Episode 322 - Pure Joy

The brothers discuss the pure joy found in James 1:1-2

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And welcome back to Two Brothers One Bible Podcast. We are so glad that you are listening. Wherever it is in the world, we have listeners all over the world. Imagine that. Isn't that amazing? And uh this podcast has been going on for almost three years, and we really do appreciate you listening. Uh, let's go ahead and introduce ourselves because I have a major announcement to make. Okay, all right, dude. So I'm gonna do that. I'm Robert Wakefield. I'm Peter Sears. And welcome to Two Brothers One Bible Podcast. We have a fun thing that we're gonna start introducing, and I don't know how long we'll do it, but we'll do it for a while anyway. Um on Mondays on the podcast, uh, we're going to ask a trivia question, and then on Wednesday we will answer it. And this was an idea from my aunt. Oh she sent me a message and said, it would be really fun if you guys had a question that you asked. Okay. And that way we could search for it, and then later on we could answer it, and that's what we're gonna do for Jay. I like it too. All right. So I want to thank her for the idea. This is what we're going to do, and we're gonna start it here in the book of James. So I think you have the question of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I do, and and this is in honor of your aunt. We're gonna do this, and in honor of you. So uh we've made a big deal in previous podcasts about you're just you're fluent in your Greek. And so I think a Greek reference for our first trivia question is in order. So, James in in verse three of chapter one uses the word no. And so the trivia question is what Greek word does he use?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Okay, so that is the trivia question. Yeah, you can send us the answer, and we would love for you to do this because we want to hear from you. It's it says send send fan mail wherever you get your podcast. You click on that, it's you can send a text message over your phone. It comes to our email, it only comes to us, and answer that question, and we would love to have your questions as well if you have anything that you want to know. That's true. All right, so that's it. So welcome into two brothers one Bible podcast. We're gonna be in James chapter one, and we're gonna be reading uh verses one through four. So go ahead, Peter.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

All right. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

All right, so that is the word of the Lord. So he I just love the way he starts this book. Oh man. James. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Hey, we know who the author is. There is nothing to worry about on who did this. There's no how you doing. No. Hey, how's your mom and in? None of that. None of that. Boom. James. That's how he starts. And he says here, uh, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's talking about his identity, his authority, and shows his humility. Now, we talked in the last podcast, and I'm going to be Robert Wakefield for a second. Okay. If I'm raised in a household where Jesus, the son of God, is my half-brother.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I think I'm going to tell everybody I know that.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah. I mean me. That's just being me.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I think that's being being human. Sure.

unknown 3:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Um yeah, it's kind of impressive. You know, you're you're at a dinner party and say, hey, let me tell you what my brother is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

He's the son of God. Can you imagine living in that? I cannot I I try to put myself into James's place where Jesus is his half-brother. Right. And he's living in the same house as the son of God.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

He has seen the face of the Son of God probably more than anyone.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

You know, because they grew up together.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And it's just to me, it's just an amazing thought that he grew up in the same household.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, there's a there's a term called messianic consciousness that that is used about when did Jesus know who he was? You know, and so, you know, did did he know at age five? Did he have an idea who he was? Uh we see pretty strong evidence at at age 12 in the temple, you know, I had to be about my father's business, and he wasn't talking about Joseph. Right. You know. So, you know, but did he did he have an inkling then, or did he fully know? Was it as a baptism that he goes, Oh, I know why I'm here? Same question for James. Right. You know, and so we we see he's not a believer. Uh, you know, for him, he's just got an irritating big brother. Right, exactly. And then it's like, man, this is who he is. But he's he's not he's not playing on it. He doesn't call himself a brother, he doesn't call himself an apostle. And you know, and there was uh two other James that were were disciples of Jesus. Right. And so he said, may have said, I don't want to confuse him, but the title of an apostle is someone who had a you know a living saw Jesus, who, you know, spent time with him. He certainly qualifies. He did. So he could have used brother, half-brother, stepbrother, apostle, he could have used all these titles, and yet, because of his humility, right, because you know, and I think this is what makes a person humble is when you see the greatness and grandeur of God, you realize your position.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So when Jesus became more than just an irritating half-brother, when he became the son of God, James became a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

