WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:01.120 Well, good morning. 00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:05.440 We're going to be spending now until December studying the book of James. 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:11.919 So our goal today is to intro the book of James and then spend time in the first four verses. 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:19.760 At the end of the service, we're also going to try to reserve some time for a church update and what's next for our church in the last section of our service. 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:22.879 So a bit of a shorter sermon this morning, more of a meditation. 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:24.640 Still going to get you three points. 00:00:24.719 --> 00:00:29.679 You know, so I know my job as a preacher is to get you three points, and so we'll definitely do that. 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:39.359 Now, James was most likely written by Jesus' brother, James, and he wrote it to Jewish believers who had been scattered due to persecution. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.359 Honestly, I've never really liked the book of James. 00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:47.920 I don't know if you're allowed to say you don't like a book of the Bible, but I've never really connected to the book of James. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.679 I don't spend a lot of time in the book of James. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:51.759 One reason why I wanted us to study the book of James. 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:53.439 James just feels blunt. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:55.039 He feels bossy. 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:59.679 This is the exact reason some of you love the book of James. 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:01.520 That's, I mean, you love it. 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:03.920 James can't be more clear. 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:06.400 He is so on point. 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.640 He's just gonna tell it like it is. 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:15.519 There's actually more commands of what we should do in the book of James than any other New Testament book. 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:24.319 So, of course, James can feel like a list of things we should do to be Christians or to be good Christians, a list of demands. 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:26.879 It's easy for it to feel that way. 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:28.879 Get your act together and do more. 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:34.239 This is actually why Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, said he called the book of James the Epistle of Straw. 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.640 He didn't like the book of James. 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:44.400 It's easy for us to ask how do we reconcile James with Paul's limitless grace? 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:50.000 But remember, we read any book of the Bible in light of the whole Bible. 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:50.879 Right? 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:58.719 So we read James in light of the biblical narrative, that meta-narrative of God's loving rescue of us through Jesus alone. 00:01:58.879 --> 00:02:03.519 Now, given that Paul wrote most of the New Testament, Paul wrote about a third of the New Testament. 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:07.519 James is one little book of that New Testament. 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:18.400 It's going to be fair of us, or at least we are going to read James through the lens of Paul's doctrines of grace, not the other way around. 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.960 Last Friday morning I was hiking up the back of Kinesaw Mountain. 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:24.000 I was moving pretty good. 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:30.479 I was going a pretty good clip as my morning exercise hike, and I'm passing some people, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself. 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.599 I'm feeling a little self-righteous and all my hiking abilities. 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:41.840 And so I get up to the switchbacks, and as I'm going up the first switchback, I hear two voices, a couple, a man and a woman, behind me. 00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:43.280 And my first thought is, how? 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:45.599 How are they behind me? 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:47.439 How can I even hear their voices? 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:49.280 Because I am moving. 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:51.280 How are they there? 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:58.000 So I get up to the next switchback and I do the look back to kind of see, you know, who are these characters. 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:02.000 And young couple, late 20s, that's all I see. 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:04.639 And I'm like, no, no, uh-uh. 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:13.439 I am 44, but I still got it in me, and I kick it into high gear, I pick up my speed, they are not passing me up this mountain. 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:23.280 And sure enough, their voices are getting closer and closer, and they never seem out of breath, which was not encouraging to me, because I am huffing and puffing at this point. 00:03:23.439 --> 00:03:27.520 And finally, finally, they crushed me. 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:28.879 I just have to step aside. 00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:30.719 And it's just that humble. 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:34.800 But I catch a look at them. 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:41.360 They were the two most beautiful human beings that I have seen in years. 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:42.879 I mean, unbelievable. 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:47.360 I mean, really gorgeous human beings, both of them, the man and the woman. 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:49.599 I mean, unbelievable, unbelievable. 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:50.879 Took me back. 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:56.639 I mean, I was like, I mean, they were tall and thin, just the right amount of muscles. 00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:58.800 Not too much where you're like, you need to calm down. 00:03:58.879 --> 00:04:04.240 It's just the right, just the right, their skin, their skin was smooth. 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.080 I don't know if you remember that. 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:08.240 Skin was smooth. 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:16.879 And they hiked in front of me for a little bit, and they didn't have on a lot of clothing, so I could see everything, and everything was looking great. 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:20.160 It was, I mean, it was, it was glorious. 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:22.480 It was like glorious human beings. 00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:31.040 And I'm sure they had no emotional baggage in their life or childhood wounds, or I'm sure he didn't wake up at night to pee in the middle of the night like I did. 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:34.079 I mean, this was like, these people were amazing. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:35.199 They were the ideal. 00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:38.000 They hiked in front of me for about two minutes and then they were just gone. 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:39.600 I couldn't I couldn't keep up. 00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:41.199 They were gone. 