Well, we're going to turn to God's word now.
I'm going to ask our ministry apprentice, Jemima Allen,
!
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.
We're starting together today
in a new series on the letter of James.
And a lot of people, if you read on the letter of James,
oftentimes people will say
that it's the New Testament Proverbs,
that it's aphoristic,
so it's got different topics one after another.
So even in our reading today,
James talks about suffering,
then he talks about wisdom,
then he talks about doubting.
But now scholars and commentators,
and I think rightly so,
they see that it's far less the style of Proverbs
and far more a coherent vision
with a coherent background,
one big idea that James is trying to communicate
to his listeners.
And so to see that,
you've got to ask the question,
who is James writing to?
And we read right there in the first verse
that he's writing to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.
So who are these folks?
The dispersion, I think,
with lots of commentators and scholars recently,
that the dispersion is referring there
to what happened in the earliest moments in the church.
Think about the book of Acts,
Acts chapter 8,
where Stephen was stolen to death,
and then the next thing we read is
the church was scattered, dispersed.
And so primarily he is writing to Jewish Christians
from Jerusalem
that have been dispersed all over the Roman Empire
because of early persecutions.
And not only them,
but then we read,
it's the twelve tribes of the dispersion.
So why twelve tribes?
And one of the keys to know
is that the name James in Greek
has a Hebrew name equivalent to it,
and that's the name Jacob.
So a Jewish person would read the name James
and think Jacob.
And you might remember from the Old Testament,
from Genesis,
Jacob is Israel,
and Israel had twelve sons.
And so he writes here,
not as James in our minds,
but think more as Jacob, Israel,
writing to the twelve tribes of the dispersion.
So this is one of the early apostles,
Father Israel, Father Jacob,
writing to the whole church.
So this is not just to people
who were scattered by the persecutions,
but to the new covenant church.
So the twelve tribes of Israel
find their fulfillment
in all believers, Jews and Gentiles,
in the new covenant.
And so he's writing to the whole church,
but very specifically
to people that were scattered
because of persecution
in the first century
all over the Roman Empire.
And the book has this coherent argument,
if you will,
this vision.
And the vision is effectively
for James to answer the question,
how does a follower of Jesus
live holistically as a disciple
in the midst of being scattered
all across the world?
So the church is not all together.
We're not yet in the new Jerusalem.
So really similar to the book of Daniel
that we've just looked at,
the church is,
we are scattered all across the world,
all empires.
And how do we live as followers of Jesus
consistently, coherently?
And he's going to address different issues
that that brings,
especially when faith is being tested
constantly in all of those contexts.
So you're going to find,
as we work through this book,
that this letter is very plain spoken.
It's very hard hitting.
James cuts through appearances.
And this letter will change your life.
It really will,
if you will let it.
And it will shake you up
from your soul outward.
And so let's let it this semester.
And let's see today
the first thing he wants to tell us about,
about what it means to be a disciple
all across the world.
And he's going to teach us first,
the nature of a disciple.
Second, the reality of trouble.
Third, the good trouble can bring.
And lastly,
the pathway to see it that way.
All right, so first,
let's think about the very first verse,
the nature of a disciple.
That's what he teaches us first.
Now, we said who he's writing it to,
but who is he?
Who is this James?
And very probably,
by tradition and by all the evidence,
this is James,
the biological brother of Jesus Christ,
James the Just.
He's technically the half-brother of Jesus.
And he was the most prominent pastor
in Jerusalem in the book of Acts.
And he presided even over
the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15,
which was a really big deal.
The first great church council.
But notice in verse one,
how he introduces himself.
He doesn't point to any of that.
Instead, he says,
servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, when he says servant of God,
that sounds very polite,
but the Greek word is the word slave.
So he says,
slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then for Jesus' name,
he attaches a title, Lord.
And the readers that are scattered
all across the Roman Empire
would know that the word Lord
is a very particular word.
It's a Greek word,
kyrgios.
And when,
before Jesus came,
some folks translated the Old Testament
into Greek,
every single time the name of God,
Yahweh,
was used,
they chose to translate that as kyrgios,
the word Lord you read in the New Testament.
