How’s That Working for You?
Sermon Transcript
Well, please take your Bibles and turn with me to the New Testament book of James. We’re beginning a brand new series this morning from the book of James titled “Your Faith In Action”. And we’re just gonna take a look at one verse of scripture this morning, James 1:1. You’ll want to have your Bible turned to chapter 1 of the book of James. Let’s pray together as we begin this new study and as we begin our time in God’s Word this morning.
0:00:43.2
Father, we thank You so much for the opportunity to be in Your house this morning. We come this morning with hearts that are hungry to hear from you, with hearts that desire to know You better and to enter into a deeper and more intimate relationship with You. We not only want to know You personally and to know about You, but we want to understand You and put into the practice the things that You have taught us and to know You in a very intimate way. Father, as we begin this study of the book of James, I pray that You would prepare our hearts for it, that You would give us ears to hear. Give us a mind to understand; give us a heart to receive what You would have to say to us. And, Father, we ask most importantly that You would give us feet that are swift to put into practice the Word that You have given to us. And I pray this in the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.
0:01:44.5
Well, a few weeks ago, a piece of lawn equipment that I use to trim my yard stopped working. How many of you have a weed eater? How many of you still do your own lawn like I do? Okay, we have a few frugal people in the audiences this morning. That’s good. Well, I have had this weed eater for about 10 years. It’s worked faithfully for me virtually every week. Usually on my day off on Friday morning I spend the early morning hours getting out my lawn equipment. And I get my weed eater, and I yank that cord after priming the pump a little bit. And it starts up and the engine purrs like a little kitten. And that weed eater line just, you know, twirls around there, and I trim out my lawn. But a couple weeks ago I went to do that, and it didn’t work. Now, for some of you, that wouldn’t present a crisis for you. You’re mechanical and you know how to take something like that and kind of pull it all apart and figure out why it’s not working. And in a matter of minutes you’ll have it working again. But that doesn’t happen in the Jones family ‘cause I’m mechanically challenged. And so, for me, a weed eater that doesn’t work is useless. And now I’m trying to find another one. I will go down to Home Depot and I’ll buy another one because I don’t know how to fix it. Now, don’t come up to me after the service and say, “Pastor, I’ll fix it for you.” It’s 10 years old, okay? It’s time for another weed eater. But a weed eater or a piece of lawn equipment that doesn’t work is useless. A faith that doesn’t work, friends, is also useless. It’s as useless as a piece of lawn equipment that doesn’t work. Or, to change the analogy if you remember the old song, a faith that doesn’t work is as useless as a screen door on a submarine. You remember the Rich Mullins song? Now, I’ve met one or two submarine commanders in my lifetime, and both of them agree that a faith that doesn’t work is useless.
0:03:37.7
This morning we’re beginning the study of the book of James titled “Your Faith In Action”. And there are a couple things that we need to know about James, the author of this book. First of all, we need to know that he is a practical theologian. James is a pragmatist. He simply wants to know, does your faith work for you? Before we get to the book of James, I want to just stop off in Philippians chapter 2. The apostle Paul says these words. Listen to this very carefully. He says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to work or to will and to work for His good pleasure.” He says, “Work out your own salvation.” Now, be careful with that. He doesn’t say work for your salvation. We know better than that. But he suggests to us that we have a responsibility to work out this thing called salvation in partnership with the God who is a work in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. James is the “work it out” guy in the New Testament. If you and I met James on the street and we had a conversation with him, the conversation might go something like this. “Hi, my name is James. Do you know Jesus as your savior? Are you a follower of Jesus?” And you might answer, “Well, of course I am, and I have been for a number of years.” And James would say, “Great! So am I! I’m thrilled that you’re member of the body of Christ. By the way, how’s that working for you? How’s your faith working for you? Are you working out your faith? Are you putting your faith into practice? Are you putting your faith into action?” That’s the question that James would have.
0:05:24.4
Now, think about it this way. Christianity is for the head, it’s for the heart. But it’s also for the soles of our feet. A.W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” And he’s right. Jesus said one of the ways we are to love the Lord our God is with our minds. But don’t stop there. Jesus also said one of the ways we are to love the Lord our God is also with all of our heart. Paul said in Romans, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” So Christianity is for the mind; it’s also for the heart. But don’t stop there. It’s also for the soles of our feet. James could be titled “Shoe leather Christianity”. James wants to know, how is this thing called Christianity working for you? Are you working out your faith? Are you putting your faith into practice? If I were look at the bottom of your feet, at the bottom of your shoes, would I find Christianity written all over the soles of your feet because you’re putting your faith into action? That’s what James is all about.
