James chapter 1.
My readings will be from the New International
Version of the Bible.
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.
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should
ask God who gives generously to all without
finding fault, and it will be given to
him.
But when he asks, he must believe and
not doubt, because he who doubts is like
a wave of the sea blown and tossed
by the wind.
That man should not think he will receive
anything from the Lord.
He is a double-minded man, unstable in
all he does.
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take
pride in his high position, that the one
who is rich should take pride in his
low position, because he will pass away like
a wild flower.
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 man will
fade away even while he goes about his
business.
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial,
because when he has stood the test, he
will receive the crown of life that God
has promised to those who love him.
When tempted, no one should say, God is
tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by
evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when, by his
own evil desire, he is dragged away and
enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth
to sin, and sin, when it is full
grown, gives birth to death.
Don't be deceived, my dear brothers.
Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly
lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
He chose to give us birth through the
word of truth, that we might be a
kind of first fruits of all he created.
My dear brothers, take note of this.
Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to
speak, and slow to become angry.
For man's anger does not bring about the
righteous life that God desires.
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and
the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly
accept the word planted in you, which can
save you.
Do not merely listen to the word, and
so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
Anyone who listens to the word, but does
not do what it says, is like a
man who looks at his face in a
mirror, and after looking at himself goes away,
and immediately forgets what he looks like.
But the man who looks intently into the
perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to
do this, not forgetting what he has heard,
but doing it, he will be blessed in
what he does.
If anyone considers himself religious, and yet does
not keep a tight rein on his tongue,
he deceives himself, and his religion is worthless.
Religion that God our Father accepts, as pure
and faultless, is this, to look after orphans
and widows in their distress, and to keep
oneself from being polluted by the world.
Let's pray that God will help us to
understand those verses.
The majority of the epistles in our New
Testament were written either to churches, or to
individual Christians.
But one or two of the epistles were
written not just for one person, or for
one church, but they are known as general,
or catholic letters, and they were a kind
of circular letter.
The apostle would send it to one church,
that church might take a handwritten copy of
the epistle, and then he would send it
on to the next church to be read
there also.
This epistle that we're going to look at
together in these next four evenings, falls into
the second of those two categories.
It was a circular, a general letter, written
to the whole of Christendom.
It was intended to be read by as
many Christians as possible, and of course it
was written by James, who at this time
was the acknowledged leader of the main congregation
in the early days of the church at
Jerusalem.
Now as usual there's been much theological discussion
over the years as to who actually wrote
this letter, because of course we come across
a number of James in the New Testament.
And if you read the theological discussions you
will find that the majority of evangelical scholars,
in fact almost all evangelical scholars, believe that
it was James the natural brother of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who was the author of
this little epistle.
And I think it might be very useful
just to set the scene for this letter,
to quickly look at what we know of
the life of the author, James the natural
brother of Jesus.
I would certainly say that James had not
always been an ardent believer in his brother
as the Messiah.
In Mark chapter 3 and verse 21, we
read that when the friends of Jesus heard
of his early ministry, they went out to
lay hold of him because they said he
is beside himself.
In other words, he is insane.
According to Dr. R.
G.
Tasker, the Greek word there translated friend would
almost certainly include the close family members of
Jesus.
It's an interesting fact isn't it, that when
Jesus began his public ministry, his close family,
of course not Mary and Joseph, but most
probably his brothers, including James, came to the
conclusion that he was probably insane.
And it would appear that it wasn't until
the resurrection appearances of Christ that James was
finally convinced that Jesus was the Messiah.
Remember how Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians
15 that the risen Christ was seen of
Cephas, then of the twelve, and after that
he was seen of James and then all
the apostles.
It's very interesting how Paul distinguishes there between
James and all the other apostles.
One commentator puts it like this, the inference
can reasonably be drawn from this, that James
became an apostle in virtue of his vision
of the risen Lord.
So James was a late convert, if you
like.
He only, after the resurrection, was convinced about
the reality of his brother.
But if he was a late convert, then
he rose very, very quickly and very, very
dramatically in prominence in the early church.
Not many years passed before James was the
established leader of the major congregation in the
early church, the church at Jerusalem.
You might remember that when Peter was miraculously
released from prison, the first thing he did
on returning to the house of Mary, the
mother of John Mark, was to tell his
friends there to go and give a report
of all that he had told them to
James and to all the brethren.