And so when you see Lord Jesus Christ,
that is Jacob,
James saying Yahweh Jesus Christ.
And that would be an absolute astonishment
for a Jew in the first century
who did not believe at all
that God could become a human being.
And so he's saying Yahweh,
the creator of the world,
Jesus Christ,
when he says this.
Now, the second reason that's so shocking
is because James is his biological brother,
the brother of Jesus himself.
Now, imagine the person you grew up with
if you have,
if you're a person in this room
who has siblings,
maybe a brother, in fact,
or a sister.
You grew up with them,
bunk beds,
messy rooms,
drooling on the pillow,
nothing glamorous about it,
no pretense.
You can't hide anything from your siblings.
Nothing.
And you know that
when you were maybe in high school
and people would come along
and praise your sibling
and they would say,
oh, your brother, your sister,
they're so sweet.
They're so kind.
They're so generous.
They're such a great young man,
young woman.
You would have that inner eye roll
or that outward eye roll.
And you're thinking,
oh, yeah, yeah,
you don't live with them.
And you know that nobody knows you
like your brother or sister knows you
and you cannot hide your vices.
Not at all.
And that's what makes this
an absolute shock
that the brother of Jesus Christ
who shared toys,
who undoubtedly slept in the same bedroom,
who undoubtedly lived life together
holistically in every way,
would say,
I am his slave.
He is my brother
who I played with.
As a little boy,
I see him
and I will consider you
that's the creator of the universe.
And you've got to be taken back by that today
as we begin this letter.
And we know,
even more than that,
we know that James did not always follow Jesus.
So John chapter 7 verse 5 says,
the biological brothers of Jesus Christ
did not believe in him.
John tells us that explicitly.
So what happened to him?
You can imagine James as a 15-year-old
struggling with this idea
that Mary has been teaching him
that your brother is God incarnate.
And he was a skeptic,
as he would be,
especially as a teenager.
And then all of a sudden here,
he's saying,
this is my master.
I am his disciple.
What happened?
And at least this,
in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 7,
Paul tells us
that when Jesus Christ rose from the dead,
he appeared specifically to James.
Can you imagine?
So Paul lists all the people
that Jesus appeared to,
but Paul goes out of his way
to reserve one clause
for one specific person,
and that's James,
his brother.
Jesus Christ,
the resurrected Savior,
showing up and meeting one-on-one
with his own brother
that he grew up with.
And James' life went from skeptic
to servant,
right in that moment.
Now that's a disciple.
That's how you become a disciple.
You look at the cross,
you look at the resurrection,
and you move from skeptic to servant.
And that's exactly what happens here
in James' life.
This is, you know,
we're reading his testimony
in verse 1.
And we learn what a disciple really is.
A disciple is a servant,
a slave of the Creator,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
and one who says,
I want to follow him,
I want to be with him,
relationally,
not just follow his teachings,
but I want to follow him.
And one who wants to become like him,
and one who says,
I'm his servant,
I want to go and do
as he goes,
as he tells me,
where he tells me to go,
and what he sends me to do.
That's a disciple.
We're learning right here
the nature of a disciple.
And it's striking that James didn't say,
hello, hey, my name is James.
I am the pillar of the church.
That's what Paul called James,
pillar of the church.
And he doesn't say,
I am the top pastor in Jerusalem.
You know, my books sell the most
in Jerusalem when I write books.
No, he says,
slave of the Lord Jesus.
That's all I want to be known as.
That's the nature of a disciple.
And you've got to ask yourself
as we begin this series,
is that me?
Do I want to be with him
and become like him
and go where he tells me to go
and do what he tells me to do
and say,
I am servant.
That's what I want to be known as.
Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yahweh, Jesus Christ.
Now, secondly,
the very first thing
that then James wants us to learn
about how to be disciples
is how to face trouble.
So the first thing he teaches us here
in verse two
is the reality of trouble.
