Please turn with me to the letter of James and to chapter 1.
And this is how we're going to outline it.
There are five chapters, and the translators of the NIV, the New International Version,
have given headings to certain sections.
So I'm going to take their headings, which are not, of course, part of God's Word,
but they're helpful in dividing the material up.
So we're going to take their headings as the subheadings of the five points of this presentation this morning.
So here we go without any further delay.
Chapter 1, and the first heading is Trials and Temptations.
And I'll give you, as well as the heading, one key verse in that section.
So now you know exactly what we're going to do.
So in this first section, I'm going to take verses 2 and 3 as the key statement.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.
Now let me interrupt James for a moment and say, that already sounds strange.
Count it joy when you face trials of many kinds.
But James doesn't leave us hanging in the air.
He gives a reason for it.
Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Now here are two truths for the price of one.
Firstly, trials are not to be seen as evil originating with Satan.
Let me give you this and write it at least in the notebook of your mind, although I guess you'll be able to read it afterwards in the book.
Trials, excuse me, temptations are sent by Satan to make us fall.
Trials are sent by God to make us stand.
But God is in complete control of all of the temptations and all of the trials.
In other words, God is sovereign over everything that comes into your life.
Paul tells the Ephesians, God works everything according to the counsel of His will.
And we so often focus on the secondary cause of things that come into our life.
So difficulty, a problem, a trial, a pain, a pressure comes into our lives and we focus on whoever brought it in or the circumstances that brought it into our lives there and then.
But that's only the secondary issue.
The primary issue is that God, sovereign over all, allowed that thing to happen.
And instead of focusing on who or what brought it to us at that moment, our focus should be on who sent it or allowed it in the first place.
The simplest illustration I know of how to demonstrate that is that when in the mail you find something deeply disturbing or hurtful or painful or sorrowful or in a phrase that is bad news,
you don't find the mailman and kick him.
It has nothing to do with him.
He's simply the messenger.
And when something is in the mail that's really a big surprise and hugely joyful, indeed a miracle like a rebate from the IRS,
you don't go chasing the mailman and kiss him.
And if he was my mailman, you certainly wouldn't want to do that.
In other words, our focus always needs to be, look, God is in control of whatever comes into my life.
And I must learn to respond primarily to God and to his wisdom in allowing this thing to happen.
And this is something, incidentally, that is totally overlooked by one of the greatest religious plagues you have in this country,
which is those who preach a prosperity gospel.
That as long as you believe certain things, God intends you to be healthy and wealthy and all of those things and never to have problems and pressures,
then why did he let Jesus down?
If that's how God intends us all to be, to be for our lives to be without any trials, without any pressures, without any temptations,
and to be healthy and wealthy throughout our lives, why did he let Jesus down?
But this is how we should approach it.
The second thing, we're going to have to move on.
I know you want this to be developed.
You can read it how it is afterwards.
But we need to get to the second section, which is listening and doing.
And the key verse here is verse 22.
Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
Look back to verse 29 where James says everyone should be quick to listen.
We really should be eager to listen to God when he speaks to us.
Whether it's at home in our own private Bible study,
whether it's in a Sunday school class, a Bible study group,
and especially when we come to church and listen to the preaching of God's word.
We should be eager to hear what God is saying to us.
I find it a very interesting thing that in our church circles and my church circles culturally
are very much the same as here at First Baptist Pickens.
Our emphasis is on the preacher.
So here you have, I'll take a chance here,
here you have a visiting preacher this morning.
If you meet someone from another church during the week and you say to them,
oh, we had a visiting preacher on Sunday,
and they say, what was the service like?
You will ignore everything that happened in the service,
including this really wonderful singing that you have Sunday by Sunday
with this man leading it,
and you talk about me.
I think you're making a mistake.
The preacher is not really important at all.
In our circles, we're always focusing on the preacher.
I'll go to that conference, that meeting, because of that preacher.
In the Bible, the emphasis is not on the preacher,
it's on the listener,
and how the listener responds to the ministry of God's word.