But probably the clearest place in which you
see the position of authority to which James
rose is in the fifteenth chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles.
It's there that you have the first great
committee meeting or council of the Christian church.
You remember how Gentiles started getting converted and
the church has always found it difficult to
handle new things, hasn't it?
And this hadn't happened before, Gentiles getting converted.
And so they found this rather difficult to
handle.
What were they to do about these Gentiles?
And they weren't really sure, so of course
the old established answer, form a committee.
So in Acts chapter 15, you have the
great council of the early church.
Some people would argue that the church has
never really recovered from Acts chapter 15.
It's been ever since.
Well, I don't know whether that's true or
not.
But here you have this great council of
Jerusalem, Acts chapter 15.
What are we going to do about these
Gentiles getting converted?
There's a great discussion.
And then in verse 19, James speaks.
And listen to what he says.
And then the decision of the council is
related.
So you can see that James became a
very influential figure in the early years of
the Christian church.
That's the author, a late convert through the
resurrection, but a man who rose to a
position of prominence and authority in the early
days of the church.
Well then, if that's the author, who were
the people to whom he was writing?
As I said earlier, he was writing to
all Christians.
But what was the situation for Christians when
James wrote this letter?
Well, again, there's been much discussion as to
exactly when it was written.
And the major consensus of opinion is that
it was written somewhere around AD 60.
And those years, around the year AD 60,
were extremely difficult days for the Christian church.
Paul was by now a prisoner at Rome.
He was awaiting his trial.
The early enthusiasm which had been engendered by
those Gentile missions was now beginning to wane.
And heretical teaching of all kinds was assailing
the church.
So that at one occasion, Paul even had
to write and say, all of Asia, all
the believers in Asia, had turned away from
the faith.
And Christianity was now being seen as a
deadly enemy, both by the Jews and by
the Romans.
And persecution was rampant.
Now I think once you realize the situation
of the Christians when James wrote, you immediately
see how relevant this epistle was.
So with those few background details in our
minds, let's move to the text itself and
to this first chapter.
As with all the other epistles, it of
course begins with a personal greeting.
It's a very brief greeting contained in just
one verse.
It tells us from whom the letter came.
And we've already looked at that.
But it's very interesting how James introduces himself.
Remember, he was the natural brother of the
Lord Jesus.
He was also a prominent leader in the
church in Jerusalem.
But how does he introduce himself?
James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
I think you see one of two things.
Either you see that James was an extremely
humble man.
He wasn't a man who boasted about his
family background.
He wasn't a man who boasted about his
prominent position in the church.
He just introduces himself a humble servant of
God.
But maybe he wasn't just humble.
Maybe he was a man who had some
concept of the honor and the privilege of
being a servant, a doulos of God.
I wonder if you appreciate just what a
privilege it is.
I think James is really saying to us
here, yes, I might be the natural brother
of our Lord.
I may have arisen to a great position
of leadership in the church.
But I tell you, it's an immense privilege
just to be a humble servant of the
living God and of his son Jesus Christ.
And you recall how time and time again,
the apostle Paul would boast of being a
doulos, a bond slave, a willing servant of
Jesus Christ.
There's surely no higher privilege on earth.
So that's who the letter is from, a
humble servant of God.
And then we're told to whom the letter
was written.
James says, I'm writing to the 12 tribes
who are dispersed abroad.
Now I think here we must understand the
12 tribes as speaking not only of the
old nation of Israel, but also of the
new Israel, the seed of Abraham.
I remember being told as a young person
that really the epistle of James had no
relevance for me.
It wasn't written for people in my dispensation.
It was just written for Israel.
Well, I'm glad that I was delivered from
such error in my teenage years.
And I began to see the relevance of
the epistle of James for people today.
All of scripture is given by inspiration of
God and all of it is profitable.
So James is writing to all Christians, believing
Jews and believing Gentiles alike.
He is writing to the seed of Abraham
scattered abroad across the world.
And of course, in the early days of
the church, Christians were being scattered around the
world at a tremendous rate.
It happened through a number of different means.
Many were being scattered on missions.
They were going on missionary trips.
But the major scattering took place because of
persecution.
These persecutions began as early as the ninth
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, following
on hard after the persecution of Stephen.