Now, it's interesting that,
you know, it's not,
he doesn't turn and say,
okay, here's the manual for discipleship
and talk about the details of theology
or how to gather as a church,
a church government,
when you're scattered all across
the Roman Empire.
The first thing he wants to say
is talk to you about how you suffer
and how you face suffering.
And so you can see right there
in verse two,
he says,
count it all joy,
my brothers and sisters,
when you meet trials of various kinds.
Now, the word that he uses
for meeting trials
is only found one other place
in the Bible connected to suffering,
and that's in Luke 10,
the parable of the Good Samaritan.
And so it's a word for walking.
So it could be translated like,
count it various,
count it all joy,
I should say,
my brothers and sisters,
when you walk upon,
when you walk up on trials and suffering.
Now, press pause there for just a moment.
And I'll try to mention a few things
along the way
that will help us
to all read James together as we go.
And one of them is this,
scholars will come and say,
the book of James,
the letter of James
is not Christ-centric.
It's not Christ-centered.
It's theocentric.
It's just God-centered.
Why?
Because he only mentions Jesus
two times in the whole letter.
So the one we just saw
and then one other time later.
But the reason they're so wrong about that
is because what he's doing
is he's constantly teaching you
Jesus' teaching.
So he's drip-feeding
the words of Jesus all throughout.
So when he uses this Greek verb
for walking upon suffering,
that's only used one other place,
and that's in Luke 10,
when Jesus said that
a man once walked up upon
suffering, trial,
a robber
in the Good Samaritan parable.
In a moment,
he's going to say,
suffering can make you perfect.
That's probably a quote
from Matthew 5, 48,
where Jesus says,
you must become perfect
as your heavenly Father is perfect.
So he's drip-feeding
Jesus' teaching all throughout.
And so in this instance,
he says,
you're going to fall upon trouble.
And what is he trying to tell us?
He's trying to tell us here
that even as a disciple
of Jesus Christ,
who says,
I'm willing to take up my cross
and follow Jesus,
you don't go looking for trouble.
Trouble finds you.
Trials find you.
Suffering finds you.
You don't have to go looking for it.
He's saying that Christians
are not masochistic.
No, no.
But trouble is coming.
Trials are coming.
Suffering is coming.
It's inevitable
for every single human being.
So he's talking to us here
about the inevitable reality
that suffering
is absolutely going to come
into our lives.
It's a guarantee.
Suffering,
as all of you know better than me,
does not make appointments.
It finds you
on ordinary roads.
It comes upon you.
And he says here
that it's suffering
of various kinds,
meaning there's big suffering,
life-shattering suffering
that some of you
are walking through right now
that's going to come
for all of us at some point.
And then there's small suffering
that's every single day,
little annoyances.
And he's saying,
I'm talking about all of it.
I'm talking about every bit,
every kind of suffering
there can be.
It's going to find you.
Now, I think we all have
an internal monologue
going on in our souls.
Maybe we've made it explicit.
Maybe it's only been implicit.
But the internal monologue
is something like this.
We say to ourselves,
when I can get fill-in-the-blank,
life will be better.
When I can finally get
a relationship,
life will be better and easier.
When I can finally get rid
of this relationship,
life will be better.
Life will be easier.
When I get a job better,
when I get rid of this job
that I hate,
life will be better.
And we could say
about a thousand things.
When I retire,
life will be so much better.
When I finish my degree
at university,
life will finally get easier.
And I think what happens,
actually,
and as we age
and get older every decade,
we learn this more and more,
that living for the horizon
only seems to prove
over and over again
that we encounter
different types of hard.
We get the thing we want,
what we said life would be.
It will be better when.
And then the when comes,
and it can be a beautiful thing,
but it also brings
just a different type of hard,
a different set of trials
and suffering.
Every road we walk down,
it still meets us,
no matter what,
even if we think
it was the greatest thing
we could imagine.
There's a wonderful book
by the author Cormac McCarthy,
The Road.
And in McCarthy's book,
The Road,
it's a post-apocalyptic landscape,
probably from nuclear war
in the southern United States.
And it is a raw,
bleak, dark book.
So you should go read it.
