Lord, take this service and let it be
in your hands.
You Lord, wouldn't you speak?
Lord, prepare our hearts and minds, lest they
be in a condition where they cannot hear
what you have to say.
That your word would reach people in its
life-changing power.
Amen.
Yesterday I met with some young people.
I didn't recognize who they were.
Although I had known them.
But they were so different and so changed.
The expression on their faces was different.
That I had to say afterwards, oh, so
it's you.
In my lifetime there will be no change,
but until we die I will change.
As I was praying just now, I was
thinking of those young people.
As I was praying that the word would
change us.
And let it be like that indeed.
That the word will change us for it
cannot reach us and not have an effect
on us.
In fact it will be even visible.
People will notice that there's a newness about
this person.
This person has been influenced and changed by
God's Word.
Let's read the book of James, the letter
by James.
Chapter 1, verses 1 to 3.
James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which
are scattered abroad, greetings.
My brethren, count it all joy when you
fall into various trials.
Knowing that the testing of your faith produces
patience, we'll read thus far.
This epistle begins with the name of Jacob
or James.
The servant of God and of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This James is not one of the twelve.
Remember that Jesus, as he went on his
travels, that he would sometimes take aside that
special trio of Peter, James and John.
He had these three disciples who were special
to him.
And then there were the rest of the
twelve.
And then there were also the seventy.
This is not the same one, because we
are told in Acts chapter 12 that Herod
had James the Apostle.
But rather, this James was the brother of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember that Jesus did have brothers after him,
ancestors.
And this James was one of the brothers
of Jesus.
A lot of his time was spent being
the shepherd, the bishop of the church in
Jerusalem.
Sometimes he would travel through Palestine and Syria.
Now he wrote this letter to the twelve
scattered tribes.
So this James, the brother of Jesus and
Peter and John worked, in particular they worked
among the Jews.
The brethren, those who were Jews by circumcision.
So when James writes to the scattered tribes,
he says, I am the servant of God
and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He does not start by saying, I am
James, the brother of Jesus.
No.
He doesn't refer to the human relationship, to
the blood connection.
He doesn't take note of the fact that
he is the brother of Jesus Christ.
In another
place
of the scriptures, it there speaks about James
the brother of Jesus.
But when he himself writes, he says, I
am the servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus.
What was glorious to him was that he
was the servant of Jesus Christ and of
God.
He gloried in that, that he could be
a servant of Jesus Christ in the spirit.
So for him the most distinguished title was
to be a servant of God and of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
James is showing us that in this world
there is no title or honor that can
surpass this honor of being a servant of
the Lord Jesus.
I don't know what is important to you
when you write or if you introduce yourself,
but to James what was important was that
he was a servant of God and the
Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what mattered to James.
Being a relative was of no consequence to
him.
Being a brother of that family meant nothing
to him.
What was of supreme importance was being a
servant of God.
And you cannot be a servant of God
if you are not a servant of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
With some people blood is thicker than water,
but in things spiritual that's of no consequence.
Being a servant, being in the service of
Jesus is what matters.
I remember some years ago, a co-worker
leaving and going his way and I asked
his wife, well, what do you say?
She said, well, I'm just going to do
whatever my husband does.
That does not work in the things of
the spirit.
Jesus must be the first.
ended up that he divorced her, he got
remarried, she got remarried but with God we
must in the first place be the servant
of God, of Jesus.
My theme for the service is rather going
to be about falling into various trials and
temptations but I'm just looking at and exploring
the context of it first.
James has introduced himself as to who he
is.
You've read that he is writing to the
twelve tribes, the Jewish tribes that are scattered.
Why was he writing this epistle?
What was his reason for writing it?
He was writing it to the brethren regarding
their backsliding, their degeneracy.
But they had declined spiritually, they weren't on
fire, alive and full of vitality like they
had been in the beginning.
What a tragic thing to see people who
used to be on fire for God who
have now started to wither, to fade and
other things have come in.
That burning zeal for the Lord has fizzled
out.
Their faith, their manners, their behaviour shows and
has evidence of being faded.
That James writes to the Jewish Christians, he
writes to them specifically with this intent to
point out that they aren't as they were.
Their standard has dropped, they're not on fire
as they were in the past.
I want
you
to take this directly at yourself, I'm not
speaking to your neighbour, to the one in
front of you or behind you.
But that you ask yourself, am I still
on that spiritual standard where the Lord put
me?
There is an English song, chorus, which says
Lord if I ever loved you, kiss now.
There hasn't been a time in my life
where I loved you more than what I
do now.
And I want you all to face the
truth, is that true in your life?
Has there never been a time where you
were more aflame for Christ than right now?
Has there ever been a time where you
were more fiery and did more for Christ
than now?
If so, let
me
tell you directly that you are fading out,
you're washing out, you're on the way down.
That will be the greatest miracle that can
ever happen if you go down and you
end in heaven.
Now it's up to you to test yourself,
to pray earnestly, spiritually to be on your
knees.
Say, God, that
you ask the question, Lord, have I begun
to fade and am I on the decline?
Are you degenerating spiritually?
