#47. James: Identity and Expectation
James 1:1-12
Good morning! Please open your Bibles to the book of James. My favorite book of the Bible. Not just because my name is James, although I’m not gonna lie—I remember looking at the Table of Contents in my copy of the Children’s Living Bible when I was first learning how to read, and realizing there was a whole book of James. I remember going up to my big brother Allen and saying, “Where’s YOUR book of the Bible?”
It’s funny—I don’t think I remember anything that happened after that. He must have punched me.
But I love the book of James because it is so practical. It is so action oriented. There are 108 verses in the book of James, and there are over fifty imperative verbs. Imperative—that’s saying “do this” or “change that” or “don’t do this.” It’s about how to live life a life that pleases God. James isn’t about how to become a Christian. It’s about how to live like one.
It’s also very pastoral. Even though the church started with Peter’s preaching, it was James that was the recognized leader of the church in Jerusalem. Paul called him a pillar of the church, along with Peter and John (Galatians 2:9). Paul planted lots of churches, but the longest he stayed with any one of them was a year and a half. But James led the Jerusalem church. Even after the Jewish believers were scattered after Stephen’s martyrdom (see Acts 8:1), James continued to pastor them. And you see the love and concern James has for his flock throughout the book.
By nearly all accounts, this was the first book written in the New Testament. It was probably written between 48 and 52 AD, just a handful of years after the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord. So the book of James gives us a great window into what mattered to the church in its earliest days. I’ve heard it said, Jesus started the church the way he wanted it, now he wants the church the way he started. So if we want to be a Christ honoring New Testament church, James gives us an incredible blueprint.
And so with that, let’s dive in. Our text is James 1:1-12. I want to point out four things James teaches about who we are in the world, and then five things he commands us about what to do in the world. So here we go: James 1:1-12. Please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
[READ and pray]
May God bless the reading of His word. Let’s pray.
Who In the World Am I?
The first identity question we have to deal with when we read the Book of James is, “Which James was this?”
James starts off this letter straightforward way: “I’m James.” But there are three different James’s in the New Testament. There were two of Jesus’ disciples named James: James, the brother of John, the Son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alphaeus. But the first James was martyred too early for him to be a good candidate, and either one of them would probably have added, “an apostle of Jesus Christ” to the greeting if it was one of the disciples. So by process of elimination, it was James, the brother of Jesus.
Other than the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, we first hear that Jesus has a family in Mark 3:21, when his family, who has apparently heard that Jesus is healing people and calling disciples to himself, comes to seize him, saying “he’s out of his mind.
A few chapters later we first hear the Jesus had a brother named James in Mark 6, when Jesus is rejected in his home town of Nazareth. At that time all of Jesus’ former neighbors are like, “Who is this guy? Where did he get this wisdom? Isn’t this Mary’s boy? We know his brothers—James, Joe, Jude, and Simon. We know all his siblings.
In John’s gospel, we learn that not even Jesus’ brothers believed in Him (7:3).
And yet, twenty years after Jesus was crucified, James is the head of the Jerusalem church. Clement of Alexandria calls him James the Just because of his reputation for virtue. One volume of church history said he was also nicknamed “Camel Knees, because he spent so much time in prayer that his knees became calloused.
So what does it take for a skeptical younger brother to become the leader of the Jerusalem church? How does that happen?
It happens when someone rises from the dead. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is giving his defense of the gospel. He says,
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Guys, I love my brother. I have always looked up to him. But there is absolutely no way he could ever convince me that he was the Messiah. I would have to have seen him die, watch him be buried, and then see him in the flesh before I could ever believe him.
And that’s why James’ turnaround is such compelling evidence for the truth of the resurrection. Ask yourself—could anything less than that have convinced someone that their big brother was the son of God?
So James is how the people in Nazareth knew him. They knew his family. For some of us, that’s a good thing, and you want to live up to your family’s reputation. Or maybe it’s a bad thing, and you are trying to redeem your family’s reputation. James could have been either one. Nazareth may have seen him as part of an honest, hardworking family. Or they might have still remembered the rumors floating around about Mary getting pregnant before she and Joseph were married.