So the most important thing when you've heard someone preach is,
what was he like?
Didn't like his voice very much.
Couldn't understand his accent.
Well, I'm not going to be taught lessons about accent
from a country where they park their cars on the driveway
and drive them on the parkway,
but that's neither here nor there.
Well, I don't like the way he did this,
or he missed out on that,
or why didn't he emphasize that?
Listen, the point is,
what did God say to me in this part of his word?
Remember John Stott,
one of the most revered preachers of our day,
saying to me once that people would come to him sometimes
at the end of a service and say,
Dr. Stott, that was a wonderful sermon.
Thank you for that.
Stott's response was,
what are you going to do with it?
It's an interesting thing to say.
I think it's a very appropriate thing to say
at the end of a service.
Somebody goes up to the preacher and says,
that was a wonderful sermon.
Thank you.
Now, what do you say
when somebody says,
that was a wonderful sermon?
I know that experience.
I've had it twice in 55 years.
What do you say?
John Stott said,
this is what I say.
What are you going to do with it?
So my question to you this morning,
when we reach the end of the service,
is not,
well, what did you think of the preacher?
I wouldn't dare ask you that.
What are you going to do
with whatever it is that God is saying to you?
And he may not have said,
at this moment in our service,
the big thing that he's going to say to you
before we end.
So forget the preacher.
Make sure that the sermon
gets into your bloodstream,
God's word,
and into your DNA,
and not just into your notebook.
Well, now on to chapter 2,
and the first section is called
Favoritism Forbidden,
and the key is right there in verse 1.
My brothers,
as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,
don't show favoritism.
Now, James, as you'll discover
when you read the book later,
is a great illustrator.
He gives you a truth,
and then he illustrates it
and nowhere more clearly than this.
Let me read the following verses.
They hardly need a comment.
His point is this.
Don't show favoritism.
Don't treat people
on the basis of how wealthy they are
is the point that he's making.
Look at this.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting
wearing a gold ring
and fine clothes.
Interestingly, in the Greek,
the original phrase could be translated,
he is gold-fingered.
He's got a nugget at every knuckle
and a gem at every joint.
I mean, he's loaded.
I don't know what the Greek for loaded is,
but that's what James means here.
He comes into your meeting
wearing a gold ring and fine clothes.
Oh, and a poor man.
Shabby clothes also comes in.
If you show special attention
to the man wearing fine clothes
and say,
here's a good seat for you,
but you say to the poor man,
you can stand there.
You can sit on the floor if you like.
If you do that, James says,
have you not discriminated among yourselves
and become judges with evil thoughts?
And the word is dialogismus,
from which we get the word dialogue.
He said, if you treat people like that,
a wealthy visitor comes to your church
and you're all over him
and the poor man comes in
and you say, sit on the floor if you like,
aren't there evil thoughts going on in your head?
And what you are saying is,
we better treat this rich man well
because he could be worth
a few thousand dollars to our church.
But there's no point in treating the poor man well
because there's nothing he can contribute
to what is going on here in the church.
Well, James says, don't do that.
And the best example of all he gives us,
of course, is Jesus,
who never treated anybody
on the basis of their position
or their possessions.
Then the second section in verse,
excuse me, in chapter two,
is called faith and deeds.
And the keys here are two verses.
Verse 14 first,
What good is it, my brothers,
if a man claims to have faith
but has no deeds?
Can such faith,
notice the word such,
can such faith save him?
Then go over to verse 24
and read this.
You see,
he gives an example of Abraham,
we don't have time to develop that.
You see that a person is justified
by what he does
and not by faith alone.
Now, I can imagine
a newish or relatively untaught Christian
reading through the letter of James
and he comes
and this man has truly been born again.
He is a new Christian
and he reads James saying
these particular words.
And he can hardly believe
what he is reading.
That James should say this,
a person is justified
by what he does
and not by faith alone.
