A Slave Made Perfect, Complete and Lacking In Nothing
Notes
Transcript
Call To Worship Scripture
Call To Worship Scripture
Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous rules.
I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me!
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
Sermon Scripture
Sermon Scripture
James 1:1-8
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 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. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Humanity:
We hear what we want to hear.
See what we want to see.
Do what we want to do...
And thus the Christian life is a special phenomenon...
We hear in the quiet, what is beyond to our own comprehension,
We See piercing the darkness what is beyond our own sight
And do by a new will birthed within us, what is beyond both, our own will and ability.
It is in such a phenomenon that true freedom is found.
Even more ironic is that this phenomenon is known as slavery.
Not slavery as you might think of it culturally and with all of the rightfully so bad thoughts that go with it, but a different kind of slavery…a freeing…a joyful slavery.
It is within such slavery…that place where you listen not for yourself, lookout not for yourself and live not for your own self that freedom is birthed and true life is found.
This morning we shall be speaking upon our independent dependance…we will speak of the slave made perfect, complete and lacking in nothing.
THE BOOK OF JAMES:
The book of James has been called “the Proverbs of the New Testament”. It is a “how to” on living out the Christians faith, and the Holy Spirit used a man nicknamed “old camel knees” from his prayer deformed knees to bring it to us.
James was the earthly brother of Jesus, but from the opening we see that he views himself somewhat differently...
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.
James 1:1
James, a servant:
the word here is “dulos” meaning “slave”. It comes from “deo” meaning “to bind” or “a slave”, originally the lowest term that could be used on the scale of serventude. Eventually it came also to mean, “one who gives himself up to the will of another.”
James is a slave, his life is given up to the will of another and that other is,
Of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.:
Just as the will of the Father and that of Christ are inseperable, so James is now at their unified service. Paul, Peter, and Jude all open their epistles this same way. This is not something for Christian debate, it is a statement of fact of who James is and dare I say, that much of the wisdom of living found in this book points to you as the believer knowing that this same fact is true of you.
Your will given up to that of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The will is that faculty of mind which determines the correctness and power of pursuit.
Before we read a word of the message that the Holy Spirit has given James we must note that James is not pursuing anything of his own will.
His life pursuit is that of God and of Jesus Christ.
James does not open his letter with this as a form of bragging, but as an identification of who he is.
We see from this common intro, that this is not just James, but is actually the identifying mark of the disciple of Christ.
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
This is very key and is more often than not something that is quickly skimed over.
The twelve tribes in the Dispersion are the twelve tribes of Israel. Though the 12 tribes had ceased to function as geographical or political unitis in 722BC, Biblical writers still used this designation for Israel and it was kept close track of what tribe one was of, up until the dispersion of 70A.D.
It makes sense that James is written to Jews since it is the earliest book of the new testament being between 40-62A.D.
The “dispersion” in our text here is reffering to Jews outside of Israel.
Even before the disperssion of 70A.D. Jews, espessially Christian Jews were facing heavy persecution and we are told in Acts what happened
And Saul approved of his execution.
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
and the scattering would have taken place about 10 years earlier. So now James is writing to those Christian Jews who have been dispersed and are wondering what is going on. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah and the confession that they have made of this as those who are of the 12 (but who have been dispersed due to persecution) is that their fellow Jews are hunting them.
Yet, to hear from James, a brother who identifies with them as a fellow slave of God and Jesus Christ, they recieve and welcom his greeting.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
James 8:2
Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.
Count it all joy:
The word “count” is derived from Jesus teaching upon that which our will is given up to.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
To count or the act of accounting, is to compute, to consider, think, judge, preserve.
The Christian, who has the will of God as their living will ought to consider joy, when various kinds of trials come upon them.
The joy, as we know from Christ teaching is that which is the will of God to grant unto His servants in Heaven. Again pointing us not only to the teaching of Christ but also to the example of Christ:
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Trial?
Though we have various kinds referenced, we do well to understand the word trial. James does not say, count it joy when you don’t get what you want or when you really try hard for something that you want and things don’t go your way or when you really try to be good and still something bad happens.
James says...
1. I am a slave of God and Jesus Christ…I pursue not my own will but the will of Him who saved me.
2. To the tribes who have been disperssed believing and living the same truth...
3. Know the joy of victory
4. When this truth of who Christ is (and thus who you are in Him) is put on trial
5. in various ways.
Friends, the will of God is that which God sends forth and ordaiins from Heaven, and His will fully known by you and completed in you will be in Heaven. What is happening now is a proving out of that good and perfect will. You, now knowing that, are equiped to face the trials of this world with joy.