That is a great point because you know he could have introduced himself as a half-brother. He could have introduced himself as the leader of the Jerusalem church. He could have introduced himself as a pillar of the early church, as Galatians 2 9 tells us. But instead, he chose the word, here's a Greek word, the Greek word of the day. Are you ready? Yeah. Doulus, which is bondservant or slave. Yeah. He chose that word instead of those other things, which is amazing to me. Yeah. Because he he really had a unique perspective that no one else had. No. Well, Jude. Well, Jude, well, other than yeah, other than Jude. But you know, he is he is really positioning himself in in a in a way that's showing that look, I could have done this, but look, I'm I'm not just gonna tell you that uh Jesus was my brother. Yeah. Uh he's my Lord. He's gonna he's gonna say that Jesus is my God. Yeah. And and he's also saying, I am his servant. Yeah. So what a transition between the comparison of what Robert Wingfield would do if Jesus grew up in my house and what James did.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah. You know, it it it makes me have this this weird thought. I I love the song What a Friend We Have in Jesus. But is there a problem of talking about Jesus as our buddy? Well, I you know I can see that. Yeah. And and this is this is the conflict that James could have had. You know, he could have brought Jesus down into these household terms and these household relationships, and you know, he he was, you know, he's my brother growing up, and and yet he reveres him, he he respects him, he's in awe of him. And so I think, you know, whenever we we lose sight of the supremacy of Christ and make him too familiar, you know, and and don't get me wrong, he he is a friend of sinners. He he came, you know, into our lives, he he he's he gives us a relationship we we can't ever have on our own, but we still need to respect him as as the Son of God.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, familiarity can can cause casualness. Yes. And when you've when you have casualness, you know, you're more relaxed. Now, I think he wants that relationship with us. I think he wants us to be very comfortable with him and all this because he he knows what we've gone through but or and are going through now. But uh I th your point is well taken uh because this is this is the way James approached it. Yes. Yeah, if there's no more more familiar with Jesus than he was. Right. So so I think that uh it's just an amazing way to start a a letter that says, I am a servant of the God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right. Exactly. All right. So then who his audience is uh in the second part of this verse is to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. So talk about that for a second.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well, he's running in a time, and and we talked about that in the previous podcast. So this is early, this is 10, 15 years after the ascension of Jesus, and so a lot of these people growing up in in Israel uh are becoming leaving either Judaism or or their Gentile beliefs and becoming Christians, and there's persecution. The Jews are not wanting them to become Christians, and so the easiest thing for them to do is get out of Dodge, and so they're going somewhere else. And so this has probably been happening for about 10 years. Okay. And so James is is sending out this letter to kind of encourage them, give them some some you know, I guess a roadmap, a blueprint for how to uh live their Christian life.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Right. So the this displacement we can read about in Acts uh eight chapter one, uh that these Jewish Christians were being scattered all over the Roman Empire. And can you imagine if today, yeah, this was today, and we as Christians were being persecuted in the way they were, and we were being sent and we end up leaving you know our churches and everything. That one a tremendous amount of pressure that these people had to feel because they're they're believing in Jesus and they're wanting to serve him, but yet they're being persecuted to the point that they're they're being killed and burned at the stake.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, what what you're saying is reality. Some of our podcast listeners that may be their current state.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Because it may not be that way in America, but it is still that way in many places in the world that you you cannot invoke the name of Jesus, you cannot become a Christian. If you do so, you do with the penalty of of your family turning their backs, of you being hunted by the state, of being arrested by being beaten or facing death.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And you've experienced that when when you've gone to Africa on several things, on missionary trips. You've actually experienced that kind of persecution. How did the Christians respond?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

You know, it's amazing. Uh I I was in Romania and uh our translator was an older gentleman. And so I I just want to know, I I went shortly after the fall of communism, and so the the door to the West was wide open, Pepsi was coming in, Coca-Cola, Sony, all these all these American influences. And so I asked him, I said, What's what's the biggest difference? And he said, you know, before they would have a Bible, they would hide their Bible, they would read their Bible, they would memorize it in case someone took their Bible. He says, Now our Bible rides in the back of our car. Oh. And he says this to me with tears streaming down his face. Wow. Because the sacredness, the treasure of it, the the you know, the just holding on with the two-fisted would was gone. Wow. And I think that's the problem in America is we've we've grown up with this casual laxadaisical attitude about our faith. We don't cling to it without desperation.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Oh, that's a good point. And and I think, and I hope that's what this pup podcast is bringing to folks is that that we are trying to make sure that you cling to the Bible and that you study it and and follow along with us as we take this journey through James. So we've uh we've really unpacked verse one. Yeah, we did, didn't we? Ready to go to verse two. Let's do it. All right. All right, he goes from who he is and and what he stands for, and he jumps right in, like we talked in the last podcast, on the doctrine. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Um this this word consider it pure joy. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. You know, and when you think in the context of who he's writing to, that really has to stand out as something. Wait a minute, I'm supposed to be excited about being persecuted?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And he's calling it pure pure joy.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah. Yeah, you know, and and you could change the word pure to all. I mean, he's saying everything you experience in life, you need to be joyful. And and and that statement just doesn't make sense to us because we encounter every day, you know, and sometimes we get a little dramatic, and it's like it's really not that big of a deal in the scheme of things, but we don't take well to our plans being hijacked. This is these were my dreams, my ambitions, my goals, and then this happens. Exactly. And we don't take it well, but but James is saying, no, no matter what happens, the highs, the lows, the blessings, the curses, the the promises that are fulfilled, and the promises that are left empty, whatever they are, be joyful. Right. And and that's that's an attitude and a mindset that's really something that has to be cultivated in our minds and our hearts.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Right. This guy wrote this joy is not the emotion of the trial, it is the interpretation of the trial. That's good. And, you know, I I've mentioned this before, um, that that my brother, you know, has has cancer. It's a it's gone. Yeah. But when he was going through the the radiation treatments and when he was going through the chemo and and and just the the suffering he was going through, one of the things that impressed me the most was that he never complained about it to me. Right. You know, he he he just knew this was a trial. And he knew this that God was on the other side of it. There you go. And because he's already there, and that's one of the things that we've talked about in our our podcast before is that if you're facing a trial, know that God is with you at the beginning of the trial, yeah, but he already knows how it's gonna end.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