And I can just imagine
a young Christian saying,
but wait a minute.
Now that I've become a Christian,
I can see that I am justified
not by what I've done
but by faith in what Jesus has done
for me.
And maybe the words of Paul
in Ephesians 2
are resonating in his mind.
By grace you've been saved,
through faith.
And that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God.
And then specifically,
not of works,
so nobody can boast.
So he turns up Ephesians 2
and reads that,
turns back to James 2
and says,
well, something's wrong here.
Paul says,
we are not saved by works,
we're saved by faith.
James says,
well, you can see
that you're not saved
just by faith,
but by works.
Now, what is going wrong here?
If they are disagreeing,
we can throw away
the whole of the New Testament
as being unreliable.
It may be one of the reasons
why Martin Luther
initially treated
the letter of James
with a bit of disdain
or certainly with a lot of reserve,
and he called it
a right straw epistle.
It's an epistle of straw.
There's no real substance to it,
but he understood better later,
and we should understand better
this morning.
Here's the best way
I can put it across to you.
James and Paul
are not facing each other,
fighting each other.
They are back to back,
fighting two different enemies.
Paul is facing the person
who says,
I am saved,
I can become a Christian
by what I do,
by my own good deeds.
I'm better than a lot of people
I can think of.
Surely God grades on a curve,
that's a fair thing to do,
and I go to church,
and I read my Bible,
well, a bit,
and I pray a bit,
and I give a bit,
and I try to be good
and decent in my life,
and I pay my taxes,
I'm trying to be a good citizen,
and surely God will reward me
as the result of what I have done.
And Paul says,
no.
All our righteousnesses,
he says,
quoting Isaiah,
all our righteousnesses
are like filthy rags.
If you believe that God
grades on a curve,
and you may be here
in First Baptist Pickens
this morning thinking,
you know,
if I try to be good enough,
oh, I hear a lot of teaching
about becoming a Christian
and how important it is,
but if I behave well enough,
I'll reach that point,
I'll have crossed the line,
and be safely in the kingdom of God
on the basis of how well I have done,
how well I have lived.
Paul says,
if you're going down that route,
you're in serious trouble
because God requires perfection.
So Paul is fighting the person
who says,
I can get right with God
under my own steam.
James is fighting the person
who says,
look,
it doesn't really matter
what kind of life I lead.
I believe all the right things.
I believe there's one true God.
I believe that Jesus
is the eternal Son of God.
I believe that He was born
of the Virgin Mary,
that He lived a perfect life,
that He died on the cross
in the place of sinners,
that He rose from the dead,
that He's seated
at the right hand of God,
that He's coming back again
in glory.
I believe all those things.
I've ticked every one
of those boxes,
and that makes me right with God.
And the quality of life I have,
the things I do,
the way I treat my family
and my business associates
and my friends,
that's immaterial.
James says,
you are totally wrong
because it's when you have true faith
that your life changes.
Go back again to verse 14.
What good is it, my brothers,
if a man claims to have faith
but has no deeds,
in other words,
there's nothing in his life
to back it up.
Notice why I asked you
to notice the word such earlier.
Can such faith save him?
And he says,
no, it can't.
Faith that is all words
will save nobody.
There have got to be the deeds
to back it up,
which is why Paul writes
in 2 Corinthians 5,
if any man is in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The old has gone,
the new has come.
Paul is not saying
that when you become a Christian,
you become perfect,
but he does mean
that when you become a Christian,
you become different.
Then we move on to,
I should say then
that this is the heartbeat
of the entire epistle.
These verses, 14 through 24.
If you grasp what James
is saying here,
then you've grasped
what the whole of the epistle
is all about.
On then quickly to chapter 3.
And the first section
is taming the tongue.
And the key is verse 10.
Out of the same mouth
come praise and cursing.
My brothers,
this should not be.
Now James is dealing
with a very slippery customer.
Look at verses 3 and 4.
When we put bits
into the mouths of horses
to make them obey us,
we can turn the whole animal
or take ships as an example.