Believers were scattered everywhere around the known world,
running away from the persecution of their enemies.
So that's the greeting written by James, the
servant of God to Christians throughout the world
who were being scattered by persecution.
And I think once you realize the background,
you see what the epistle is all about.
James is really giving very practical advice, very
practical direction as to how Christians should respond
in days of difficulty.
It's pretty obvious that James knew difficulties were
ahead.
We don't know how he knew.
Maybe he received some special revelation from God.
Or maybe he'd just seen the signs of
the times.
He'd seen the black clouds of difficulty beginning
to descend.
So he took his pen and he wrote
this letter to prepare Christians for what he
perceived was to follow.
And so from verse 2 to verse 5,
you have the main section, the first main
section of the epistle, where Paul tells us
of God's design in difficulty.
James, sorry.
He tells us how God intends to use
difficulty in our lives.
Now let me just point out two things
before we try and get an overall view
of these first few verses.
First of all, note the word count or
consider at the beginning of verse 2.
Consider it all joy when you face trials
of many kinds.
It's a very important word.
It's a word which means to reckon or
to esteem something.
So James is pleading with believers to look
at trials, to look at problems and difficulties
from a different viewpoint than the natural man
might look at them from.
Trials, problems might cause the natural man to
be angry or to be depressed or just
to resign himself to the problems.
But says James, you Christians should be different.
You should look at problems through different eyes.
I want you to reckon, to count, to
consider these problems in an entirely different way.
Then secondly, note how James speaks of trials
that believers fall into.
We can sometimes bring difficulties upon ourselves, can't
we, by disobedience.
Or by sheer stupidity.
Now James does not say rejoice when you
bring trials upon yourself through disobedience.
His message there would be to repent rather
than to rejoice.
But when Christians fall into these difficulties, when
they take us by surprise, due to no
fault of our own, then says James, we
can rejoice.
And you might sensibly ask, why should I
rejoice?
How can I rejoice?
Maybe you've come through a very difficult week
and you read these verses and they don't
mean very much to you.
How can I rejoice after the kind of
week I've just been through?
Well, James explains why Christians can rejoice.
He says, look, in the problems, in the
difficulties, there's a divine hand at work.
God wants to test your faith and my
faith through trials.
And the reason he wants to test our
faith is that faith grows only when it's
tested.
Do you know why some of us aren't
growing as Christians tonight?
It's because our faith is never tested.
Therefore it's merely academic.
We believe that God will supply all our
needs according to his riches in glory in
Christ Jesus.
It's in our heads.
But when did we at last step out
and prove that in the crucible of experience?
It's then when faith grows, when it's tested.
So says James.
God sometimes allows, he sometimes designs these difficulties,
so that faith might move from the academic
plane to the experiential and the experimental plane
in our lives.
In fact, when faith is tested, other characteristics
are produced.
And the first, James, is steadfastness.
It's a word which means staying power.
Or that lovely word, I don't think you'll
find it in the Oxford dictionary, stickability.
How the Christian needs that in our generation
and in every generation, particularly when opposition and
difficulty comes our way.
We need stickability, staying power.
Last year I was in East Germany.
And I met Christians who'd been through the
crucible of suffering.
I met Christians who'd been through violent physical
persecution.
And they told me of large congregations, much
larger than we have here tonight.
When the wave of persecution came, the congregations
were decimated.
People who seemed to be walking well were
seen no longer when the first word of
persecution was spoken.
I wonder how many of us would really
stand if the devil turned the screw a
few more turns.
We have it often so easy.
I have it often so easy.
We need our faith to be tested, that
staying power might be produced, so that when
the day of trial comes, faith will prove
to be genuine and we will stand.
And then steadfastness, says James, in turn will
lead to other things.
If you appropriate the trials are right and
you continue on, James says, you'll become perfect
and complete, lacking in nothing.
Now over the years, the possibility of sinless
perfection has been argued from this verse.
But if you just quickly turn the page
to James chapter 3 and verse 2, you'll
see that James certainly didn't teach sinless perfection.
He writes there, we all stumble in many
ways.
Now this word perfect really should be translated
something like sincere or mature.
That's probably the best word, mature.
Whatever the exact meaning, the argument is quite
plain.