0:06:44.5
Now, the book of James had a troubled history, and some of you are aware of this. Martin Luther, the famous reformer back during the reformation period, had little use for the book of James. Luther called James “an epistle full of straw”. Now, what did he mean by that? Well, remember, Luther was the Catholic priest who was breaking away from the Catholic church. And he was all about justification by faith and faith alone. He read that section of scripture that says “the just shall live by faith” in the book of Romans, and he was transformed by that. And he came to the book of James, and he thought that James was contradicting the idea of justification by faith alone as espoused by the apostle Paul in the book of Romans. And so he had no use for the book of James. He also had problems with James because James really never mentions the cross or the resurrection of Christ. He only mentions Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, twice, chapter 1 in verse 1 and chapter 2 in verse 1. And so Luther, with his, sort of, overzealous way of doing things, not only took the book of James, but, if you can imagine this, also the book of Jude, Hebrews, and the book of Revelation, and set them aside, and said these are books that do not have apostolic authority. Oh, he listed them in the scriptures, but they were outside the context of the canon of the New Testament. I’m among those who are glad that the book of James, not to mention Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation, survived Luther’s criticism. He was a bit overzealous, even though justification by faith and faith alone is not only a Pauline doctrine, but we’ll also find that James complements. He doesn’t contradict the apostle Paul here.
0:08:37.6
So let’s take a look at the book of James from 30,000 feet. I put a little chart in your notes there, and it’ll be up on the screen here. Let’s, kind of, take a look at James in a big picture kind of way, chapter by chapter, looking at the themes that James would address here. In chapter 1 he talks about a persevering faith. He wants to know whether your faith holds up or folds up when you face the trials and difficulties of life. James 1:2 he begins with this unbelievable statement. He says, “Consider it all joy, my friends, when you encounter various trials.” I read that, and I want to say to James, “What are you smoking?” I mean, trials and joy in the same sentence? I’m gonna consider it all joy when I experience the difficulties of life? But then a little bit later in that same chapter he says, “Blessed is the man,” or blessed is the woman, “who perseveres under trial, because one day you will receive the crown of life.” He wants to know whether your faith is working, whether it perseveres in times of difficulty. That’s chapter 1.
0:09:46.9
Chapter 2 is all about a proven faith. And this is where we have that section of scripture where James says a faith without works is dead. A faith without works is useless. Yeah, it’s as useless as a weed eater that doesn’t start up on a Friday morning when you want to cut the lawn. And it’s as useless as a screen door on a submarine. And, furthermore, James in chapter 2, as he speaks of this proven faith, he’s concerned about our attitudes toward other people, especially when there are social, economic, and even racial differences among us. You see how practical James is?
0:10:21.2
And then in chapter 3 he’s interested in a perfected faith. And of all things, James talks about the tongue in chapter 3. Something as earthy, something as fleshy, something as practical, something as down to earth, something as sole-ish- the sole of your feet- as your tongue. And James says something like this in verse 2 of chapter 3. Listen to this. “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man,” or woman, “able to bridle the whole body as well.” And James talks about just the practical, everyday application of what comes out of our mouth. What do we say? The Bible has a lot to say about what we say, doesn’t it? And James focuses on that. And he says the person who has learned to control his tongue is a perfect man. If you can control your tongue, then you can control everything about your body.
0:11:28.9
And then in chapter 4 he is interested in a purified faith. He begins by talking about the quarrels and the conflicts among us. He wants to know whether your faith works to resolve conflict. And he says that maybe the source of your conflict is the envies and the jealousies among you. You have not because you ask not. And when you ask, you ask with wrong motives. And so chapter 4 is the time when James wants to purify our motives and our desires. And he has a very simple but detailed approach to this. He says, “Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands, you sinners.” He says, “Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord.” A purified faith.
0:12:19.6
And then in chapter 5 he’s talking about a patient faith. He says in chapter 5 in verse 7, “Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” And he takes that notion of a patient faith and moves it into a prayerful faith. He gives us insight into the patience of Job and the powerful prayer life of the prophet named Elijah. That’s James from 30,000 feet. “How’s it working for you?” James asks. Oh, you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. That’s great! Glad you checked the box. But are you putting your faith into practice? If I were to look at the soles of your feet, would I find evidence? Would I find evidence of your faith, that you’ve put it into action?
