesus give over and over again, especially the sermon on the mount. And what scholars have recognized is that James and the synoptic gospels are very close together as matter of fact, James and the sermon on the mount deal with very common things. For example, probably the three big things that will run up against in James, dealing with wealth and those who have it, dealing with pride and dealing with our tongues. Now those are very relevant for us, are they? And isn't this what Jesus dealt with? Don't you hear the sermon on the mount? James studied Jesus. Dear friends, you know what the evangelical church really needs today is another dose of who Jesus really is, and what he really calls us to be, and that's precisely what James does. Let us pray. Father, it is an awesome thing to come into this sanctuary, a place where you have to wealth with your people for 50 years, and where you dwell with us again today in these moments, and to seek you and to hear your word, because Lord, we gladly come, because we love to behold your face, and we love to hear your word. Speak, O Lord, for your servants, listen, O man. James, chapter 1, verse 1, hear the word of God, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. No men are like grass, and all their glories like the flowers of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever in. So how do you do when you are really tested? I mean, really tested. When the whopper comes, how do you do? Well, you say, well, the whopper has come. I've lost the one I love the most in this life, and I've really since the God got me through there with grace and mercy. I've lost my job before, and God gave me confidence that I could be picked up again by His spirit and go on to the next one. And some of you say, you know, when the whopper comes, I'm afraid I'm not much up to it. How about when the little test comes, you just came back from the party on Friday night and you got snubbed and you knew it, had you handled it? Your spouse of 40 years has done the same old dog on thing that she's always done, and your response was the same old dog on response you always get. How do you do when the trials come? When James begins the description of how we are to live the Christian life, he begins with how we deal with our trials. I want to say that although I'm only 50 years old, and it was not here when the sanctuary was built, I have noticed some changes in the Church of Jesus Christ over 50 years. Some of them, frankly, are not all bad, and I don't want to make out the generation before in mind to be perfect, but Tom Broke called it the greatest generation, didn't he? And they weren't perfect. In fact, you know that they're not perfect because we're their kids. You can tell, they messed up in some ways, but they were very different. In some ways that it seems to me we ought to look at seriously and see if there's not something in the Bible about it. And here's what concerns me more than anything else about the change in the generations in the Church. I'm not talking about the nation in our culture or the world, I'm talking about the Church. And it has to do with how we handle our trials and our tests and our afflictions. The generation that was before in mind had some serious trials. My parents went through them, some of those in the front rows and in the rest of the congregation have gone through them with a depression, where people couldn't find work with 30 percent unemployment in the country. And where we faced a world war and people had to hug their loved ones at the dock and say goodbye not knowing if they've ever seen them again. And people learned that there are duties in life that doesn't do you a whole lot of good to complain and bellyache about it. What does a lot of good is to look to heaven, ask for grace, take the first step and get moving. Now there's something about that that's not altogether good, and some of those who've had to face their duties in the past, maybe have had too much put on them and they could even bear and have suppressed a lot of things, and it causes dysfunctions from time to time. But there's something good about it that comes from the scriptures that I want you to notice this morning. And it seems to me that in my generation, the 60s flower children and our children, that we have something very important to learn about the Christian life. And that is that this world does not orbit around our pleasures or our comforts or our wants or our desires. This world is bigger than any individual. The human race is larger than any person, and the universe and especially the God who made it, is infinitely larger than any particular individual. When we run up against trials and difficulties and afflictions in life, let me describe what I see most commonly in myself and my brothers and sisters in the church. Three responses. Number one, we typically will, if you're a sanguine like myself, you just simply suppress it. Life's not so bad as fine. I'm doing okay. And you just stuff it. You think you're fine. Of course, everybody around you knows that you're a fruitcake. Because you stuff all that stuff, and it comes out in other weird ways. You know, Abigail Van Buren says that every third person is massively dysfunctional. So I encourage you to look to your right so you're sitting there. Look to your left so you're sitting there. If they're both normal people, you're in. And it could very well be that you're one of those who simply stuff things. And when things get really tough, sometimes all you can do is pretend and deny and stuff. The second typical response of Christian people I'm talking about because of our sinful nature is that we complain. That's my favorite. That's my response of choice. Complain. And if you can find somebody else to blame, it's particularly good to complain. We complain when the trials and afflictions come. Dear friends, this says something about who we are. And we choose complaint when we are faced with afflictions. And the third one is that we often enter into self-pity, feeling sorry for ourselves, pounding. Those are the three responses of choice of most human beings, including even those in the Christian church. When James talks about what it means to imitate Jesus Christ, he says that is not going to be our response. And he says we will consider it pure joy, all joy, when we face trials of many kinds, which is meant to say every kind. And we can often understand if I'm persecuted or put to death because I held up the flag of Jesus Christ of the last moment, I can rejoice in that. That's good. And that's true. And Jesus said it in the discernment of the mouth. But James is saying more than that. He is saying when you're afflicted, not just because of your profession of faith, but when you're afflicted