If that's a terrible thing, whether it's you,
your wife or your children, it's an evil
thing, the greatest tragedy that can happen to
you.
It's worse news than to hear that the
doctor tells you your whole body is full
of cancer.
That's a shock to a person's system, but
you should get a greater shock if you
realize I'm going in the wrong direction.
I'm not going up, I'm going down, I'm
degenerating, I'm getting worse.
Than what I've been in the past.
But I don't have time to expand upon
that theme.
For I haven't yet got to the crux
of the matter.
But I'm just touching two or three points
regarding the brethren to whom this was written.
James says, for instance, to his brethren, why
is it that you are so particular about
a person who's classy, one of the elite
and rich, and you take him with kid
gloves to the highest place, but the poor
person, you discriminate against him and you neglect
him.
James says, that is degeneracy.
For rich man comes, he's ushered to the
best seat, a poor person to the remotest
seat.
James says, that's degeneracy.
The Lord says, he wants to rule long
in this world as king, must take particular
note of the oppressed, of the poor.
James says, that is degeneracy.
Jesus never said that you would be judged
according to the way that you're treated, the
dignified, wealthy, civilized person.
He said, no, he'll take the one who
is least in your eyes and say, what
you did to that person is what you
did to me.
And who is the smallest in your eyes?
And Jesus will judge you on judgment day
according to your relationship to that least one
in your eyes.
Who is that person to you?
Maybe it's somebody who is very uncivilized according
to your culture, and you don't acknowledge them
as existing.
And there are many who've got the name
and say, we are alive, but before God
you are dead.
Dead, D-E-A-D.
And you know what?
That life before God doesn't mean anything.
That's why it's of greatest importance that you
take God's word, you live in God's word,
and God's word lives in you and changes
you.
That you've got the mind of Christ.
Maybe a person who can't eat with a
fork or knife, he can just eat with
a spoon.
You, according to your tradition, you judge a
person according to that.
Menace at the table.
That's the least.
And you'll be surprised.
For all eternity, you'll be lower than him.
And he'll be in a better situation for
all eternity than what you are.
Or you'll be.
He or she doesn't know anything about the
garden.
Will plant some maize right in front of
the house.
And have some chickens running around the house.
And you judge the person according to that.
Because you've got a different culture to what
they have.
But Jesus died for them.
And when God judges, he'll judge you accordingly.
I said in these days I wish I
could take all of you right into the
deepest depths of the valleys and mountains.
And that you could go to those people
and preach to them.
That would be a good school for you.
It's a curse if a person can sit
under preaching, under a sermon, and is not
touched by it.
But that's a thing.
That's a usual thing.
Every day's occurrence.
But may God grant that you're not stone
dead, that there's still a bit of life
in you, that you can register what it's
about.
May God grant that you're not
stone dead, that there's still a bit of
life in you, that you can register what
it's
about.
So James, the servant of God and of
the Lord Jesus Christ, then writes this epistle
to the twelve tribes, these Jewish Christians, and
says to them that you have degenerated, you
are sliding back in your faith.
And as long as that spirit is in
you, you recurse and not a blessing to
the Lord's work.
You'll be a greater blessing six feet in
the ground than being alive amongst God's people.
Another point.
He says to these Christians, you fail to
discipline your tongue and to hold the reins.
They spoke too much and sinned too much
with their tongue.
He says, an undisciplined tongue makes your worship
of God to be null and void.
Do you hear that?
You may be quite assured about your worship
of God, but because of your uncontrolled tongue,
it says your religion is in vain.
I'm just touching different points as I head
to my main aim.
He also says to them, your faith with
artworks is dead.
If
you
say to the hungry person, the Lord bless
you, but you don't give something that will
provide food, your religion is in vain.
John Wesley was in the practice of riding
on horseback.
It was before the time of vehicles.
He would arrive at a service, take the
meeting, then get back on his horse and
go to another meeting.
He would preach there.
The congregation said to him, as he was
on his horse to go to the next
place, they said, the Lord bless you.
John Wesley turned back to them and said,
well, you say God bless you, but you
haven't given food for my horse.
Let me point out two other things that
indicated that the faith of these people was
dead.
He said, there is conflict and war among
you.
They were not one, they were divided.
And he said this enmity, these wars do
not come from God, but from your craving
for pleasures within.
He said among the Christians, there
is this enmity, these warring
factions, and yet they were still preaching, they
were still calling themselves Christians.
Another sign and proof of those who are
being degenerate and who are backsliding is that
they love the world.
He says, adulterers and
adulteresses
do not know that friendship with God is
enmity with God.
Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of
the world makes himself the enemy of God.
He says, adulterers and
adulteresses do not know that
friendship with God is enmity with God.
The
word
says that if you love the world, if
you lean towards the world, loving the things
of the world and the people of the
world and the Christians of the world, then
you make yourself an enemy of God and
you are an adulterer and adulteress.
If you flirt with the world, you are
an enemy of God.
If that happens, when you think now this
may be your end, then you should count
it as all joy.
Just joy.
All joy means, one person said, the cause
for the highest joy.