And in it,
it's about walking
through this land of ash
in Tennessee.
And the whole book
is focused on the fierce love
between this one father
and this one son.
They're all each other have.
And they're pushing
a shopping cart
through these old
busted up roads.
And there's this refrain,
I mean,
just trying to survive,
just trying to hold on
to something.
And there's this refrain
that the father
always tells the son.
And it's a metaphor,
a theme throughout
the whole book.
And he tells the son,
son, you must learn
to carry the fire.
And in it,
in the book,
fire is a metaphor
for purpose,
for a sense of a reason.
In other words,
it's a metaphor for saying,
does my suffering
have any purpose at all?
And he's telling his son,
you've got to carry the fire.
Don't let the fire go out.
In your heart,
you have to realize
that there is some light,
some reason,
some hope,
some purpose
in the midst
of this horrible thing
you're walking through.
And James is telling you today
that Christians
have a reason
to learn
to carry the fire.
That you can have,
you can face suffering
and suffering
cannot extinguish
your purpose.
And in fact,
suffering even more
can give you a purpose.
What is it?
You see,
the question of this book
really is
not if trouble is coming,
but who are you
going to become
when it does?
That's the question
that he's posing to us.
So thirdly,
what's the purpose?
James tells us here
that there is good
in trouble,
good in suffering
for a disciple
of Jesus Christ.
And he tells us that,
especially in verse 2,
he says,
count it all joy,
brothers and sisters,
when you face trials
and tribulations.
Now,
is that toxic positivity,
you know,
the kind of positivity
that some of us display
and others get frustrated by?
No,
he is not saying there,
feel good about your suffering
because the word count
is an accounting verb.
It's a command of thinking.
It's a cognitive verb.
And so he's saying,
think about it as joy.
He's saying,
mind,
Christian mind,
tell your Christian heart
that it is joy
because you don't feel that way.
Count it joy.
Let your mind tell your heart
that it is.
In other words,
it's when you say,
heart,
you talk to your heart
and you say,
heart,
look at the ledger
of this event in your life
in red drying ink,
this suffering,
and you've got to transfer it
merely from the column of misery
to the column of joy.
You've got to write it
and say,
this is joy to me.
And the question becomes,
in this cognitive reframe,
how could you say that?
How could he possibly tell us
to do something that?
And the answer is in verse three
when he says,
suffering,
test your faith
and can lead to steadfastness.
So here's how.
He says,
for a disciple of Jesus,
you can take suffering
and you can account it as joy.
Your mind can tell your heart,
put it in the column of joy.
How?
Because it is an opportunity
to test your faith
so that your faith
might grow and deepen.
In other words,
he's saying,
suffering for the believer
has a fire to it,
a purpose,
and it's that you might change.
And the way he puts it
is that you might become
complete, perfect,
lacking in nothing.
And the idea here
of perfect
is not sinlessness.
That's not what he means.
It's the word telos,
which means
that you would reach
your full purpose
in this life.
Same way that the Old Testament
uses the word blameless.
Job was blameless.
Jonah was blameless.
It's not sinlessness.
No, no.
It's complete,
whole,
that God is taking
the chisel of suffering
and hammering away at you
to form you into something.
In other words,
he's telling us
what the purpose
of discipleship is,
of being a disciple of Jesus
in your suffering.
It's to become mature.
It's to grow.
It's that every single event
and annoyance
and bit of suffering
in your life
can be approached
in a way
where you treat it
as an opportunity
to mature,
to become,
what is a disciple?
One who says,
I will follow him.
I want to be with him
so that I can become like him.
And this is telling us
that suffering
is the pathway
to becoming like him.
Now,
the word he uses,
steadfastness,
it can make you
into a person
who perseveres.
It's a gymnasium term
in the Greek,
Greco-Roman context.
It's an athletic term.
So you can produce
steadfastness over time.
So Paul takes you
into this metaphor
of the gym
and working out.
And you go to the gym,
you think about
what it takes
to reach your goals,
what it takes
to grow.
And what it takes
is resistance,
right?