James says, look out, trials are coming your
way and Satan intends that they will ruin
your faith.
But if you see them in the right
way, if you reckon them in the right
way, then in fact they'll be a blessing
in your life.
They'll test your faith, your faith will be
strengthened, stickability will be produced and it will
bring you to maturity.
You know, in some of the Arab lands
where I've had the privilege of visiting, there's
a little proverb, it's just a very brief
one and it goes like this, all sunshine
makes a desert.
Just five words.
And it's true of the ground but how
true it is of the Christian life as
well.
All sunshine makes a desert.
All our lives are ease and plenty and
we have everything that we require and there's
no real difficulties in our lives.
Then we'll become a desert.
We'll become barren and superficial.
But trials, says James, problems, difficulties will drive
us to the deep things of life and
spiritual maturity will result.
So that's James's first point.
Trials are coming your way brothers and sisters.
When they come, recognise God's design in those
difficulties.
Then secondly, James speaks to us in the
next couple of verses of the need for
wisdom.
The need for wisdom.
Now in certain translations, including the English authorised
version, the word but is missed out at
the beginning of verse five.
It's certainly there in the Greek and it's
a very important word because it links the
need for wisdom with what has gone before.
If you and I are going to appropriate
trials in the right way in our lives,
we are going to need spiritual wisdom.
If we're going to get to that place
of spiritual sincerity or maturity, we're going to
need wisdom.
And God's promise with regard to wisdom is
truly marvellous, isn't it?
Alec Mortier, I think, breaks down this fifth
verse in a beautiful way.
He says it can be summed up in
three words.
Simplicity, availability and liberality.
You see what he means?
The simplicity is that of prayer.
If you lack wisdom, brother or sister, there's
a very simple remedy.
You don't need to wait for some great
Christian counsellor to come your way.
The simplicity is prayer.
You can turn to God whoever you are.
Whatever your academic level, whatever your spiritual experience,
a man who lacks wisdom simply turns to
God.
Simplicity.
But then availability.
And the availability is that of God.
God is always there.
Always there to pour his wisdom into your
life.
And then liberality.
The liberality can be seen in three ways.
Number one, God excludes no one.
He gives to all, says James.
If you lack wisdom and turn to God,
he gives to all.
But then secondly, he gives beyond what is
required.
That's what the word liberally means.
You turn to God and you feel a
need for wisdom, he will give you more
wisdom than you require.
And then beautifully, thirdly, he invites us to
come and come and come again.
Because he gives without reproach.
That means without a grudge, without rebuking us.
Isn't that a marvellous thing about prayer?
Don't you find it in your own life?
You're making the same mistakes this year as
you made last year.
And if you're honest, you were making them
10 years ago.
And you don't really seem to be growing
up spiritually.
I often feel that way.
And I have to go back to God
again.
But there's no sense of grudge.
There's no sense of reproach.
You don't get the sense that God says,
look, Peter, you were here asking me about
this last year.
And you were here a decade ago.
Are you never going to grow up?
There's never that sense, is there?
God is always there.
He's always giving liberally the wisdom for which
we ask.
And then thirdly, James shows us the need
for undivided loyalty in verses 6 to 8.
How essential such a characteristic is in the
time of trial.
If we are in any sense double-minded
at the moment of trial, the trial will
break us.
We'll be unable to reckon it in the
right way.
We'll be unable to be joyful in the
midst of trial.
Now look at the very graphic picture which
James gives us of a double-minded Christian.
He says such a person is like the
surf of the sea, driven and tossed by
the wind.
That's a powerful illustration, isn't it?
Imagine in your mind for a moment the
sea.
First, it's beating against the rock, as though
it had no other purpose in mind than
to shatter its way through.
But then the tide turns and it goes
back.
That's the sea, isn't it?
First one way, then the other.
What a tragic picture of so many Christians.
They don't have that steadfastness.
They don't have that perseverance of verse 3,
particularly in the place of prayer, which is
the context here in verses 6 to 8.
And says James, if such people, these double
-minded people, ask for wisdom, then they might
as well realize that they won't receive from
God.
God honors the prayer of faith.
So that's the opening part of chapter 1.
What marvelous instruction.
James says trials are coming your way.
When they come, recognize God's design in them.
Rush into his presence for wisdom to appropriate
them in the right way.