Though they are so large
and are driven by strong winds,
they are steered
by a very small rudder,
wherever the pilot wants to go.
Likewise, the tongue
is a very small part
of the body,
but it makes great boasts.
And then on to verse 7.
All kinds of animals,
birds, reptiles,
and creatures of the sea
are being tamed
and have been tamed by man,
but no man can tame the tongue.
It's a restless evil.
I recall leading a Bible study group
in Norway on one occasion.
We were on a day trip
down one of those lovely fjords.
Huge mountains rising up
on either side
and covered in snow
in the winter, of course.
And I happened to say
to the guide,
when the spring comes
and the snow begins to melt,
surely the properties
and the people
living near the bottom
of those mountains
are going to be
in great danger.
He said, yes,
and there have been.
There's been great damage
and sometimes great fatalities, too.
And then he said this,
words I will never,
ever forget.
He said,
sometimes an avalanche
can be caused
by the sound
of a single voice,
by the sound
of a human voice.
Just enough,
it's the last thing
that triggers off
a fall of snow
with catastrophe
to follow.
And none of us
is capable
of quantifying
the catastrophes
that have been caused
by the sounds
of human voices
and by our voices
at times.
Our tongues
are weapons
of mass destruction.
We can destroy
a person's reputation.
We can destroy
a person's home life.
We can destroy
their family.
We can destroy
their church
by saying things
that are untrue,
unnecessary,
unwise,
and ungodly.
Sometimes when you
go to a physician,
he will say
in the course
of an examination,
show me your tongue.
It wasn't an interesting
thing to do.
He used to see
the same doctor
every year
and he'd say,
show me your tongue
and then give me
a running commentary
on what was going on
in several other parts
of my body
because of what he could
see in my tongue.
And it's out of the heart
that the mouth speaks
and the tongue
so often gives us away.
Allow me to say this
and I hope you won't
find it too critical.
I just hope you'll find it
deeply searching.
Most of us talk too much.
There are many occasions
when we'd be better
to keep our mouths shut
and people would think
we were fools
than open them
and remove all possible
doubt on the subject.
I've found this person
as I studied James
a very great challenge.
Yes, there have been
many times in my life
when I kept my mouth shut
and I should have opened it.
I've missed the chance
to witness,
to say something,
to make a positive contribution.
I plead guilty
to doing that
more times
than I could ever count.
For every time
when I have
kept my mouth closed
when I should have opened it,
there have been
ten occasions
when I've opened it
and I should have
kept it closed.
And only afterwards
I've got home
and I've just felt
deeply ashamed.
Why did you say that?
Why did you add
that extra word?
Why did you feel
you just needed
to contribute
to that situation?
So James says,
hold your time.
Tame it.
Is what you're about
to say true?
Is it honest?
Is it fair?
Is it helpful?
And is it necessary?
And then very quickly
in two kinds of wisdom
is the next section
and the key is verse 13.
Who is wise
and understanding among you?
Let him show it
by his good life,
by deeds done
in the humility
that comes from wisdom.
The one thing
very quickly
that I want to say
about this
because we really do
need to pass on
is this.
We all of us
would like to think
that we are wise.
Most of us,
I guess,
would like to think
we're also very smart.
But we're not all
intellectuals.
We don't all
have a great education.
We're not all.
There are so many things
I know nothing about.
But we like to think
that we are wise.
I think you use
the word smart
in America.
I'm not sure
that's the right word,
but I'll forgive you.
But, you know,
we're just wise.
Notice what James says
is a mark of wisdom
that you act
in humility.
I find that deeply
searching and telling.
The height of wisdom,
here it is,
deeds done in the humility
that comes from wisdom.
Let him show it,
James.
Actions do speak
louder than words.
Well,
quickly on to chapter 4.
And the first section
is called
Submit Yourselves to God.
And the key is
verse 7.
Submit yourselves
then to God,
resist the devil,
and he will flee
from you.
