Faith Perseverses

James 1:1-18

Introduction:

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been for us. On behalf of my family we wanted to take the time to thank the church as a whole for helping us transition down to Texas so well. From allowing us to finish out the school year and allowing our kids to experience school formals, end of the year celebrations, and our three girls’ dance recital, to sending up Mr. Craig, Mr. Jerome, and Mr. Josh up to help us load up and drive our belongings to Texas we are just exceedingly grateful.

To the crew that unloaded the trucks without those guys because they got sick helping us and for the generous gift cards and essential supplies that awaited us in our new home, we just want to thank the whole church. Honestly, for me to be standing here before you this morning as your lead pastor is emotional for me as I think about the many people who have poured into me over the years and the many who saw this day coming, even when I didn’t see it myself. We are blessed and honored to be here serving alongside you guys and are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for Liberty Baptist Church.

With that said I’m thankful for Shane and Bruce for preaching the word leading us the past few weeks and as I told Shane I’m ready to tag in and lead us in preaching the word as we gather together to worship Sundays.

Background on James:

Author-

“Early church testimony agreed that the author of this letter is James, the half brother of Jesus (Matt. 13:55; 1 Cor. 15:7) and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 12:17; 15:13–21; 21:18; Gal. 1:19; 2:9–12).”

Title-

“The Letter of James” is one of seven “general,” or “catholic,” letters in the NT, so named because they were viewed by some early Christians as addressing the universal church rather than particular local congregations.”

Genre & Literary Features-

“James is a letter, but one very different from the Pauline letters. James reads more like a series of transcribed mini-homilies than an actual letter. For a modern analogy to this form of spiritual communication, one need look no further than a pastor’s blog.”

A few interesting notes about the book of James is that he mentions faith 14 times and obedience 59 different times in the 108 verses in the book. We will see that that genuine faith leads to obedience is central to what James wants his readers to grasp and ultimately that genuine faith that acts (or does works) is the whole point of Christianity and if lived out properly is effective as it impacts the world around us. Faith leads the missionary to go half-way around the world to bring the gospel to the lost, faith in action leads people to do bible studies at work, care for orphans, feed the homeless, support the refugee as they navigate a new country, visit the elderly, and the list goes on and on. James teaches that our faith will lead to radical obedience that priorities the gospel and will sacrifice to see it spread locally and globally.

Transition:

So if you are willing and able let’s stand together in honor of reading God’s word:

James 1:1–18

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

Greetings.

Testing of Your Faith

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures

Faith that Perseves- Understanding Trials and Temptations in the Believers Life

Personal Example of Trials-

Trials are hard. Most of you know that we served as missionaries in Ukraine we experienced one particular difficult time while we served….

V. 1

“In light of the apparent early date of James’s letter, perhaps the language in 1:1 is also intended to bear its more literal sense, alluding to the Jewish biological lineage of James’s audience, now scattered outside the traditional Holy Land (Palestine) because of their faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. The events of Acts 11:19 may serve as the background to the letter, with James remaining in Jerusalem and now communicating by letter to those Jewish believers previously under his immediate care (cf. Acts 11:19: “Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews”; cf. also Acts 8:1).”

Two quick lessons from v. 1:

James identifies himself not as Jesus half brother, but as a servant of God…as a pastor it’s a good reminder that my authority is not in myself, the fact I have the title of pastor, or that I have a seminary degree, but that I am a servant of God. My prayer is that you will always see me approach ministry with this heart posture.

Secondly, we can’t be a true servants of God unless we have submitted ourselves to God’s son. A reminder that salvation is found only in him: “Salvation [is found] in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).”

Transition:

“Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” – Leroy Satchel Paige

Have you ever had someone tell you something that made you think, “are you sure about that?” Getting strange advice or bad news is always interesting , but sometimes even when we don’t see it in the moment it can be a blessing. The Bible often gives what we might call counterintuitive advice. What seems like foolishness to the world it precisely what God wants for us.

Trials are the winds which root the tree of our faith.

Charles Spurgeon

To learn strong faith is to endure great trials.

George Müller (Philanthropist and Preacher)

One of the best tests of Christian maturity is tribulation. When God’s people go through personal trials, they discover what kind of faith they really possess. Trials not only reveal our faith; they also develop our faith and Christian character.

Warren Wiersbe

Well as James jumps into verses 2-18 we start off with some odd advice or an odd warning, but as a believer it is something we better learn to hold on to closely. In the book of James we will see this key theme that David Platt summarizes well in his commentary “the main theme of verses 2-18 in one sentence, here is what it would be: ‘Trials and temptations are both inevitable, and God intends both to deepen our faith.’

