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I hope that you are as excited as I am about studying God’s word this morning.
And while I know that this may take most of you by surprise, we are actually going to take a hiatus from the book of Hebrews.
As you know, Hebrews is one of my favorite books in the New Testament.
And one thing I love about the book of Hebrews is that it has a few major themes, and the author really hammers home those themes.
One of those themes is the difference between the Old and the New Covenant.
And even though we haven’t studied chapters nine through thirteen as a church body, we have already talked several times about the major themes that those chapters talk about.
So instead of spending several more weeks talking about the effects of the New Covenant, I felt led to take a break from Hebrews and move elsewhere.
And as I was looking and praying, I felt as if the Holy Spirit were leading me to the book of James.
Raise your hand this morning if you’ve ever read through the book of James.
Okay, it looks like quite a few of you have.
The book of James is cram-packed with helpful advice for living a Christian life 24/7.
Many books of the New Testament are full of beautiful doctrines.
And frankly, I love studying the deep doctrines of the Bible.
But the book of James isn’t like that.
The book of James is all about how to take the doctrines of the Bible, and how to make them your own.
In fact, the book of James is so well-known for its practicality that its popular nickname is “The Proverbs of the New Testament.”
And because it is so practical, I thought it fitting to name this sermon series “Practical Christianity.”
Over the course of the next two to three months, we will be looking at how the truths of the Bible can move from our head to our hearts, and from our hearts to our hands.
So in case you’re not already there, I invite you to turn to the book of James, and we’re going to be reading chapter one, verses one through fifteen.
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.
Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted of God:’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
Let’s pray.
All right, because this is the first week we’re looking at the book of James, I want to start off with a little bit of housekeeping.
When studying any book of the Bible, one helpful thing we need to know is who wrote the book.
The writer of the book of James is actually the Apostle Paul.
Just seeing who’s awake out there! No, of course it was James, but there are different James’s in the Bible.
Almost every theologian agrees that the writer of the book of James is James, the half-brother of Jesus.
In other words, James was born to Joseph and Mary, while Jesus was born from Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So when we read his words, we’re reading the words of someone who grew up in the same house with Jesus.
I can’t imagine how interesting that would have been.
Can you imagine passing the potatoes to God the Son? Must have been amazing.
And another interesting fact about the book of James is that it was most likely the first book of the New Testament that was written.
It was probably written about fifteen years after Jesus ascended to Heaven.
So up until this point, the early church only had the Old Testament, and they had the eyewitness stories from people that knew Jesus.
But James was most likely the first man to put down the effects of the gospel on pen and paper.
One of the biggest problems that the early Christians faced was persecution.
Notice that in verse one of this chapter, James says that he’s writing to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.
He’s writing to Jews that have become Christians.
And the reason they’re scattered abroad is that men like Saul were persecuting them so badly that most of the Christians fled Jerusalem.
Ironically, that’s actually how the gospel spread to most of the Roman Empire.
The gospel spread because Christians were running for their lives!
So when James sat down to write this letter, the first topic he handles is trials and temptations, and that’s the topic we’re going to be looking at this morning.
So the title of this morning’s sermon is, “Finding Good from Bad Times.”
In the course of these fifteen verses, James gives us four reasons why we can praise God for the trials in our lives.
And then after that, he gives us one final piece of information about trials and temptations.
Sound pretty interesting?
Well let’s see what God’s word has to say.
Reason #1: Trials lead to patience
To see what I’m talking about, let’s read verses two through four again.
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
There are a couple of things I want to point out to you about these verses.
The first is the difference between the word “trial” and “temptation.”
I imagine that some of your translations say “temptations,” and some of your versions use the word “trials.”
The reason for this difference is that in the Greek language, the same word means both!
Because of this, the difference is purely one of context.
In modern English, a trial is when God brings something your way, and He wants you to succeed.
A temptation is when our sinful flesh or the devil bring something our way, and he wants you to fail.
So because these first verses talk about problems can lead to our benefit, I think that trials is the idea here.
Now, I’m going to read verse two again, and I want you to see if you can tell the word that I change.
“My brethren, count it all joy if ye fall into divers temptations.”
Did you catch it?
James doesn’t say count it all joy if you fall into trials.
He says that we should count it all joy when trials come our way.
So if you’re here this morning, and you can honestly say that you haven’t had any trials lately, I’ve got two words for you.
Just wait.
According to the Bible, suffering always happens in the lives of Christians.
But the first reason James gives us for praising God in our trials is that trials leads to patience.
Anybody ever found that to be true?
Something we talked about in the book of Jonah is that one of the hardest parts about trials is the waiting game, just wondering when God is going to step in and save us.
And then James says that our patience will lead to us being perfect and entire.
The idea of the word “perfect” in this verse is not that we would completely conquer our sin, because we won’t do that until Heaven.
Here, the word perfect means “complete” or “mature.”
I would argue that as a Christian, you cannot be truly mature in the faith unless you have been through trials in your life.
It’s hard to learn patience when everything is going our way, isn’t it?
And yet, when God is putting us through a trial, we can’t help but learn patience.
And church, that’s one of the reasons He does it.
Let’s move on.
Reason #2: Trials lead to faith
Let’s look at verses five through eight again.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
You know, it really seems like James switches topics on us here, doesn’t it?
First, he was talking about trials, and now he’s talking about wisdom and faith.
But really, he’s still dealing with people who are suffering.
You know, probably the most common question a suffering Christians asks is “Why?”
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