And we should add,
come near to God,
and he will come
near to you.
But the point here
is about submission.
One of the great
open secrets
of what used to be called,
maybe still is in some circles,
the victorious Christian life,
what I would prefer to call
the normal Christian life,
is this.
Firstly,
to submit.
Submit yourselves,
therefore,
to God.
That's in direct contrast
to the spirit
of the age
in which we live,
which is always assert.
Make your own presence felt.
Show them that you're number one,
that you're in charge.
Instead,
we should make
knowing and doing God's will
the overriding determination
of our lives.
And look at verse 6.
God opposes the proud.
We just mustn't miss
what is being said there.
Those four words,
God opposes the proud.
That word,
opposes,
is a military word.
I want you to imagine
in the days of
pre-nuclear warfare,
here is a,
we'll call the podium
a huge valley
for the time being,
and here's a big mountain range,
and an army is set up
on this side of the valley.
On the other side,
here is another army.
And the intelligence
from this army discovers
that the enemy
is about to attack
on this wing
and has moved his forces,
most of them along here.
The defender now moves
his strongest forces there.
He is matching
the position
of the attacking army.
Then the attacking general
changes his mind
and moves most of his army
this way.
So the defender,
who's got intelligence
of what is happening,
moves his army this way.
So he's ready to defend it.
Are you following me carefully?
The proud person
asserts himself here.
Guess what?
God moves his armies
to oppose him.
Antitaso is the word.
It's an extraordinarily
powerful and direct
and immediate word.
And when you think
that God's army
is the Lord of,
is the hosts of heaven,
everything in the universe
is at God's disposal.
And if you set yourself up
to be proud,
God will oppose you.
God hates pride.
It may well be,
without going into detail,
it was pride
that caused Satan
to fall in the first place.
Pride dethrones God
and puts man
on the throne instead.
And so James warns us
in the strongest of language,
God opposes the proud.
And he adds,
and resist the devil.
Have you noticed
that nowhere in the Bible
are we told
to attack the devil?
Nowhere.
There's no need
to pick a fight
with the devil.
And the other thing
is this,
the more we submit to God,
the more fights
the devil will pick with us.
And if you are here
this morning
and you're saying,
well,
the devil is attacking me
so fiercely at the moment,
and maybe directly
I'm just being tempted
so severely,
and sadly in the same area
where I've known
so much temptation
in the past,
I feel that somehow
there must be something
wrong with me
because I'm being tempted
so much
and so badly
and so frequently.
Hear me carefully.
Temptation
is not
a sin.
Constant,
fierce,
relentless,
repeated
temptation
is not
necessarily
a sign
that there's
something
specifically wrong
with you.
After all,
Jesus was tempted
in all ways,
just as we are,
but he was
without sin.
And the promise
of James
is this,
resist the devil
and he will
flee from you.
But,
it doesn't say
he'll flee from you
permanently
when Jesus
had wiped
the floor
with the devil
in that
fantastic
confrontation
in the wilderness.
Luke
says this,
when the devil
had finished
all this tempting,
the devil
left him
until
an opportune
time.
So,
there were
more temptations
to follow.
When you think
that you've
successfully
beaten off
the devil
in a certain
situation,
he'll be back.
The story is told
of a young lady
who was struggling
with becoming
a Christian
and eventually
did become one
and someone
fairly soon
afterwards
suggested that
she should be
baptized.
And she said,
well,
no,
I'd sooner
just wait a little
bit and feel
secure and
settled in my
faith,
which was a
great thing
to do,
rather than
be baptized
prematurely
and then for
that not
to go
as it should.
But a few
months later,
she came to
the pastor
and said,
I feel I'm
really making
some good
progress in
the Christian
life.
I really
would like
to be
baptized.
Well,
there was
great rejoicing
and she
was baptized.
And six
months later,
she came to
the pastor
and said,
look,
I really
need some
help.
I'm just
having a big
struggle in my
Christian life.