from any affliction, any discouragement, any test or trial, you consider it all joy. How in the world do I do this? First of all, take a good look at yourself. How do you identify yourself? Well, if I'd been James, I would have said, blood brother, I knew him well, I'm on the left hand. Right hand. I'm going to get there. He's going to give me a special embrace because we grew up together. It's probably what I would say. James, half brother of Jesus, it's not what he said, James, servant, in fact, the word he uses there is the word for bond slave, slave of God and of my older brother, the hamming of you who have older brothers want to say you're going to be his slave. What this one, James did, why? Because transcending his blood relationship to Jesus Christ, most of all, was that he was his abject slave. Do you realize, if you want to respond, Christianly, to every affliction, whether it's cancer, death of a friend, snubbing at a social party, your friend's not loving you, failing those tasks in grades last semester, whatever it is, you must see yourself properly and a Christian sees herself, sees himself as slave. No rights, therefore no right to complain, no right to be, feel sorry for yourself and no reason to pretend because we deserve nothing, the punishment and we're getting everything as his slaves. So first of all, the way in which you see yourself, secondly, how do you do this by seeing your sufferings properly, see yourself properly and see your sufferings properly and here's how you're to see your sufferings and only take five more minutes. First of all, your sufferings are going to get you home. God has a big agenda in terms of your pleasure. He knows how to make you happy to your children and we don't always do it. Our parents tell us we don't believe them. Jesus tells us he knows how to make us happy, we don't believe him. He's going to make you happy and he's going to get you home and here's how he's going to do it. You're going to have afflictions every single one of you. You've already had them. You're going to have some more. Why? Because the loving father is going to get you home safely and he says in this text, pure joy because your sufferings produce, they actually achieve something, they achieve perseverance. Some of you ran track, perhaps. I did, but they were shorter races, but we're talking about long races, a two mile race, there's a beginning line, there's a finish line and then there's a race in between. How are you going to run that race? You see, the Christian life has not just been dragged along by God. It's running with him by his strength, persevering. That's what James is saying. Yes, there's justification about faith alone in Christ alone, by grace alone. But there's perseveres, which means I'm actively engaged in this Christian life. How do I run this two mile race? Training, discipline, workouts that make me sick physically, those of you who have worked out, hard, hard work, why? It produces perseverance. Dear friends, please remember every single one of your afflictions are because Jesus is producing perseverance in you so that you get home safely. That's the goal. Secondly, not just get home, but get holy, and He says that this perseverance will produce perfection or maturity, same word, and completeness, nothing will be left out. How's he going to do this in your old rotten self? He's going to do this through suffering. I'm sorry, I hurt for you. I know some of you are suffering intensely, and I don't understand why the suffering differs among all of us, but it does, and the reason it does, is because the father knows his children very well. He knows them all by name, and he knows his strength and weaknesses, and he has designed your life. Can you accept that? Can you trust him? That these sufferings are producing something good in your life? Malcolm Mugridge became a Christian at 65, and he died in his 80s. He had a very short Christian life, but it was a very profound one. He had been a world-renowned journalist throughout the 20th century, and when he became a Christian, all of this just came alive because he had a brand new perspective with which to see it. When Mugridge was in his 80s, shortly before he died, he said, I have learned the most important things in life, come through suffering, do you believe it? James says, rejoice with pure joy, because he's getting you not only home, but he's getting you holy to be like Jesus Christ, and lastly, so that you lack nothing, or literally in the Greek, so that you're not left behind. You get home, you get holy, but ultimately, you get him. The sufferings, dear friends, make us like him, and accomplish for him an ultimate and eternal embrace with him. You know about Jesus. You know how his life was lived here? You know that for three years he preached and nobody really understood him except in these brilliant moments that quickly evaporated and they're back to their old selves. You know that he faced the hostility of the clergy and the civil authorities. You know how he died on the cross with agony for us? You know how he wept in Gethsemiti pleading for relief? You know the life of suffering that he lived. Do you want to be like him? Then of course we're going to enter into his sufferings. In fact, the Apostle Paul says, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that's the prayer, so that we may be like him. My friends, this is a long way off from the way that we normally think. The Christians are called to think and to live a long way off from the way other people think and live because when we imitate him, we glorify him and this is the ultimate concern of every brother and sister of Jesus Christ, that is great. Gracious God, we thank you for being our God in ages past and our hope for years to come. Our guard, while life shall last here and then our eternal home. We thank you, O Lord, with sinful hearts for the sufferings and afflictions that we have endured. It is not easy for us to thank you because they are painful and because we have made it a habit in our wealthy age to define our own existence and our own life plan by what makes us feel good in this life in the flesh. Our bodies and our emotions taken care of by every whim that flows through our brains and we, O Lord, have often forgotten they were called to holiness, they were called to a home above and they were called to him, our Savior. Please forgive us, O Lord, and enable us in all of our suffering to suffer as Christian men and women, to suffer with those who have hope, to believe the gospel and eternal life, and to lift up our heads and see our redemption drawing eye and to enjoy the communion of suffering and abounding in our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in His precious name, O man.