You've got to
pick something up
that is heavier
than you want it to be.
And what happens
when you do that?
When you go to the gym
and you pick up
that barbell,
you pick up those dumbbells
and they're heavier
than you want,
than your body likes,
you feel pain.
You don't feel good.
You feel pain.
But then it actually
tears your muscles.
And then your muscles
grow back stronger.
And you see,
he takes that metaphor
to say that is exactly
what happens
for the believer
who approaches
their suffering
with the mindset
of theology,
who counts it all joy,
who lets the mind
say to the heart,
see it the way
God is telling you
to see it.
It's resistance.
It's strength building.
It's maturing.
It's making you complete.
Not sinlessness,
but well-rounded,
mature, virtuous.
Think about it.
How in the world
can we become
humble like Jesus is humble?
How in the world
can we become compassionate
like Jesus is compassionate?
You cannot go read
a book about humility
and then be a humble person.
You can't read a book
about compassion
and become a compassionate person.
No, not at all.
He's saying that the only way
to become humble
like James,
like Jesus,
like his elder brother
is to actually walk
through the crucible
of suffering
and to have the dross
smelted away,
to have your heart
chiseled away,
to truly put on
the humility of Christ.
And that's why Paul tells us
over and over again
we must complete
or put on the sufferings
of Christ in our life
in order to become like him.
And you all know
those who,
those people
who have especially
walked through
certain types of grief
are the best counselors
to those walking
through that type of grief.
Those people
who have faced addiction
in their life
are the absolute best counselors
to come and walk
alongside those of you
who are walking
through addiction.
Grace grows best in winter
as it's often said.
Grace grows best in winter.
It's the only way
to truly put on
the compassion of Jesus,
the humility of Jesus.
How about the freedom
from idols?
How can you be free
from idols in your life
unless you've actually
had to have them
ripped away from you
in suffering?
And Paul is telling,
James is telling us here
that we need,
we need the scars
to become like the one
who was scarred for us.
There's a moment
in Paul's letters
where he says it
almost identically
in Paul's own language.
Listen to the mouth
of Paul here
from the book of Corinthians.
He says,
the God of all comfort
comforts us
in all our afflictions
so that we may be able
to comfort those
who are in any affliction
with the comfort
with which we ourselves
are comforted by God.
He said,
God brings you comfort
in your affliction
so you can turn around
and give that away to others.
How else do you become perfect,
well-rounded,
complete,
lacking in nothing?
See,
I think one of the
most important takeaways
at the beginning
of this book
is to see
that the goal
of the Christian life
is not comfort
but maturity
and that suffering
is the pathway.
Now fourth,
finally,
the path.
How do we really
take this into our hearts
and our lives today?
Of course,
this is not automatic.
So even for Christians,
this is not automatic.
We can face suffering,
trials and tribulations
that are going to meet us
on the road
and they'll do
one of two things for us.
They'll either make us,
grow us,
or they'll break us.
And it depends
on how we face them.
So let me give you
a few things
as we conclude,
just very practical
to do to take up
this vision
that James is giving us.
The first thing is
we need a biblical vision
for facing suffering.
We've been talking about it
and it really is framed up
in that line,
count it all joy.
So we've got to take
that vision
into our hearts and lives.
And the reason
we want to reiterate that
is because the commentators,
the sociologists,
the philosophers,
they all tell us
the same thing
and that's that
we're always being surrounded
by a cultural consciousness
that does the exact opposite
of that.
So in the contemporary world,
many authors
have pointed this out.
We do,
as modern Western people,
we do not suffer well.
We are collectively
the worst sufferers
in human history.
We expect to be comfortable.
We expect to have life easy.
We talk about rights
and rights all the time
give us a framework
of entitlement.
And so suffering
comes as the biggest surprise
to modern Western people.
And so Jamie Smith
says that
in the modern consumerist mindset,
the question everyone
is asking in their soul is,
how do I change
the world around me
to fit my desires?
How do I engineer
my environment
for maximum comfort?
That's the modern question
in our hearts.
We're trained
for that question.