Now let’s make it personal: Who in the world are you? Maybe some of you need to be reminded that your family is neither a hindrance nor a help in your responding to the gospel. Whatever your name is, whatever kind of upbringing you’ve had. whatever kind of education you’ve had, however many times your mom and dad took you to church, none of that makes a difference to whether you do or don’t respond to Jesus’ offer to save you from your sins. Nothing about your biological family will give you right standing before God and a right relationship with Him. Until James had a personal encounter with the risen Lord, he was lost. It didn’t even matter that his half brother was the Messiah. Until he placed his faith in Jesus, he was lost.
What is your identity in the world this morning? Are you lost? You don’t have to stay that way. James’ didn’t. Let’s look at the second identity question James answers: Who in the Lord was he?
What I love about this is that James didn’t just name drop the fact that he was the brother of Jesus. It wasn’t “It’s me, hi, I’m the brother, it’s me.” You may know the contemporary Christian singer Michael W Smith. For years, I worked with his sister Kimberly. But I never knew that until someone else told me. To me, she was Kim, an administrative assistant in the Fuge office.
And that’s how James is. He identifies himself as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Greek, the order of that sentence is James, of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, a servant. The most important thing he says about himself is that he belongs to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The word for servant is doulos, which depending on your translation is translated servant, or bond-servant, or slave. The word comes from a root verb that means to bind or or tie—to put under obligation. The word that’s used here means a person who was born into slavery or a person who willingly continued in slavery. James is writing to believers who are culturally Jewish (we’ll get to that in a minute), so they would know that according to the Torah, a Hebrew slave had to be released after seven years. But, if the slave loved his master, he could choose to stay forever. In that case, the master would pierce the slaves ear, and he would be bound to that master for life.
And that’s how James described himself. He said, “My body is permanently marked as a willing slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Listen: when you surrender yourself to the Lordship of Jesus, it’s permanent. You never lose your salvation, but you also never lose your obligation to serve Jesus as your Lord. You’ve been bound to Him because you were bought by him. Paul got this. He said,
“I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ living in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
So again, let’s make it personal. Who in the Lord are you? Are you bound to Jesus? Have you put His will ahead of your own? Could you say “Mike, a bond-servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ?” That’s what it means to surrender your life to Jesus. It is giving Jesus absolute authority to exercise His own will in your life.
Now, let’s look at who James is writing to. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.” What is that about? Well, let’s look at what was happening in the early church. At Pentecost, the church of 120 became a church of three thousand. Within a very short time, according to Acts 4:4, the number grew to five thousand men, not counting the women.
Things couldn’t be going any better. They’d gone from a house church to a megachurch literally overnight.
But then, according to Acts 7, Stephen became the first Christian martyr. And from there there arose a vicious persecution of the Jewish Christians. Acts 8:1 says that they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.
So was that the end of the church in Jerusalem? To answer that, you have to ask another identity question: What is the Church? Not in the least. Because look what happened in Acts 8:4—those who were scattered went about preaching the gospel. The church gathered in Jerusalem became the church scattered throughout the country and later throughout the world. Which was exactly what Jesus intended. He told the disciples in Acts 1:8 that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, to Samaria and the ends of the earth.
Glynwood, let me ask you—do we stop being the church at 11:00 Sunday morning? Some of you are saying, no, James—sometimes you go over. But the answer is no. How do we end every worship service? “Glynwood, you are sent.” We read “the dispersion” and it sounds like some big terrible thing. But what does “dispersion” really mean? It’s when something is dispersed. James didn’t say to the 12 tribes of the disappearance. Please know that Jesus never intended His church to be thought of as a building. It was always to be on the move. Have you ever thought about the fact that Christianity is the only world religion that isn’t associated with a specific country or region of the world? Think about it. What is the geographic center of Judaism? Israel. Islam? Saudi Arabia. When you think of Hinduism, you think of India. Buddhism, Japan, Korea, Tibet.