And it doesn't matter how much and how
often you go.
The wisdom will always come.
And remember, stand firm.
Don't be double-minded.
Don't be this way and that way.
Stand firm and you will triumph.
Now in verses 9 to 11, James illustrates
what he's been speaking about.
And he gives us two possible trials that
Christians might fall into.
They're very interesting trials.
One is the trial of poverty, verse 9.
The other is the trial of riches, verse
10.
Alec Motyer says, poverty can move a person
from inflexible loyalty to God simply through the
sheer difficulty of living.
How true that is.
We don't know what poverty is in the
western world.
If you come across the Indian Christian in
the villages of northern India, who in a
time of bad famine might spend his days
just walking along the road, picking up seed
to eat.
You ask him, have you had your quiet
time this morning, brother?
No, he hasn't had his quiet time.
He's spending his whole day just surviving, just
getting enough for himself, getting enough for his
family.
Motyer is right.
Poverty can drive a person from God through
the sheer difficulty of living.
Wealth's much the same, isn't it?
Wealth can seduce a man's mind from that
undeviating loyalty to God by putting up the
counter-attractions of the things of the world.
But, says James, poverty doesn't have to break
you, neither does riches.
It all depends how you reckon those things,
how you consider them.
So, what is the man going through the
trial of poverty to do?
Well, look at verse 9.
The brother in humble circumstances ought to take
pride in his high position.
There's James' advice.
If you're going through the trial of poverty,
if you haven't got two pennies to rub
together, look away from your material circumstances and
rejoice.
You're a son, you're an heir of the
living God.
What about the rich man?
Well, he's got a problem, hasn't he?
It's very, very important that the rich man
realizes that his wealth is transient.
Just as the grass or the flower easily
withers away, the rich man can fade away,
surrounded by all the trappings of his success.
That's what verse 10 really says.
So, James says, there's what I mean, you
see.
When the trial comes, be it a trial
of poverty, look for God's design in it.
Look for wisdom in it, to appropriate it
in the right way, and you will rejoice
in the midst of trial, whether it's the
trial of poverty or riches or any other
of the myriads of trials which can come
our way.
Well, after that little break for an illustration,
James takes up the subject again in verse
12.
And he says the fourth thing which it's
important to think about in times of trial
is the promises of God.
And in verse 12, he gives us one
promise that every Christian can hold on to
in any time of trial.
It's the promise that the man who perseveres
will be given the crown of life.
Do you remember the words of the Apostle
Paul?
The sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which
shall be revealed in us.
I know you're not supposed to have spiritual
heroes, but Paul is one of my spiritual
heroes.
You know, tradition tells us that he was
bald.
That's one of the reasons he's probably a
hero of mine.
It also tells us that he was hunchbacked
and probably short-sighted.
He wasn't a very pleasant physical sight, to
be honest.
Hunchbacked, bald, short-sighted.
Going through all the trials and the struggles
that that man went through.
And I just have this mental picture of
this bent man crying out, the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us.
Paul had learnt the secret in the day
of trial, holding on to the promises of
God.
You know that blessed experience?
That blessed experience when the pressure is on
of looking away from your circumstances and forward
to the future.
When you will be delivered not only from
the power of sin and the guilt of
sin, but you'll be delivered from the very
presence of sin.
What a tremendous motivation in times of difficulty.
And then fifthly, says James, in the crisis
you need a true understanding of God.
And he argues this in verses 13 to
18.
And there's two things about God that it's
particularly important for a man to understand.
First, you must understand God's perfect love.
Verse 17, every good and perfect gift comes
down from above, and so on.
A verse you know well.
Again, I think Alec Motyer divides the verse
beautifully.
He says God's goodness is unmixed goodness.
It's nothing but good, every good, and every
perfect gift.
Isn't that a marvelous thing about God?
He's so consistent.
Everything, every day, is good.
Secondly, it's unquestionable goodness.
These gifts come to us from the father
of lights, says James.
There's no darkness in God.
There's no place for an ulterior motive to
lurk.
Have you ever been given a gift?
It happened to me recently.
And later on you realized there was an
ulterior motive in being given that gift.
God is not like that.
Every gift he gives to us, he gives
to us because he loves us, because he
wants us to enjoy this world, and to
enjoy him.
His goodness is unmixed and unquestionable.