0:13:08.1
Now, here’s James by numbers, for those of you who like math. James has five chapters, 108 verses, and, get this, 50 imperatives. Fifty commands in just five chapters. And he gives us the sense that James really does want us to do something with our faith. Remember, Christianity is not just for the head, where we just go to a lot of Bible studies and fill out notes and we have a lot of knowledge about God. It’s not just for our heart, but it’s also for the soles of our feet. It’s something we must put into practice. Is it working for you as you experience the trials and difficulties of life? Is it working for you when temptation faces you, to overcome the temptations of life? Does it work to eliminate social injustice and racism? Does it work to control your tongue? Does it work to resolve the conflicts of life? And on and on and on. James is a very practical, down to earth, put it into action kind of book that complements even the great theology of the apostle Paul.
0:14:15.3
Now, all of that said, let’s go to James 1:1. And I just want to, by way of introduction of this series, look at one verse of scripture this morning. And oftentimes we just, sort of, gloss over these sections of scripture, these introductory comments. But as we’re studying this book, verse 1 tells us a lot about who James is, why he wrote and to whom he wrote, what James believed about Jesus, and a number of other things. It says, “James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings.” It’s not a lengthy introduction as compared to the apostle Paul, who sometimes goes on ad nauseam with his introductions. This one is rather brief. And James just, kind of, gets right to it after that. But this raises several questions for us. Who is James? How did he think about himself? What did he believe about Jesus? To whom did he write and why? And let’s explore those matters a little bit.
0:15:25.8
Now, first of all, who is this guy James? If you’re a student of the New Testament, you’ll discover that there are a number Jameses in the New Testament. And you have to figure out who this James is. And when you find out who this James is, it just unpacks a whole world of understanding that I think is interesting for us to look at. One of the Jameses in the New Testament was James, the brother of John, one of the disciples. Remember James and John, the sons of Zebedee? They were fishermen that Jesus met on the shores of Galilee. And He told them to come and follow Him, and they left their fishing business. Later, He nicknamed them the “Sons of Thunder”. These are guys who, when they came into a room, they must have made quite an entrance. But this James is not the James who wrote the book of James. That particular James died around, you know, 40, 45 A.D., which is around the time that many scholars believe that the book of James was written. So most scholarly opinion says that this is not James, the sons of Zebedee. There are two other Jameses in the New Testament that have very little influence in the early church. And it’s hard to think they were the authors of the book of James. But then a fourth James is James, the Lord’s brother. Did you know that Jesus had siblings? He had several brothers and some sisters. And the apostle Paul actually refers to James in Galatians 1:19 as the Lord’s brother. Actually, technically, his half-brother. They had the same mother, but, you know, Jesus was born of a virgin. And Joseph didn’t have anything to do with Mary’s conception. But after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had other children. And one of them was this guy named James. And James became a leader in the early church. By the way, it wasn’t until the 3rd century when Origen actually officially acknowledged that the James who wrote the book of James was, in fact, the Lord’s brother. And since then we have understood that to be the case.
0:17:39.7
But James was not only the Lord’s brother humanly speaking and earthly speaking, but he was also a leader in the early church. He was the one to whom the apostle Paul came. After his conversion, Paul came to Jerusalem. He met with James the first he came to Jerusalem. The last time he came to Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 21, Paul also met with James. James was one of the leaders of the early church who helped craft the Jerusalem council and the verbiage that came out of that. James was so well-known in the early church that his brother Jude, who wrote a small postcard just before the book of Revelation, Jude introduces himself as the bondservant of God and the brother of James. James was so well-known. You ever had a sibling that was so well-known that, you know, you followed them in school and you became known as “the brother or sister of”? That’s how Jude, kind of, related to his brother James.
0:18:36.7
James was not only the Lord’s brother and a leader in the early church, he was also considered an apostle. Paul refers to him as an apostle and the Lord’s brother in Galatians 1. He was nicknamed, get this, “camel knees”. I love that about James. Historians tells us that he was given this nickname because his knees were hard like a camel’s because of the often time (0:19:00.4) he spent in prayer. And it’s interesting that James finishes out in James 5 talking about the effectual prayer of a righteous man. And James was also a guy who died a martyr’s death around 62 or 63 A.D. Just a little sketch of James. And we’ll come back to this idea that James was the Lord’s brother in a little bit.