But the biblical question
is exactly the opposite.
It's how do I conform
my heart
to what God wants for me?
So not how do I engineer
my environment
to maximize my comforts,
but how do I engage
in my environment
to have my heart change
to desire
what God wants me to desire?
See, really,
the prayer of James
is this.
I hope this doesn't sound
too tricky,
but it's to say,
Lord, help me
to want what I should want.
Teach me in my suffering
to want what you want me to want.
And that's the call,
the real call of maturity,
to be shaped
by our suffering holistically.
Now secondly,
what can we do about that?
How can we take that up?
Verse 5 tells us,
here's how you do it.
You've got to ask
for wisdom from God.
So he tells you outright,
ask for this vision.
Now this is where
some commentators
and scholars
will talk about
the disjointed nature
of James.
You see,
James goes from
telling you who he is
to telling you
about suffering,
and now he's turning
to a different topic,
wisdom.
But not at all.
Instead,
what is he telling us?
This is the same topic,
the same idea.
He's saying,
before suffering ever comes,
you've got to ask
for wisdom.
And what is this wisdom?
It's the wisdom
to see your suffering
the way God
is telling you to see it.
It's the wisdom saying,
Lord,
help me to count
my suffering joy
today
before it ever even
comes into my life.
So he's saying,
you've got to pray
and you've got to ask for it,
and it's got to be
something that you're doing
before suffering
actually ever comes.
It's a vision
to say,
only the Lord
knows the secret plan.
Only the Lord
knows why
he's putting us
through the trial,
the suffering
that we've come upon
on this road.
But I know,
Lord,
give me the wisdom
to believe
that I am growing
because of this.
That somehow,
some way,
you are going to mature me
in the midst of this.
Ask for that.
Ask before it ever comes.
Third of four things here
to conclude.
But then he gives you
a condition,
and that's in verses
six to eight.
And the condition
is,
don't be a doubter,
don't be double-minded.
Now,
the Greek text
very literally says,
don't be double-souled.
So it's not a mind term,
but a soul term.
Don't be double-hearted
is what the text says.
And he's telling us there,
these are parallels.
Doubting and double-mindedness.
Is he telling you
that means
if you have doubts,
then there's no way
you're a follower of Jesus.
There's no way
you're a disciple of Jesus.
And not at all.
He's talking here
in the context.
Think about the context.
There's Christians
who have been scattered
by persecution
all over the Roman Empire,
and they're being confronted
wherever they are
and saying,
do you really believe in Jesus?
And many of them
are defecting.
Many of them are saying no.
In other words,
he's saying you can't
have it both ways.
That when the persecution
and the trial comes,
you'll say,
Jesus isn't making my life
comfortable in this situation,
so I'll deny even knowing him,
the path of Peter
before he returned to Christ.
And he's saying
you can't have it both ways.
Be single-minded.
That no matter
what suffering comes,
and even if it's going
to bring you great suffering,
you say,
I'm single-minded,
single-souled
for Jesus Christ.
There's a letter
from a man,
a Roman governor
named Pliny the Younger.
It was written
in the year,
about 112 A.D.,
something like that.
And Pliny,
this governor,
he writes to the emperor
of the time
of the Roman Empire,
Trajan,
and he talks about
exactly this,
single-minded Christians
and double-minded Christians.
And this is what he wrote
to Trajan.
He said,
he describes
capturing believers,
interrogating them,
and then he says,
even under the threat of death,
many of them
would not deny
Jesus Christ.
I asked them
whether they were Christians,
and if they confessed,
I told them
that I would give them
a second try
and a third try.
And if they continued
to confess knowing Jesus,
I threatened them
with further punishments.
Those who persisted,
I then ordered
publicly executed.
I did not doubt
that whatever it was
that they admitted,
their stubbornness
and their inflexible obstinacy
deserved to be punished.
Now, Pliny
and the Romans
of the first century
and many others
looked out
at the single-minded Christian
that said,
confessing Christ
is causing great suffering
in my life.
And he said,
that is obstinacy.
That is crazy.