And and I think that helps you cultivate the pure joy that James is talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah, you're that's a great example of your brother Terry, and uh that really should be our mindset because we're so quick to shake our fist at God when bad things happen. Why me? You know, I I thought, you know, you were gonna bless me, and and so why'd this happen? And boy, we we never get mad at God when He blesses us too much. You know?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

We don't com we don't complain about that, do we? Could you stop God blessing me so much?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

I just can't take anymore. But like Jesus said, the water falls on the on the good and the bad, right? You know, and so things happen in life, and so the only thing we can do is just be thankful and have that joyous attitude.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

So talk about pure joy. What is the difference between pure joy and just regular joy?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

You know, uh like we've talked with Paul, we these these adjectives are important. He could have just said consider it joy. But he said it's pure joy, it's it's not compromised, it's not diluted, there's there's no tinge of anything of of remorse or disappointment or heartache. It's just joyful. Thank you, Father, for what you've done.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Amen. Isn't that good? Yeah. That pure joy, uh, you know, James is saying this, this all joy meaning not just partial joy.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

You know, it's all joy. It's all joy. All joy. Uh it's not when joy when it's over or joy when it works out. Um it it's when you're facing these trials, uh, if we consider it pure joy, we know that our whole attitude is going to change as far as the trial is concerned.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, and this this takes us to what James is talking about is is he says that God does not allow these trials to come to our life just just out of a willingness. God allows these things because it's going to lead to perseverance, it's going to increase our faith muscle. And so trials are what bring us to our knees. Trials is what refines our faith. Trials is is where we find out how steadfast and faithful God is in our relationship. Right. And so if we didn't have those, it and someone said the the roots of a tree are strengthened by the winds its face.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And so it's the same for us. Sure. We become more grounded, more strengthened in the trials that we endure.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

You know, try uh trials are you know inevitable. We're we're gonna have them. And James says whenever you face trials of many kinds, and you know, when you word see that word face, that means to fall into suddenly. Yep. Um it's like falling into a pit. Yeah. You know, you don't know the pit's there. But when you fall into the pit, boy, you've got to deal with that. Yeah. And so that's kind of what he's talking about here. Whenever you face trials of many kinds, it's uh, you know, it's just sometimes they're just unavoidable.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Uh and then he talks about trials of many kinds, which is shows me that it's different kinds of pressures. Yeah. Well, it could be financial, it could be uh a relationship problem, it could be a health crisis, uh, it could be a workplace crisis or whatever, spiritual attacks. Yeah, there you go. Uh that could be part of our our our trials of many kinds. He's James is saying whatever the color of the trial that you're facing, right, God can use that for your your benefit.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

And I and that's that's hard to listen to.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, I hear the music, so obviously we're going to end on verse two. But I think the way in our humanity we handle trials is our prayer becomes make this trial pass as quickly as possible. Exactly. Instead, if we really wanted to do what he says in verse three, which we haven't gotten to yet, but if we really want it to be beneficial to us, if we want to grow from it, then then when we experience a trial, not only do we face it with joy, but we also say, Father, what are you teaching me in this?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Because I think if we don't learn those lessons in those trials, then I think we're we're going to face those lessons again in the future. And so if God's bringing something into our life and we don't like it, it's not our plan. It's like, Father, what are you showing me?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

That is such a great approach. Yeah. Because it makes me think of Psalm 23. Yes. You know, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Right. Because now are we.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, so that's that's a great point. It's all about perspective. Yes, it is. And I think that's what James is telling these persecuted Christians. Yeah. It's all about perspective.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah, and what a lead sentence. I mean, this is the first thing he wrote.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

We got three two verses. Yeah, well, you know, we don't want to break. Well, we're overachieving, aren't we? All right, that's uh that's gonna be all that we have for today's episode of Two Brothers One Bible Podcast. I'm Robert Wakefield, Peter Searson, and we're zooming through James. We'll start with verse podcast. Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.