James will start to cover some key theological truths as we look at how God is sovereign through our trials verses 2-12, how we are responsible in our temptations v. 13-15, and we will close with how God is faithful for our salvation v. 16-18.

V.2-12 God’s Presence in Our Trials

The Sovereignty of God is a key truth we believe in as Baptist. One easy way to summarize this is by thinking of sovereignty when it comes to politics. This refers to a dominant power or authority, which used to manifest itself by its ruler the King or Queen. Well God is of course over all things and has the ultimate authority of his creation. Here is how Joel Frame explains it:

“A sovereign is a ruler, a king, a lord, and Scripture often refers to God as the one who rules over all. His most common proper name, Yahweh (see Ex. 3:14) is regularly translated Lord in the English Bible. And Lord, in turn, is found there over 7,000 times as a name of God and specifically as a name of Jesus Christ. So, to discuss the sovereignty of God is to discuss the lordship of God—that is, to discuss the goodness of God, the qualities that make him to be God. The major components of the biblical concept of divine sovereignty or lordship are God’s control, authority, and presence (see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 21–115).”

Admittedly this is one of those verses in the Bible that we all probably wish wasn’t there, yet it is important for us as mature Christian’s to understand this concept. We see a false teaching today that presents faulty theology that wants to make God out to be someone who never wants you to experience trials and that you should claim your health and wealth. James’ audience would have most likely been a predominately poor Christian community, that had been displaced, yet he is telling them to find joy in their situations…in fact he says “great joy”.

Of course we know that trials in and of themselves are not fun, but the heart of this passage is to understand that its under God’s authority that he allows them in our lives, wether big or small, and that the ultimate purpose in them is for God to accomplish his will in our lives through them. Platt list four ways trials can cause us to rejoice:

We learn to grow in His likeness

V. 3-4 This shows us that the testing of our faith will produce steadfastness and that as it takes its full effect we grow to be more like Christ. God desires maturity in believers and one way we grow is through trials. We take heart in knowing God is conforming us into his image and that’s why we can find joy in the difficulties. Trials teach us to depend on God more, love God more deeply, and trust him whole heartedly.

I think of sports and coaches challenging us to be better, and often times they do this by putting us through hard things or overcoming difficult circumstances. The athlete gets better by going through hard things that ultimately helps them realize they can accomplish hard things and in essence that’s how God works in our lives as well.

We learn to trust in His wisdom

v. 5 reminds us that if we lack wisdom we must ask God and that he is ready to give generously to those who ask. I love how Spurgeon puts it:

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise … There is no fool so great as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Charles Spurgeon

One thing I loved that one of the commentary pointed out is that “Our own wisdom grows in three areas; knowledge, perspective, and experience. Our limitations in all three of these areas lead to limited wisdom. When we walk through trials, we realize we don’t know all that is going on (knowledge), we don’t see our situation from every angle (perspective), and we oftentimes lack experience in what to do (experience).”

Yet God has all three of these perfected. He is the ultimate knowledge, is omniscient, sees all things or has the ultimate perspective, and has overcome every kind of test and prevailed.

We learn to rely on His resources

v. 9-11 God’s provision for us is once again countercultural…we must be content with God not our material possessions. Here we have a great reminder of the brevity of life and that all the things we treasure will pass away. One thing that stood out to me in today’s scripture is something I learned during Hurricane Michael which came over Jess’ hometown of Blountstown as a CAT 5 and destroyed just about every one of our trees on our property. One of the lessons I learned in that storm is that it didn’t disreminate between rich and poor. It affected everyone and didn’t care what you had or didn’t have. I imagine ya’ll experienced the same during some of the storm you guys endured. Here James is communicating that trials make all believers equally dependent on God. In God’s economy we are all equal and we must all depend on God for all that we have.

We learn to live for his reward

V. 12 The language James uses here that says we are “blessed” in our trials brings to mind Jesus teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. We will see James do this throughout the book and shows how Jesus’ teachings are echoed by James as he leads the early church.

Our ultimate reward is not found this side of heaven…the “crown of life” or as we might say today eternal life. The idea is that of an athlete receiving his prize. This year we have the Olympics and they will receive medals, but in the original Olympics they received crowns that were wreaths. At the 2004 Athens Olympics they actually recreated these and you might remember Michael Phelps and others on the podium with both their medal and wreath on their head.