And he gave them
a second chance
and a third chance.
But the Christian said,
that's single-mindedness.
That's single-souledness.
That even if following Jesus
makes my life harder,
I will not deny him.
I won't be double-minded.
I won't be double-souled
in the bottom of my soul.
My soul belongs
to Jesus Christ.
Now, lastly,
how could we become
people like that?
How could we face
suffering like that
and be able to be
single-souled,
single-minded,
to have a vision
for suffering
that that's grand?
History tells us
that James,
the author of this letter,
was murdered
in the 60s.
So he was
very probably
beaten
and then taken
to the top
of the temple
in Jerusalem
where he was a pastor
and thrown off
the top of the temple.
And the history
tells us
that he faced
the same thing
that we read about
with Pliny,
the question after question,
and then he refused
to deny
worship of his elder brother,
Jesus Christ,
and he was murdered for it.
How could you,
we think,
I don't think I could do that.
How can anybody
ever face
that kind of suffering
that the first century
Christians,
that James is writing
to,
was facing?
And the answer
is simple,
and the answer
is back
to what's underneath
this letter,
and that's that
James,
Jacob,
never took his eye
off his elder brother.
He looked to his elder brother
throughout the whole
of his ministry,
the whole of his Christian life.
Now Jesus,
Jesus was literally
older than James,
truly elder,
biologically,
by age.
But of course,
you know that
Jesus Christ
was also James'
elder brother
in another way.
And remember
that the book of James
gives you drip feeds
for you the teaching
of Jesus all throughout.
And you'll remember
in Luke 15,
the prodigal son story,
where there was
a younger brother
and an elder brother,
and the younger brother
went into the far country
and squandered everything.
He hated his own father,
but in the story,
you start to get the picture
that the elder brother
doesn't love his little brother.
And you long for the elder brother
to go out into the far country
and get his little brother
and bring him home.
You long for that in the story,
and he never does.
And the story ends
with an elder brother
basically just wanting
material possessions
and hating his family.
And we don't know
all that happened to James,
but what we do know
is that Jesus Christ
in 1 Corinthians 15, 7,
the elder brother
came to his little brother.
The resurrected Jesus,
he came to him.
You know,
I think what James realized
in that moment
is that Jesus Christ,
the true and better elder brother,
came into the far country
of this life.
And he came,
he came to be crushed
for our iniquities,
to suffer to the uttermost,
to walk through every trial
you will ever walk through
and know that
when you face suffering
and trial,
it is not the final word.
You can say,
brothers and sisters,
as James puts it,
Jesus Christ is also
my elder brother.
And that means that
every single thing
I walk through in this life,
I know that he has
walked before me.
You know,
he faced the cross
so I can face my cross.
He faced the cross
and even more,
what happened
when he was on the cross,
it says that the joy
was set before him.
What did he do?
He counted it all joy,
brothers and sisters.
When he faced the cross,
you were his joy.
So you can say,
because I was his joy
when he faced the cross,
I can face my suffering
and count it
in the ledger
of joy for him.
You see,
the gospel gives you
every reason,
the true elder brother
gives you every reason
to say today
that God is a master craftsman
chiseling away at me
and it's the power
of the gospel
that I can endure,
that I can face
the trials in my life.
When you walk
through the valley,
you're not alone,
you've got your elder brother
and that means
he is there
to be with you
and to grow you
so you can be with him
and become like him
and that's the call
of a disciple.
Let us pray.
Father,
we want to become like him,
our true and better
elder brother
and so we think
and thank you
for this word
that's really hard
to receive
that we have to face
suffering with a mind
that says we can change,
we can grow,
we can become mature,
complete,
lacking in nothing
so Lord,
reset our vision,
help us to want
what you want,
teach us how to desire
in ways that we do not today
and so we repent
before you
of our bad desires,
Lord,
we don't want
the things that you call us
to desire
so change us
as we work through this epistle
we pray,
oh Lord,
we thank you for your word
and as we sing
we ask that the Holy Spirit
would do a great work
in our lives
and we pray that
in Jesus' name,
Amen.