Things are not
the way they
used to be.
In fact,
I feel less
of a Christian,
less effective
as a Christian
and making
less progress
than I used
to before.
And to make
matters worse,
I thought my
baptism would put
an end to all
of that.
And the pastor
said,
no,
I didn't hold
you under
long enough.
So if you
as a Christian
are looking
for a
post-conversion
experience that
will put an
end to
temptation and
have you
living triumphantly
and gloriously
forever,
there is a
post-conversion
experience that
you can have.
And here it
is.
Die.
That'll do
it.
Just die.
All you have
to do is die
and your
temptations are
over.
And I
suspect that
most of us
would like to
postpone that.
So he will
flee from you,
but it's not
permanently.
So Peter tells
us in 1 Peter 5,
be self-controlled
and alert.
And then very,
very briefly,
the next section,
boasting about
tomorrow and
the key verses,
verses 13 and
14.
And addressed
to businessmen,
of course,
today or tomorrow,
we will go to
this or that city,
spend a year there,
carry on business,
make money.
Why?
You don't even
know what will
happen tomorrow.
What is your
life?
You're a mist
that appears
for a little while
and then vanishes.
Some of us,
now not least,
are in the kind
of work and
ministry where
a lot of
long-term
planning needs
to be done.
In the few
days before
Pam and I
left home,
just about
three days ago
to come here,
I had to do
so much
forward planning
to do with
a big tour
in Scotland
and another
in Northern Ireland
and all of it
had to be done
before this trip
because after
we get back
from this trip,
I do a Bible
conference in the
middle of England
and 48 hours later
I'm in Portugal
and it just would
get all snarled up
so I had to do
all of that
ahead of time.
But James says,
don't boast about it.
Do what is sensible,
of course,
and proper,
but don't count
your days,
just make sure
that every day
counts.
That's the all-important
thing.
Pam and I pray
every morning
at the beginning
of every day.
We just pray
that that day
will count.
We don't know
what that day
is going to bring forth.
We have those days
when there are big events
in it and we cover
those in prayer,
but there are other times
when we say,
well, today's,
it's all bits and pieces
as far as we can see.
No big appointment
that I have to meet,
no meeting I have to speak at.
It's all kind of,
you know what I'm saying,
it's bits and pieces.
But we cover them
before the Lord
and we try to make
that day count for Him.
And then we get
to chapter 5
and there are three
headings here
so we'll deal with them
very, very quickly.
The first is
warnings to rich oppressors
and the key is verse 4.
Look,
the wages you failed
to pay the workmen
who mowed your fields
are crying out against you.
The cries of the harvesters
have reached
the ears of the Lord
all-powerful
and you say,
well,
and serves them right
to be told.
They need to be told that.
Here are employers
and they're underpaying people.
They need to be told
God knows what you are doing.
And you would say,
well,
I don't employ anybody
so this doesn't apply to me.
Yes,
it does.
The principle
which applies
is this.
Everything you say
enters the ears
of the Lord Almighty.
Everything you do,
He sees and knows.
And there was a monk
centuries ago
who came up with the phrase
practicing the presence of God.
And that's the way
we should live
our lives.
And then secondly,
patience and suffering
and the key is verse 8
where the word patient
means long-tempered
which is the opposite
of being short-tempered.
In Psalm 86,
the Bible says,
God is slow to anger.
And my friends,
if God is slow
to anger with us,
how slow we should be
to anger,
get angry with other people.
If somebody says of you,
boy,
they've got a short fuse,
they're not paying you
a compliment.
Thomas Jefferson used to say,
if you get angry,
count to 10.
And if you're very angry,
count to 100.
That's not bad advice.
Look,
God is slow
to get angry.
And if we are quick
to get angry,
we're missing the boat
somewhere.
We're not acting
as God would have us act
or as He has acted
towards us.
And then finally,
the prayer of faith
and the key is verse 16.
And the end of verse 16,
the prayer of a righteous man
is powerful
and effective.