0:19:24.7
He was writing, the scripture says, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. This is a predominantly Jewish document written to a Jewish audience and to those who were a part of the diaspora, or the scattered believers. Probably a group of believers, Jewish believers, who were scattered around ancient Palestine after the death of Stephen, the first martyr in Acts 7. And these folks are kind of wondering, “How does this faith thing work now that we’ve been scattered from place to place to place?” And James fires off this letter (0:20:00.2) to these believers.
0:20:02.8
But James also says here…he identifies himself as a bondservant of God. I find that interesting. You know, how a person introduces himself says a lot about that person, doesn’t it? And it’s interesting that James doesn’t say “James, the Lord’s brother”, “James, a leader in the early church”. He could have used those terms, invoking authority and invoking a sense of esteem. But he was very comfortable viewing himself as simply the doulos of God. It’s the Greek word doulos, bondservant. He says, “I’m a bondservant of God.” And James is, along with Jude, the only one in the New Testament who refers to himself as the bondservant of God and doesn’t qualify that in any way. He was comfortable with just that kind of relationship and understanding himself simply to be the servant of God. And, in one sense, this word doulossuggests that James was very comfortable serving other people. Are you a servant-hearted person? How do you know if you are? Well, years ago I came across a definition. I heard somebody define a servant this way, and I wrote it down and I’ve never forgotten it because I think it’s so powerful. He said a servant, a true servant, is joyously excited about someone else’s success. Isn’t that a great way of thinking about a servant? Somebody who is joyously excited about someone else’s success. And what a powerful definition that is, the thought of James viewing himself simply as the bondservant of God, especially in the context of a culture like ours that is all about self-promotion and putting ourselves out there. A true servant is real excited when somebody else stands in the spotlight and gets the credit, is real excited about someone else’s success, genuinely and joyfully excited about somebody else’s success.
0:22:10.7
But this term “bondservant”, there’s really more to an understanding of who James is to this term “bondservant. Because a bondservant had a different kind of relationship to his master than just an ordinary everyday slave did back in the 1st century Roman culture. And don’t think of slavery in the 1st century as we do in our American history. It wasn’t quite like that. But the bondservant relationship was…a bondservant was a free person or a free slave who chose of his own free will to enslave himself to his master. And you say, “Why in the world would anybody do something like that?” And I think the answer to that is because a bondservant understood that it was in his best interest. Perhaps the best life he could possibly live was one where he bonded himself or enslaved himself to his master. James saw himself as the doulosof God. And by doing that, he joins a company of leaders and great people in the scriptures, including Moses and many of the prophets. Paul also saw himself as the servant of God, the doulos of God. He recognized, James did, that it was in his best interest to give up some of his freedoms. And, by the way, a bondservant was somebody who had no rights, interests, or possessions that were his own. He freely, of his own volition, of his own free will, chooses to give up rights and interests and possessions in order to be enslaved to a master here because it was in his own best interests, because he couldn’t imagine a better life than one that was enslaved to his master. And isn’t it true that, in many sense, the irony of the Christian life is that we really gain freedom, that we really know what freedom is all about, when we choose to enslave ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come humbly before him, giving up rights, giving up interests, giving up agendas, giving up dreams for the future, giving up our possessions which are not our own, because we’re must better off and in a much better position when we are enslaved to our Lord than when we choose to live a life on our own. And you may think that running away from God and pursuing your own interests and your own agenda and your own way of living is the best life for you. But Jesus said if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. And if you are free…if the Son of Man sets you free, then you will be free indeed. And he was speaking to a group of folks who said to him, “But we’ve never been the slaves of Abraham.” And he says, “Well, you don’t understand something.” He says, “You will never be truly free until you know the truth and until you enslave yourself to Me, giving up your rights, your possessions, even your own interests and agenda.” James saw himself as the doulos of God, the bondservant of God.