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:48.560 It's easy for that ideal to just all of a sudden make you just feel horrible. 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:50.879 Like, oh, to be like that. 00:04:51.279 --> 00:04:51.839 Right? 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:54.639 James can feel like that. 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:55.279 Right? 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:59.279 All this ideal of Christian living, which is glorious and good. 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:00.240 It's good. 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:01.759 It's who we should be. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:12.720 It can feel like a list to do that's glorious and good, and yet it's sort of like slowly chasing you down, like crushing you because you're not as perfect as you should be. 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:23.759 So I say all that to say that we can either read James void of the rest of the New Testament and become self-righteous and exhausted Pharisees. 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.360 Or we can read James in light of the New Testament. 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:36.639 And we can discover how free we are in Jesus and how free God desires us to be in our heart and our actions. 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:42.399 Now, as much as James is all about that, he actually begins somewhere else. 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:45.120 So James 1, 1 through 4. 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:50.240 James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes and the dispersion, greetings. 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:56.240 Count it all joy, my brothers, and we say, brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds. 00:05:56.480 --> 00:05:58.720 We are two verses in. 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:01.839 He gave us one verse of warm-up. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.560 This is how blunt James is. 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:06.240 I mean, one verse. 00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:11.680 Paul gives you all these flowery, gracious verses, warms you up, and then he hits you. 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:13.680 Like James is right at you, verse two. 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:21.360 Count all the suffering is joy, verse three, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:28.000 And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:29.600 Well, let's make some sense of this. 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:35.040 Point number one: part of our transformation will be our trials. 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:37.920 You see the progression in the verses? 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:39.600 He lays it out pretty clearly. 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:45.759 Trials, testing of faith, steadfastness, wholeness. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:51.199 And James says, because of that, count trials as joy. 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:53.680 That's tough. 00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:07.439 I mean, just in the past year in our church, we've had cancer, seizures, physical and mental disabilities, adults have passed away, children have passed away. 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:12.079 We have loneliness, addiction, rejection, financial stress. 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:22.240 Well, I'm not willing to count that hurt, joy. 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:24.800 Maybe you can get there. 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:32.160 I'm happy to be angry for a little bit, sad for a little bit, and then hopefully heal. 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:34.319 So what are we counting as joy? 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:35.519 What can we count as joy? 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:38.800 Well, I think we can count the process that James, right? 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:40.959 The process is James laying out there. 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:44.000 When you meet the trial, like what's gonna happen? 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:50.480 We're counting God's transformative process of the hurt as joy. 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:54.639 We don't have to count the darkness as joy, but what God will do. 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:59.040 Counselor and author Chip Dodd says God's the ultimate garbage man. 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:13.120 He takes all the mess, all our mess, all our trash, all this stuff that just feels helpless and takes it all supernaturally, grinds it up, composts it, and he can grow flowers. 00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:26.959 We don't take joy in the garbage, but we can take joy in the ultimate garbage man, and we can take joy in the transformation that can happen to us in hurt. 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:32.480 Point number two, God will use your trials to move you toward wholeness of heart. 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:36.559 That's where James is leading us in this progression, pretty logically. 00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:41.600 Trials always tap into what you really rest in for security and meaning. 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:48.559 What actually is real in the core of who you are? 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:50.960 Well, a trial will reveal that. 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:54.559 Are you just the accumulation of good circumstances? 00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:00.320 Or are you something much more profound and rooted and secure? 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:05.519 Are you just what you can accumulate and accomplish and perform? 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:11.279 Or are you rested in something more secure than any circumstance? 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:15.200 Are you the beloved son and daughter of loving Abba? 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:25.120 Steadfast is this word hupamani, meaning patience or constant endurance. 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:30.799 So steadfastness is a it's a stickability that we cling. 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:33.840 We cling to Christ through the trial. 00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:40.879 Do you remember the 1994 emotional profound movie, Dumb and Dumber? 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:44.399 It was the movie of my high school. 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:50.000 If you were my age, you knew it, you watched it, you rewatched it, you got dumber every time you watched it. 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:56.879 Jeff Daniels' character Harry, as dumb as they get, he's on a ski lift. 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:00.399 He thought it'd be a great idea. 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:02.559 He saw frost on the ski lift. 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:04.799 Great idea to lick the frost, right? 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:08.240 Then you remember they couldn't get Harry off the ski lift. 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:09.440 Stickability. 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.440 Very high culture illustration for us educated people here, but true. 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:17.600 We stick to Christ. 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:22.399 Not because we are strong and we are sticky, but because he is sticky. 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:24.080 That's why we can stick. 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:25.840 That's why we clean. 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:32.399 Paul says when we're weak, he is strong. 