And thirdly, it's unvarying.
Says James, there's no variation.
There's no shadow cast by his turning.
God is not one thing today, and another
thing tomorrow.
His love is unvarying.
It's utterly consistent.
And then you have the great crowning act
of his love and goodness in verse 18.
What's the greatest goodness of all?
In the exercise of his will, he brought
us forth by the word of truth.
That's a glorious statement concerning the doctrine of
salvation, which we could take the whole evening
to look at.
We're just going to move on and come
back to it a little later for a
couple of minutes.
So that's the first thing you must realize
about God when you're going through the trial.
Realize his goodness.
The devil will suggest other things, but recognize
his unmixed, unquestionable, unvarying goodness.
Equally, you must realize, says James, the holiness
and righteousness of God.
You see, there's always the danger when we
fall in the day of difficulty of turning
around and pointing the finger at God.
I've seen myself do that.
I've been going through some particular difficulty, and
because of the difficulty, I have sinned.
I turn around and blame God.
Why did you allow it?
Why did I have to be under such
pressure?
James goes on to say that God is
neither tempted by evil, nor can he tempt
anyone.
He is an absolutely righteous and an utterly
holy God.
That's the thing which kept Job going.
If you read through the book of Job,
he couldn't understand all that was happening to
him, but he understood one thing.
God is righteous, God is just, and nothing
is happening to me which isn't within the
permissive will of a righteous, holy, loving Father.
So that's the fifth thing to realize when
you're going through difficulty.
You must have a true conception of the
character of God.
Now look at the final thing, verses 19
to 27.
James says, in these days of difficulty, you
must be ready to hear, to receive, and
to obey the Word of God.
And in these verses, we have some immensely
practical advice.
So important, so important for those of us
who are regularly privileged to listen to God's
Word.
What a privilege it is, but what a
responsibility it is to regularly sit under the
ministry of God's living Word.
Look at James' advice.
It's threefold.
Number one, verse 19, be quick to listen
to God's Word.
Take every opportunity to come under the sound
of God's holy Word.
I have to say that one of the
distressing things about the church in Britain today,
in my opinion, is that Christians are slow,
slow to come under the ministry of the
Word of God.
It's a sad thing.
They're willing to attend other events, but they're
slow to sit under the ministry of God's
Word.
James says, be quick, take every opportunity to
listen to God's Word.
Now closely connected with that advice are the
two phrases that follow, be slow to speak
and be slow to become angry.
What does James mean?
He says, beware of being so self-opinionated,
so dogmatic that your mind is closed to
the Word of God.
You ever met that kind of person?
Maybe you're that kind of person yourself.
You read the Word of God and God
speaks to you, but immediately you respond.
You have all your answers.
You think you know it all.
You've worked out all your doctrines.
You know what the Word of God says.
You will never be moved.
Beware, says James, of being so quick to
speak.
When you open the Word of God, be
slow to speak.
Let God speak to you.
We must beware of coming to the Word
of God with our doctrines and looking at
the Word of God to have our doctrinal
views confirmed.
We must come to the Word of God
with open hearts, with an open mind, and
allow God to feed us and to lead
us through the Scriptures.
But we also, says James, must be slow
to anger when we hear God's Word.
And that's because God's Word is a two
-edged sword.
And sometimes when we read the Word of
God or when God's Word is ministered to
us, it pierces right deep down into our
lives.
It touches the very personal parts of our
life.
And sometimes the response can be anger.
I so loved King David, not because he
was perfect.
He was far from it.
But King David was a man who always
seemed to respond beautifully to the Word of
God.
You remember when the prophet Nathan visited him
after his sin with Uriah the Hittite and
with Bathsheba?
And Nathan brought solemn words to King David.
His family would suffer for the rest of
his days because of his sin.
And this is what David said, I, Nathan,
have sinned against the Lord.
He didn't start bringing up all his arguments.
He didn't respond angrily.
But he realized that God had spoken.
And he listened quietly to what God had
to say.
It's a great responsibility, isn't it, to come
under the ministry of God's Word.
Let's be quick to come.
And when we hear, let's be slow to
speak.
Let's be slow to come with all our
opinions and all our ideas.
Let's go away and quietly think over what
God says through his Word.
Maybe some of us have been wrong on
some issues.
Maybe for many, many years.
Maybe what God wants to change us in
some areas.
Maybe he wants to do a new thing
amongst us.
It wouldn't be the first time in church
history, would it?
That God had done something entirely new with
his people.
Let's be quick to hear and slow to
speak.
But hearing isn't sufficient, says James.
The next step is to humbly receive the
Word of God, verse 21.
And if you're going to receive the Word
of God, you have to get rid of
certain things.
You have to get rid of all moral
filth and the evil that is so prevalent.
So easy, isn't it?
In our filthy society, for that is certainly
what it is, to become contaminated by the
filth that surrounds us.
And our minds become congested with this filth
amongst which we live.
And if we don't get rid of it
from our lives, if we don't forsake it,
then the Word of God can't shine clearly
into our minds.
So we must listen and we must receive
God's Word.
But thirdly, we must go on to do
it.
Having heard it, having received it, we must
do it.
Now if you look at verse 22, the
picture is of a man who on hearing
God's Word, immediately sets out to work out
his excuses for not doing what he hears.
That's the picture which is in James' mind.
And if we're not careful, we'll find ourselves
even subconsciously doing the same thing.
On hearing God's Word, we have a kind
of defense mechanism which is immediately triggered off.
We find ourselves rationalizing everything we hear, or
thinking how relevant it is for someone else.
You ever been in that situation?
You hear a powerful word from some great
preacher, and you go out of the door
thinking, my, if only so-and-so had
been in tonight.
Wouldn't that have been good for them?
You see, you've rationalized.
God is speaking to you.
And you must not only listen, you must
not only receive, but you personally must do
what God says when he speaks.
Otherwise, says James, with a touch of humor,
it's rather like a man with a dirty
face.
He goes in front of the mirror and
he says, look, I've got a dirty face.
But he goes on his way without washing.
The man is a fool.
He has no excuse.
He has seen himself, but he's done about
it.
I wonder if it's like that for many
Christians.
We see ourselves as the Word of God
is ministered.
We see where we fail.
We see where we fall.
But are we doing anything about it?
Are we doing what God says?
So there are six things which are absolutely
vital in the day of trial.
I wonder what's ahead for us as Christians
in the United Kingdom.
I wonder what's ahead for us personally.
I sometimes wonder what's ahead for me.
Three children.
I've never really had a tremendous crisis in
my personal life yet.
No close bereavement.
There's a sense in which I don't know
what difficulty is.
I wonder what's ahead for me and my
family.
I wonder what's ahead for God's people in
this place and in this nation.
Certainly for many of us, a variety of
trials.
Here are six very important things.
Number one, God is in it.
He has a design in the difficulty.
Number two, cry out for wisdom.
Number three, be loyal, tenaciously loyal.
Don't be double-minded.
Number four, remember the promises of God.
Number five, remember the goodness of God and
beware of wrong thinking about God.
He is righteous and the word of God
should have a special place in the time
of trial.
Let's be quick to hear it.
Let's receive it into our lives and let's
practice what we hear.
So important, isn't it?
How we respond to trials.
We have five minutes left, if you'll just
permit me.
There's one thing more important than how you
respond to a trial.
One thing more important and that is that
at that moment of trial, your faith is
found to be genuine faith.
That's the vital thing, isn't it?
If your faith is genuine, if it's the
real article, then it doesn't matter what hits
it, it's going to stand.
Remember the story of the sower?
Jesus says the sower scatters the seed and
some of the seed falls on very thin
soil.
It seems to sprout to life.
The storm comes and the sun burns down
and apparent life is consumed.
Jesus said it's like that with many Christians.
They join the club, the Christian club.
They join the periphery of the church.
When the trial comes, the sheep and the
goats are sorted.
It's only then that we know and recognize
genuine faith.
And so we see in this chapter, James
beginning what he's going to follow for the
next three chapters and what we're going to
follow with him on the next three evenings.
He shows us in chapter one, the source
of genuine faith.
And then he shows us three signs, three
proofs of genuine faith.
Let's just look at them briefly.
We'll look at it in much greater detail
on the next three evenings.
But look first of all at the source
of genuine faith.
Why are you a Christian?
Why is my next-door neighbor not a
Christian?
Am I a Christian because somehow I am
better than my next-door neighbor?