0:25:29.0
But then he goes on. And here’s where I think is the most astounding statement in the way he introduces himself. “James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, remember, James was the Lord’s earthly brother. I don’t know how you view your brother or your sibling, but I never once called my brother “lord” and “Christ”. I called him “dufus”. I called him a lot of other things, but never “lord” and “Christ”. Eventually, James did call his brother Jesus “Lord” and “Christ”, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact, if you go back into the gospels, you’ll discover that James and most of his brothers, all of his brothers, had a hard time believing in Jesus. John 7:5 tells us, “For not even his brothers,” that is Jesus’s brothers, “were believing in Him.” And in one sense, that’s not so surprising, is it? Because sometimes the most difficult people to reach for Christ are the people in our own family, the people who are closest to us. There was a time as Jesus’s ministry was ramping up that James and Jude and Jesus’s other siblings looked at Him and said, “Come on, bro. Messiah?” I mean, there were people going around saying that Jesus was the Messiah, that He was the Christ. In fact, He was even making claims to being the Messiah. And I wonder what it was like to grow up in a home where your own brother, you know, is being identified as the Messiah, where people were associating their Messianic dreams with Him. I mean, Jesus was the guy in the house that literally did everything perfectly well. I mean, think about that. James had to grow up with a brother that never did anything wrong. If there was ever a dispute among the siblings, it was James’s fault, not Jesus’s. Jesus never sassed him parents. He never broke curfew. He always brought home good grades. He always made the varsity squad. I mean, Jesus lived a perfect life, and James had to grow up in the midst of that. And there came a time when Jesus even took on celebrity status. He couldn’t walk into a bagel shop, James couldn’t, without hearing his friends talking about Jesus the Messiah. And there was a time in James’s life where he probably said something like that. “Guys, Messiah? You got to be kidding me. This is my brother Jesus. I played stickball with Him in Nazareth. I know my parents thought He was special, but I’m having a hard time believing in Him.” And that was not only true of James, but it was also true of his other brothers as well.
0:28:17.8
But there came a time when James called him, not “bro”, but “Lord” and “Christ”. And Paul gives us some insight, perhaps, into that in I Corinthians 15 as he’s writing about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he mentions some of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. Do you remember this in I Corinthians 15:6-7? Paul says, “After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.” This is Jesus’s post-resurrection appearance. And then a statement or two later, “And then He appeared to James.” You get the sense that it was, kind of, a personal one-on-one encounter. He appeared to 500 at once, but then He spent some time with James. Do you ever wonder what they talked about? I wonder if they talked about the events that just took place over the last week or so and the stress that it brought upon their mother. I wonder if they talked about Mary. I wonder if they talked about the time when James and the rest of his brothers tried to push Jesus into the spotlight. Remember the time in John 5 where he says, “Come on. Show yourself to everybody. Come on up to the feast.” And it wasn’t time yet. But James and his brothers were marketers. And they said, “Come on, Jesus. You want to show yourself to everybody, don’t you?” And He said, “It’s just not time yet.” I wonder if they talked about that. I wonder if James ever touched Jesus’s scars like Judas did, because there was a time when his brothers did not believe in him. But there was something in that encounter that made James believe. And when he penned what appears to many scholars to be the earliest New Testament book in the New Testament, probably written somewhere around 40 to 43 A.D., much to Luther’s deference, twice in the book of James, James calls his brother “Lord Jesus Christ”. He never once, from that point forward, called him “bro” again. He says, “You’re my Lord, and You’re my Messiah.”
0:30:46.9
And what about you? When are you going to come to the point in your life where you call this Jesus, Lord and Christ, the anointed One, the Messiah, the long-awaited Christ? Oh, more than just a prophet, more than just a good teacher, more than just a moral leader, but the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, before you begin putting your faith into action, you’ve got to come to a starting point in your life where you come to faith in Christ to begin with. The Bible says, “For by grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves. It’s the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” Paul goes on to say, “But we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” James picks up in verse 10, but don’t forget Ephesians 2:8-9. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” So before you put your faith into action, you’ve got to have a faith that is personally yours to begin with, just like James, who says, “I’m the doulos of God. I am the bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And when you personally come to faith in Christ…and I hope you have, or I hope you do today…when you do, don’t forget to pick up your shoes and look on the bottom of the soles of your feet and to put your faith into action. And James is gonna show us how to do that in the weeks to come.
0:32:33.0
Let’s pray together. Father, thank you for James. I thank you for another example in Your Word, in Your Scripture, of a life that was transformed by the resurrected Christ. And how difficult it is sometimes, Father, in families, perhaps even on this Mother’s Day. We have a brother or sister or a father or a mother, a grandparent, maybe a child, that finds it difficult to hear the gospel from us or lived out in front of us. Father, we pray for those siblings. We pray for those family relationships today. We pray for our mothers who may need to come to faith in Christ today. Or for mothers who are speaking into the lives of a husband or a child or a sibling or a grandparent, who is living out their faith in front of them and praying diligently for those family members to come to Christ. I pray that today would be a day of salvation. Father, thank you for giving us the book of James. Help us to be men and women who embrace our faith, not only in our minds, but also in our hearts and also in the soles of our feet as we put it into action. And we pray this in Christ’s name, amen.
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