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:35.279 That's why we can be strong. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.600 We can be strong because when we're weak, he is strong. 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:39.120 That we are loved in our mess. 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:42.960 That was what empowers us to be able to be steadfast. 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:45.279 Because he is steadfast to us. 00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:51.759 He is loyal to us, absolutely perfectly committed to you in all things. 00:10:54.240 --> 00:11:02.000 And let steadfastness, verse 4, have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:06.320 Perfect and complete means mature, whole. 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:13.519 Now we know in the gospel that in Christ we're already fully righteous, fully forgiven, fully whole. 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:16.720 We are deemed whole in Christ. 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.159 We're given this, put upon us. 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:32.879 And yet we're still all on a journey of discovering how amazing that wholeness is for us as we become more astonished of the gift of our identity in Christ. 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:39.840 Okay, so we read these verses, it's easy to say. 00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:47.200 So I'm supposed to be steadfast, endure, constant, in trial. 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:55.440 The problem is, that feels like really bad news because when a trial hits me, all I can do is fall apart. 00:11:56.879 --> 00:11:57.360 Right? 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.000 You're under it, you feel under it. 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:02.960 I mean, all you want to do is fall apart. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:05.039 That's just true. 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.720 The question is, is where do you fall? 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:11.600 When you fall apart, where do you fall apart? 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:13.039 Are you clinging to him? 00:12:13.279 --> 00:12:16.480 Are you steadfast to him when you fall apart? 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.639 Where does your heart find its comfort, security, and meaning? 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:31.679 James gives one little hint here of grace as he calls us brothers. 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:33.840 We say brothers and sisters. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.960 Because to be a brother and sister, you have to be a son or daughter. 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:43.840 James is acknowledging family. 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:46.000 That we are the family of God. 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.919 And nobody earns their way into a family. 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:52.000 Point number three. 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:55.440 We said this in the book of Titus the last month. 00:12:55.679 --> 00:13:01.600 We don't have to live as orphans in the world when we are beloved children of the Abba Father. 00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:04.080 Paul explained this clearly for us. 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:06.000 Romans 8, 15. 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:13.600 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons. 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:18.080 And we say, sons and daughters by whom we cry, Abba Father. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:23.279 I saw this cartoon this week, thought of our sermon and what we're talking about. 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:26.879 There's a little delay there. 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:28.799 You can start to kind of amuse yourself. 00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:32.240 The problem is we don't laugh too much because we actually know the feeling. 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:33.679 And it's a horrible feeling. 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:37.120 So you don't quite know, should you cry right now or should you laugh? 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:40.480 Because you've felt like what it feels to drown. 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:45.919 Like to be under something, like under the stress, the pressure, the letdown, the disappointment. 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:50.639 And then the person you thought might help you just says, quit drowning? 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:51.679 Right? 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:59.679 You're unable to do something, and the one who should help you tells you to get better at the thing that you can't do. 00:14:01.279 --> 00:14:03.679 And this is how the worldly saviors work. 00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:13.600 All of our worldly saviors that we go to to try to save us and relieve us and comfort us and forgive us and love us, they all promise a whole lot and they just stay on the lifeguard stand. 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:18.320 They can't really love us in our need. 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:23.200 Fortunately, Jesus does not teach a parable of the apathetic lifeguard. 00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:24.639 Can't find it. 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:25.759 It's not there. 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:41.519 The image Jesus gives us is he tells us the story of a loving Abba who welcomes home the worn-out, beat down, broken, exhausted, rebellious, guilty and ashamed child. 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:46.080 And he actually comes off the porch to move toward him. 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:54.639 And as the self-righteous older brother is there being self-righteous and arrogant, the father communicates and moves toward him in love. 00:14:54.960 --> 00:15:00.000 The loving Abba comes off the porch to move in love toward both of them. 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:06.000 The reason James can call us brothers and sisters is because we are sons and daughters. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:11.840 God's love to you is limitless and is not conditioned upon any of your performance. 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.799 That's the gospel we bring in to James. 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:25.039 And then James has some very clear points to make to us about the fruit of the gospel in our lives, in trials, and in our actions. 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:36.240 And this saving love, this is what we know about the gospel, is so powerful that it can heal the heart of the rebellious and it can heal the heart of the self-righteous. 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.360 And it can sustain us in all trials. 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:50.399 Beloved, God is actively pursuing your heart in all your rebellion, all your arrogance, and all your trials. 00:15:50.639 --> 00:15:51.840 Let's pray together. 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:54.480 God, thank you for your love to us. 00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:06.799 While we have not always loved you, and certainly we have not loved you perfectly, nor have we lived even close to perfect, you were perfect for us in your son, Christ. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:17.039 Thank you that we are fully loved, fully accepted, fully forgiven, fully righteous, whole in Jesus for us. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:24.799 May we grow more astonished of this great gift of our identity as your sons and your daughters. 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:26.879 And may we honor you with our lives. 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:28.320 In Jesus' name. 00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:29.039 Amen.