Here are at least three-four things that the direct recipients would be facing as trials:
Loss of family
Loss of home/homeland, identity, possession, status
Loss of income
Loss of life
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
These trials, these things which test your faith...
What is your faith?
The full trust in the will of God and Jesus Christ...
produces steadfastness, literally a remaining under which is describe as patient endurance or, the preservation or perseverance of the saints.
This is what James is telling his brothers to compute or account for. Everything that is befalling you as you live a slave to Christ is serving only to make you a stronger slave and it is building you up.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Steadfastness…remaining under the will of God and that of Jesus Christ....patiently enduring these various trials as identified slaves of God and Christ Jesus has an end goal…it has a full effect.
It is, that you may be:
Perfect: speaking of maturity which comes through sanctification
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
2. Complete: Sound in every part, no lacking - this word is also used in reference to ethics in regard to righteous living
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Lacking in nothing: Not left wanting…or…wanting in nothing. You will grow to have a singleness of mind, a soundness of understanding, a solid footing of right living and a want of nothing…you will be full.
But look how it comes.
The trials that are to be counted as joy is the loss of everything and even that of life itself. And it is in that, that the slave of God, the disciple of Christ is found mature, sound, and without lack.
Now I want to be clear....it is not loss that matured the believers. It is faith in every circumstance. It is trust in what God is doing in every situation and remaining under His soverign will.
The focuss then is that the disperssed believers faith demand that they consciously strive to remain under that good and perfect will of God in all that they do and in how they live.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
James understands what he has just told them. They are under trials, meening that they are not yet perfect, complete, and lacking in nothing. So then what do they do when that lacking has them in a situation that they are in need and not knowing how to go forward in faith…They ask God.
The disperssed tribes are being given permission and even encouraged to approach God for counsel with confidence and He will not reproach them. Oh how this must have amazed the heart and mind of the newly converted Jew.
But there is a condition, a condition that will bring us right back to our introduction. A condition that is not based on ones ability but is wholly based on the reality of who one is. It is a condition that cannot be faked nor can it be mustered up. It must be true.
James 1:6
James 1:
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. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
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. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
What is the faith that James is speaking to the 12 tribes in Dispersion?
It is faith that is assured that Christ is risen from the dead and that the earth will be judged by Him (hence the joy in the midst of the trial)
It is faith that is assured of and in the will of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ...
Thus it is the faith which has identified one as a:
slave
lowest scale of servent
lowest scale of servent
one who gives himself up to the will of another.
one who gives himself up to the will of another.
Thus…the faith is not a believing God can do something enough to get what one wants, it is a faith which ask ready to go forward no matter where the will of God leads, trusting that God’s will is good and perfect.
If this is not the faith that one comes to God with, then righteouss living or the disciples life will not be one long traveled by them. It will be an in and out, here this season and gone the next. It will be a life of putting ones finger in the air to see which way the wind blows. If you only ask God to see what He says and then determine if you like it…then don’t expect that you will recieve anything from the Lord.
Why?
he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Such a one is not yet a slave of Christ…and as such they do not yet know or have the joy which is to be counted during the trials.
James: a willing slave of God and that of the Lord Jesus Christ. His life is given up for the will of God. Trials or whatever may come His way as he lives out the will of God is but a consideration for joy and in the end he shall be found perfect, complete and lacking in nothing.
The 12 tribes in Disperssion - those fellow believers who have placed thier faith in the good and perfect will of God, believing in the resurrection and return of Christ the same life and blessing is theirs to be had through the very same faith that they share with James.
R12 Church: The same is true for us today. Though we are now in the lowest form of serventude, we are being raised up. We are learning how to give up self for the will of another and in the end we can be assured that by the grace and goodness of God our joy will be full when we are found to be perfect, complete and lacking in nothing.
Let nothing then church esspessially not that of carnal desires, comforts or self will rob us of that great and lasting joy which awaits us which is ours to be counted even now. The greatest temptation for a slave is that of self-desire.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
James 1:
The Holy Spirit, through James challenges us to compute who we are in Christ Jesus. We are those who have put to death self-will and by the grace of God are alive in and for the will of God and that of the Lord Jesus the Christ. Until one grasp this, then the Christian life they attempt to live will not be Christian at all, but rather a scary shipwreck of unstableness in all of their ways.
Church, let us consider before God who we are and for who’s and by who’s will we live that we be not an unstable people, but a joyful people being perfected, completed and made to lack nothing in God. - Amen.