But just before dealing with it
in a moment as we close,
just go back to verse 13
which tells us
when we should pray.
At what point in our lives
should we be coming
to God in prayer?
How much of our lives
is related to our relationship
with God?
Look,
here it is.
Is anyone of you in trouble?
He should pray.
Is anyone happy?
Let him sing songs of praise.
So there is never a time
when approaching God
and consciously bringing Him
into our lives
is irrelevant.
In Charles Dickens' great book,
The Tale of Two Cities,
it begins with this phrase,
it was the best of times,
it was the worst of times.
And my friends,
you and I,
we have the best of times
and we have the worst of times.
And what James is saying,
whether it's the best of times
or the worst of times,
take it to God in prayer.
Thank Him
and praise Him
and seek to worship Him.
Martin Luther,
when he heard bad news,
used to say,
let's sing a psalm
and spite the devil.
There is no part of our lives
that is irrelevant
as far as God is concerned,
no experience in our life
when we can't come to God
in praise
and in prayer.
Now,
as you were looking
at the end of this chapter,
I imagine some of you
were saying,
now this will be important.
I wonder if the key verses
are going to be
verses 14 and 15.
Is any one of you sick?
He should call the elders
of the church
to pray over him
and anoint him with oil
in the name of the Lord
and the prayer offered in faith
will make the sick person well.
The Lord will raise him up.
If he has sinned,
he will be forgiven.
And you may be saying,
well now,
what are you going to say
about that?
Now,
those are verses
that really
at times
would have a serious impact
on our lives.
So,
what will you say
about that
this morning?
The answer is
nothing.
But,
in the book
Truth for Life,
I've spent,
I cannot tell you
how many hours
I've spent
studying that
and writing,
I think it's chapter 39.
I even went at one stage,
it was a coincidence,
to Greece
and spoke with Greek pastors
there about the sense
and the tense
of the language
that's being used here
and what it really meant.
And I believe
I was greatly helped
in being able
to flesh out
in great detail
what James is meaning
from this.
And the same applies
to the rest
of what has been written
because the book
would contain
about 50 times
the amount of teaching
that you've had
this morning.
But notice what follows
in verse 17.
Elijah was a man
just like us.
And many of you
will know the story
of Elijah
and the incident
to which James
is particularly referring.
He prayed,
and as Elijah
prayed earnestly,
that it would not rain.
And it didn't rain
on the land
for three and a half years.
And again he prayed,
and the heavens gave rain,
and the earth
produced its crops.
And we can stand back
from that and say,
whoa,
now that's the kind
of person
I would like to be.
That's the kind
of prayer
I would like to be.
That when the place
was flooded
and drenched,
he prayed
and there wasn't rain
for years.
And then when
there was a drought
and rain was needed,
he prayed,
and the rain came.
Boy, if I could be
that kind of Christian,
that kind of prayer,
what a difference
that would make.
And James
hits us straight
between the eyes
and says,
Elijah was a man
just like us.
He was no different
from us.
He had his strengths
and his weaknesses,
his faults
and his failures,
his flaws.
The passage
is not about
the power of Elijah.
It's the power
of Elijah's God.
And the point
James is making
is Elijah's God
is our God.
So we should
never set any limit
on what God
may do
in our lives
or in our church.
John Newton
in one of his
lovely hymns says,
you are coming
to a king.
Large petitions
with you bring
for his grace
and power
are such,
none can ever
ask too much.
The epistle of James
is what I've called
as a title
to the book
Truth for Life.
And I pray
that as you
reflect on what
you've heard
and as you reflect
on what
later you will read,
you will discover
what James says
is truth
not just for
other people
but is truth
for your
life.
Let's pray together.
Our gracious God
and Father,
we thank you
for your
infallible,
inerrant,
perfect,
up-to-date,
and applicable
and relevant word.
Help us to
understand
this portion
of it
and give us
the greater grace
of obedience
to it.
and we ask
it in Jesus'
name.
Amen.