But what country is associated with Christianity? None of them. All of them. At one time, Europe was the center of Christianity. Then it moved to America. Today, Christianity is growing the fastest in the global South—Africa, Latin America, Asia. The church can’t be contained to a building. It can’t be contained to a country. It can’t be contained to a continent, because it was never about a place. It’s about a people.
So we’ve talked about who we are in the world, who we are in the Lord, and who we are as the church. Now I want to finish up with the identity question that may be most on your minds this morning: Who am I in trials?
Verse 12 says,
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
“Trials” is a word that is most often translated “temptation.” We see it in the Lord’s prayer—lead us not into temptation. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray, that they may not enter into temptation.”
But it can also mean testing. One definition is “adversity, affliction, trouble sent by God and serving to prove one’s character, faith, and holiness.”
Think about the teachers or coaches you’ve had in school. I know you guys are coming up on finals, so you might be able to relate. There’s basically two kinds of teachers when it comes to tests. There’s the ones who are trying to weed you out— using exams to trip you up and out you on what you don’t know and exploit where you are weakest. Think drill sergeants. Their goal is to eliminate the weak links.
Then there’s the ones who are trying to build you up—using an exam to remind you of what you do know. It’s like when a new aircraft goes through dozens and dozens of flight tests before it’s declared fit for combat. They may be rigorous tests, but the goal is to make them better. Why? Because the Air Force has invested millions and millions of dollars into these aircraft, and they want them to succeed. And the test pilot himself REALLY wants the aircraft to succeed, because he’s the one in the cockpit! Every time he goes up to put that equipment through its trials, he is putting his own life on the line.
Which one of these do you think God is doing when He tests you? Of course. He is a test pilot, not a drill sergeant. Think about it. God invested a crucifixion in you! He gave His only son Jesus as a ransom for your sins. He is not trying to weed you out of the kingdom of God. His goal is to make you combat-ready.
A test pilot has a vested interest in the success of the plane he is flying, because he is in the plane. The last thing he wants to do is bail out. Well, maybe that’s the second to the last thing he wants to do. The last thing he wants to do is to still be in the plane when it crashes and burns.
God has a vested interest in your success, because He is in you. The last thing He wants is for you to crash and burn.
But here’s a big difference between a test pilot and Jesus. Jesus is never going to bail on you. He’s never going to push the eject button. God’s word says that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6; Heb. 13:5-6). He’s going to be with you in the time of testing. 1 Corinthians 10 says he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
So let me wrap up with five commands James gives us in this passage. Remember there’s over fifty imperatives in James. Here’s the first five:
1. Count it all joy. Verses 2-3,
2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
You can count it all joy because you can be confident of God’s character. He loves you. You were worth so much to God that He gave His one and only Son for you.
You can count it all joy because you know there’s a reason for what you are going through. We’ve already read verse 12—there’s a crown of life waiting for you on the other side of this test. Paul put it this way in Romans 8:18: he said that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.
2. Trust the process. (v. 4)
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
See the end from the beginning. The full effect of your steadfastness in suffering is that you will be perfect and complete.
3. Ask for wisdom (v. 5)
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
God’s Word promises that this is one request He is guaranteed to grant. He is generous. He isn’t going to berate you for asking. If you need wisdom for getting through whatever you are going through, ask, and God will give you wisdom. But here is the key:
4. Believe without doubting (v.6-8)
6 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. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
See, God has already given us wisdom through his Word. We know he keeps this promise because He already has! But what do we do with God’s Word? We second guess it. We wonder if it’s really relevant. We know God’s wisdom, but we keep asking for a second opinion. Listen, when we do that, verse 7 says that we should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. So don’t ask God for a revelation when He has already given you a reference. Don’t ask for a vision when He has already given you a verse.
Finally,
5. Adjust your priorities (v. 9-10)
9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass[c] he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
Ask yourself—how many of my so-called trials are about money? Or the Iron Bowl? Or when vacation plans fall through – James helps us put this in perspective.