Transition to our second point which is:

V. 13-15 Our Responsibility in Temptations

Key Theological Truth- I like to call them Theological Nuggets…this one is again from David Platt the commentator who notes:

“Every trial brings temptation with it. When we face financial difficulty, we are tempted to distrust God’s provision. When someone dear to us dies, we are tempted to question God’s love. When we experience unjust suffering, we are tempted to impugn (fancy way of saying call into question), God’s justice. But know this: God may test us, but according to verse 13, He does not and cannot and will not tempt us. We are responsible in temptations.”

God is perfectly sinless…so what about the origin of sin…without getting to sidetracked we need to understand that the most simple way is to go back to the old Michael Jackson song “I’m starting with the man in the mirror”. Verse 14 reminds us that we are utterly sinful…the responsibility for temptation and sin lies squarely with us, for our sinful desires within lead us to give in to temptation. We have no one else to blame for our sin. It’s not God and it’s really not even Satan, though of course he plays a part. A powerful reminder is found in Romans 7:18 “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh.”

This is a great place to pause and look at our own lives. If you have never placed your faith in Christ, this is the great dilemma we face. We are sinful and in desperate need of a Savior. We can do nothing in our own strength, but by trusting Jesus, who died to take on our sins, and following him with our lives is the only way to have a right relationship with God. Only through Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected three days later, defeating death can we overcome our sin problem, because Jesus has the authority to take away our sins.

Secondly, for the believer…are we blaming others for our sin problems? It’s easy to shift blame and excuse behavior, but in this passage James clearly reminds us that we are responsible for our sin. Is there unrepentant sin that we need to confess today? If so, know that we have a loving Father who wants to do that, and help you as you fight against the temptations and sin that we so easily give into.

Transition:

This leads us to our last section for today.

Verses 16-18 Hope is Found in Salvation

Some of you might be wondering why did we hire this guy? He’s done nothing but tell us bad news the first sermon he’s preaching to us. Well the good news is that God is faithful for our salvation. Verse 17 says “there is no variation or shadow cast by turning”. As we close out today I want to just camp out in the fact that we serve an awesome God who loves us so much and is by his very nature a good God that wants nothing but good for us. In trials and temptations it’s easy to doubt this, but we must remind ourselves of his goodness constantly and trust in His salvation and that we can turn to him in our trials.

City Alight- “Yet Not I but Christ in Me”

Verse2 The night is dark but I am not forsaken For by my side, the Saviour He will stay I labour on in weakness and rejoicing For in my need, His power is displayed

Refrain 2 To this I hold, my Shepherd will defend me Through the deepest valley He will lead Oh the night has been won, and I shall overcome! Yet not I, but through Christ in me

The commentator notes 3 Truths about God:

His goodness is unchanging

v. 17 “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” In a world where everything is constantly changing isn’t it encouraging to know we have a God that is constant and is the same God the created the universe, led his people out of Egypt into the wilderness & into the promised land, sent his son to die for our sins, and started the church through ordinary people and sent the holy spirit to help them…that same God and the same power is available to us today if we have faith.

God is ultimately good. If he could change for the better, that would mean He wasn’t ultimately good in the first place, but He is.

His goodness is undeserved

v. 17 also reminds us that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”

It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself; as though the gift could ever be preferable to the Giver.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

God has given us new life based not on our works but on His grace. This is the gospel message of Christianity—-anything good in you is because God’s undeserved goodness toward you!

His goodness is unending

V. 18 “we are the firstfruits of His creatures”. The idea carries a foretaste of that which is to come. The work he’s already done in us is just a taste of how he will make all things new. One day we will experience a new heaven and new earth where there will be no more trials and temptations.

Closing:

James comes out swinging doesn’t he? I mean I don’t know about you but as i read the first 18 verses I find myself both beat up and encouraged all at the same time. Today we are reminded to take heart. God saved us from our sin by sending Jesus to endure the Cross to conquer sin through his death and resurrection and if he did that he will see us through trialsI’m excited to continue to journey through James together.

Next Sunday we will focus on how Faith Obeys and I love how we will be rolling right into VBS which I think is perfect timing as it really fits with the idea of putting our faith into work by serving our community through spending time with their kids and teaching them about God’s love, while also having tons of fun with them. If you haven’t signed up to serve I’m sure we can still use you and come find Jamie Williams, Shane or myself and we will make sure to get you plugged in. ]

Man what a pleasure it is to be here serving with you. As Bruce gets ready to come up to lead us in song, we want to take the time to open up the altar for you to come and pray…maybe you have some things you need to fully trust God with or maybe you realize that you are trying to overcome your own sin and find yourself always giving in and realizing that you need Jesus in your life. Brother Shane and I will be up here and would love to talk with you or pray with you however God might be leading you. Let’s pray and then we will close out with a song and a time to respond to how God is leading…