Introduction to James

[0:00] ah it's great to be here it's also great that uh we are all here after the week we had the storms and kind of like the storms in life we're kind of going to look a little bit at that today just a little bit so because this is just the introduction to james so i can't go into a whole bunch of detail or john be like mark you took all my stuff because he's preaching next to it so let's go to the lord in prayer let's start there father god lord we thank you for bringing us all together here we thank you for the many things you've blessed us with you bless us with life and you bless us with your son who died on the cross for us you blessed us with the ability to ride out not just the storm of this hurricane but also the storms of life the things that come along that we weren't expecting and how you help us through those so we can't thank you enough for that and lord i'm going to go sit down and you're going to be the one preaching not me because i know it's you that makes it all happen and not me i pray this in the name of jesus amen so james or should i call him jacob so as they made sure that we knew that that that's what james means is jacob or vice versa so and um it's interesting because um james being his half-brother it's kind of like when you have a sibling your sibling wants nothing to do with you to a degree they don't want to believe that things you say sometimes so like um and james was not a follower of jesus before his crucifixion go to the next slide mark and in john 7 5 it says for not even his own brothers believed in him and i think this is when jesus went to um his hometown and he preached at his hometown if i remember correctly and um either even the people in his hometown like wanted to chase him out because they didn't believe but here we see not even his own brothers believed in him and james being his brother kind of like his half-brother you know they didn't he didn't believe in him i wanted wasn't a follower or anything like that and that's important for us to understand because you know when you have a sibling and you really love your sibling um you'll do all kinds of things for them my sister charity um is like the one sibling i know she's always there for me she is the one there's other siblings but she's the one that is always there for me and uh to kind of touch on something phil said i thought it was when he mentioned it i was thinking yeah my sisters would grab my ears each one of them and twist them until i would do what they wanted me to do even to this day they still do that do they not take so um granted they're older siblings and i'm probably a little stronger than now that i'm an adult but still that's what they would do so and and i just thought of that i thought it was interesting so um if we look at the very first piece of scripture in james go to the next one mark okay it says from james a slave of god and the lord jesus christ to the 12 tribes dispersed abroad

[4:08] greetings notice he doesn't say hey i'm jesus's brother you need to listen to what i have to say he says he says from a james a slave of god and the lord jesus christ meaning by then he's a follower of christ he's changed and he didn't change until after the crucifixion and the rate in rising that's when he changed when he ran into his brother who he saw crucified and he saw how heartbreaking it was for his mom i mean think about it when you're when you got a spouse and that spouse is a woman when it comes to her kids it's like her kids are the bomb to her that's one of the most important things in the world so as a as his one of her children james had to deal with his mom's being so upset because the death of jesus and that's how you know when he saw him it was like wow he really is the son of god he really is the risen resurrection he really is the one that was sent for us and that's when james got so involved in the ministry he was a church leader throughout his life the rest of his life he's mentioned numerous times in acts like in acts 15 13 it's james that gets up and speaks and that's when the jerusalem church was trying to decide whether or not they had to circumcise people that weren't jews and that's he got up and spoke then there are other instances in acts where james is so involved so it's important that we understand how much a leader james was in the church of jerusalem in christianity and so this book is important for us to really get to know it and get the guts out of it and really get the meat of it out of it so that we can understand how much god loves us and how much jesus is there for us and we're going to look a little bit just a little tiny bit mark go to the next set of verses real quick and it's james 1 2 and 3 and it says my brothers and sisters consider it nothing but joy when you fall in all sorts of trials because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance now you think about it the life each and every one of you live and when god puts a trial on you whether it's um a sickness or something you have to overcome or satan is attacking you personally and trying to keep you from doing something god wants you to do those are all trials i remember when my son tj he had surgery at 17 and it was the exact same time we were doing a mute a christian musical here and the kids were the ones doing it and of course before we found out about tj they had decided they wanted me to be in this thing i'm glad you guys didn't all get to see that because you know your ears have been hurting hearing me sing because they kind of gave me a main part and and and and then i found out that tj had to go to the hospital and had to have the surgery

[8:12] and so but i didn't let that stop me from doing god's work i endured that trial for god for christ i endured that trial and we got up and we had a great play that we put on it was a musical play and the kid it was more kids than adults but still we got up here and um we did this thing and it was a huge success and it didn't matter that tj was in the hospital because i knew god would bring him through it just like when he had the surgery a few weeks ago i knew that god had this when i was underemployed and i would say and miss sherry reminds me of this all the time she goes my favorite thing mark always says is god's got this and i do believe that god's got this and i saw this shirt this past a few weeks ago and it said something to the effect of god's got this and then underneath it it said chill and i was thinking man that would be a great shirt to have i have not gotten it yet but i am going to look for it see if i can find it because i like that idea he's basically the shirt tells you don't worry about it god's going to bring you through this and that's what james is saying right here he's saying my brothers and sisters consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials and that's what this book's about to teach us that god loves us that jesus is going to bring us through this because he is the one that's going to refine us he's our refiner to go to the next set of verses real quick it says in malachi 3 verses 1 through 3 it says i am about to send a messenger who will clear the way before me indeed the lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his his temple and the messenger of the covenant whom you long for is certainly coming says the lord of heaven's armies who can endure the day of his coming who can keep standing when he appears for he will be like a refiner's fire like a launderer's soap he will act like a refiner and purify of silver and will cleanse the levites and refine them like gold and silver they will offer the lord a proper offer you know when i read that it it makes me immediately think of jesus because when we accept christ as our savior that's what he does he starts refining us he takes us and he molds us into what he god wants us to become not what we want to become and that's what we get from the book of james the entire book is full of these things that help turn us in to what god wants us to be so that we walk away from those things that we used to chase when we were kids there's things we used to chase before we came to christ god molds us so that we can chase the things that are important to god that's what it's called plain and simple that's what it comes down to let's go to the lord of prayer father god thank you for this message as we know it came from you thank you for teaching us what james is about

[12:16] and we're going to delve into this book as we go forward and really read and take things from what you want us to know from the book of james so that we can live our lives according to you what you want us to live our lives not what we want lord please continue to be with us please continue to love us please continue to do all the things you're doing and do it through us use us so that we can touch those people that are lost out there and need to hear your words i pray this in the name of jesus amen you