Am I a Christian because somehow I am
more intelligent than my next-door neighbor?
Why am I a Christian?
Why are you a Christian?
The verse which gives us the answer is
verse 18.
We are Christians because God chose to give
us birth.
That's where genuine faith begins.
It begins in the mind and in the
eternal counsels of God.
That's why we're Christians.
How did God give us birth?
Well, James continues, through the word of truth.
That's how we became Christians.
God spoke his living word into our dead
hearts and we burst forth into spiritual life.
That tremendous experience which we call regeneration.
That's how Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians
4, isn't it?
The God who said, let light shine out
of darkness has done what?
He's shone into our hearts so that we
can see the light of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That would be my testimony if I was
to give it tonight.
I'm a Christian because God has broken into
my life.
I haven't gone searching for him.
Many times I've gone running from him.
But God has come searching for me and
he has burst into my life by his
powerful spirit and he has brought about the
miracle of regeneration.
Why did he do it?
Well, look at the rest of the verse.
God gave us birth through the word of
truth.
Why?
That we might be a kind of first
fruits of all he created.
That's why you were saved, to be the
first fruits.
Now, you've got to know your Old Testament
to understand that.
You know how in the Old Testament the
first fruits were brought and they were given
to the Levites.
They were given to God, the first fruits
of the harvest.
It was given to God.
Now, it didn't matter how meager the harvest
was.
It didn't matter whether the people were to
go poor.
The first fruits were God's.
And that's why you've been saved.
That's why you've become a Christian.
That you might be given to God.
You are God's special possession.
You have been separated out of this world
and given to God, to be holy unto
him.
That's your first privilege and it's your first
responsibility, to be holy to God and to
give him your life and your worship.
So, there's the source of genuine faith.
It begins in the eternal counsels of God.
It's brought to pass by the living word
of God.
And the purpose is that we might be
separated for God.
But what are the proofs of genuine faith?
How do we know the real Christian?
Well, it's interesting that in the last three
verses, James gives us three proofs.
Very, very interesting.
I wonder if before looking at verses 26
and 27, you'd been asked, what three proofs
would you give for a genuine Christian?
I Someone might say fervency in evangelism.
Someone might say fervency in prayer.
Someone might say the fact that a person's
happy.
I've heard them all.
What three proofs does James give?
Number one, a controlled tongue.
Number two, a love for those who are
in need.
Verse 27, religion that God our Father accepts
as pure and faultless, the genuine article in
other words, is this, looking after orphans and
widows in their distress.
A Christian who is not concerned for the
needy in society.
What kind of a Christian is he?
James says there's no sign of genuine faith
there.
A real proof of genuine faith is concern.
Concern for those in need.
And then thirdly, holiness.
The end of verse 27, keeping oneself from
being polluted by the world.
Now James could have used more than these
three proofs.
There are many other fruits by which the
Christian is known, but here are three very,
very interesting ones.
We're going to look at them in the
next three chapters because what James does is
he takes one of these points in each
of the next three chapters and he elaborates
it.
So in chapter two, he elaborates the point
that a genuine Christian will be concerned for
those in need.
And you have that dramatic, dramatic 24th verse
of chapter two, which reads even more dramatically
in the NIV, especially for evangelicals.
You see, says James, that a person is
justified by works, oh dear, and not by
faith alone.
That's why Martin Luther called this an epistle
of straw and tried to burn it.
So we'll have a look at that tomorrow.
But chapter two elaborates this point that if
you're a Christian, you'll have genuine concern for
those around you who are in need.
We've been afraid for years, haven't we, of
the social gospel.
These poor people who have a social gospel,
and we've reasoned for concern, but we've equally
reasoned for concern for Christians who are not
concerned socially.
We should be concerned about the needs in
our community, about the needs of individuals around
us.
Jesus was concerned.
He was concerned about the blind and the
poor and so on.
I mustn't go any further or we'll do
the second talk on the first night.
But that's chapter two.
If you're a real Christian, concern for those
in need.
Chapter three, you know well, it's a classic
passage on taming the tongue.
A true Christian, increasingly, it's not going to
happen in a moment, especially for some of
us, but increasingly you're going to be taming
the tongue.
And chapter four, you're going to be increasingly
having a desire for holiness.
So we'll look at those three points on
the next three evenings.