Introduction To James Series

BIG JOHN COMING TO TOWN: New man made bartender and warned by owner, ‘If you hear Big John is coming drop everything and run for your life’.

Months later a white faced cowhand ran in yelling, ‘Big John is coming to town’.

Before the bartender could run into the saloon can a huge man riding a buffalo and using a rattlesnake as a whip. The doors splintered off the frame as he entered.

‘Give me a drink’ he shouted as he pounded the bar and it split in two.

He downed the whole bottle in one gulp and turned to leave.

“Wwwwould you like another drink sir?’

‘Don’t have time, haven’t you heard, Big John is coming to town’.

1:1 James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.

• SERVANT - devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests

• James could have described himself as the brother of Jesus, family of the King of Kings. Hardest people to humble yourself before are those of sibling rivalry past.

• DISPERSED – Persecution and trials has scattered believers

ANTICIPATION

1:2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

• CONSIDER – rule, authority, govern, leadership word Leading thought

• WHEN – as soon as: you can expect this to happen

• ENCOUNTER – fall into as to be encompassed no way out of them types

• VARIOUS – multicolored, Technicolor used in OT to describe coat of Joseph

OS HAWKINS: Basically two types of trials: Correction & Perfection. The first comes when we are out of the will of God and are meant to bring us back to Him. The second comes when we are in the will of God and are meant to make us more like Jesus

• TRIALS – an experiment, proving test Bird learning to fly

• Decide to rule over the thoughts that would overcome you in the midst of the trials of life which are certain to come your way and out of which there is no escape.

Roses in the Balken Mountains: Produce some of the world’s finest perfume. In order to get the best fragrance the workers must pick them in the darkest part of the night. The start right after midnight and finish within two hours. Scientific study has shown that this is the interval where the blossoms give their most pleasing scent and that with the coming of day they lose 40 % of their fragrance.

Dark nights are necessary for our greatest fragrance to appear.

UNDERSTANDING

1:3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

• Most don’t know this

• KNOW – to become intimately acquainted with this truth, man/wife relationship

• TESTING – proving meant to prove a point about you(JOB) See Reflection

• PRODUCES – fashions, brings about, works into

John Eldredge tells the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the 19th century. He lived days before professional trainers and developed his skills alone in the highlands. He made his own discus from the description he read in a book. What he didn’t know was that the competition discus was made of wood with an outer rim of iron. His discus was made of pure metal, four times heavier than the ones used by his would-be challengers. This committed Scotsman trained day after day, laboring under the burden of extra weight. He marked the record distance and kept working until he could throw that far.

Of course, when he arrived at the competition, he was handed the official wooden discus. He threw it like a tea saucer. He set new records and for many years, none of his competitors could touch him.

As Eldredge reflected on this story, he said, “So that’s how you do it – train under a great burden.

Christian is like a teabag, he is not worth much until he has been through hot water.

PARTICIPATION

1:4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

• PERFECT-finished, wanting nothing, completed end

• Root is to reach the intended goal – God’s intentions for your life will never be reached without trials producing endurance in your life which results in completeness.

• COMPLETE – without blemish

• LACKING –left behind, destitute, having all the necessary parts God never is finished with us because there is always a new part of us to work on

Her name was Helen Hayworth Lemmel. She was in her nineties. She had been born and raised in wealth in England, and was well-known as a songwriter. Mrs. Lemmel probably wrote seventy or eighty Christian hymns and gospel songs that were popular in the 1920s through the early 1950s. Mrs. Lemmel had married into nobility; her husband was a lord. But she was stricken with blindness as a very young woman, and her husband divorced her because he didn’t want to be married to a blind woman. Somehow she ended up destitute in Seattle, Washington, a ward of King County, living in a tiny room in a home where the rent was paid by the county. Every time we would visit her or she would come to our home, we would ask her how she was doing, and she would always say, "I am fine in the things that count." Helen Lemmel: had in her room a little plastic organ on a table. It was like a child’s chord organ. She would play that and cry and sing. She had this vision of getting to heaven and having a mighty, thundering pipe organ. She didn’t see the little plastic organ as a disadvantage. It was just a foretaste of glory. This was a down payment on what God was going to do for her, and she counted on that. Another of her sayings was "I can hardly wait!" You probably know the most famous song that Mrs. Lemmel wrote: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace."