James: Brother & Servant

Transcript:

The following transcript was completed using AI software. Please note that there may be mistakes.

I want to share something. We're going to kind of try this out. We'll see how we like it, how we don't like it.

So this is a little tool. It's up at the front desk, front desk, front table. I feel like I just had school language just pop out there for just a second.

At the front table, they're just little, they're called Filament Bibles. They have the scripture in them, some spot for note-taking. You don't have to take it.

If you have something that works for you, then please, I'm not asking you to change. I was reading something a few weeks ago. So the American Bible, I know everyone loves a good statistic, right? The American Bible Society in April, 2022 found that through COVID, it was reported that nearly 26 million Americans had fallen out of any sort of Bible reading.

Now, just for context, their metric was that a person who went to church, they didn't even ask how often, but do you go to church, yes or no? And their metric was, do you engage with the Bible three to four times outside of church a year? That could be listening to a sermon. That could be reading the Bible. That could be, could have been anything.

That was their baseline metric. And the numbers have not really gone up since then. And one of the most important things, I think for me, if I haven't imparted this well, is that we don't just learn how to listen to the Bible, but we learn how to study the scriptures that we might hear from God and from his word.

And if you're like, Bryson, where's your reference for that? Thank you for asking. I have four. Joshua 1.8, this book of instruction must not depart from your mouth.

You are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it, for then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do. Literally, this is the very first time in scripture that scripture is actually mentioned. And it literally says that God's desire for us is that we would meditate on it day and night.

To meditate on it, you have to know it. But literally by following it, it says you will prosper and succeed. Second Timothy 3.16-17 says this, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.

So the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work God has a work for you to do. And if we, if our Bible is closed, if this is one of the greatest tools, I don't like always calling the Bible a tool, I think it deserves more reverence than that. But to understand that the work God has for us will not be fully accomplished when our Bibles remain closed.

Psalm 119.105, your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. If you feel directionless or you have no idea where to go, open up your word. God uses it as a lamp.

James 1.22, you guys see how I tied it into James right there? But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. God's call for us is not just to hear the word, but to live it out. So if this is a tool that's helpful for you, I pray it blesses you.

We'll look at other resources in the future. But I want to just encourage you guys this morning, find a way to take some notes. If that's on your phone, that's awesome.

If that's just doodling and scribbling, then praise be to God for it, right? But I want to encourage you guys, find some way this morning to engage that we might learn how to better engage with the scriptures outside of church. Hey, if you guys would stand, we're going to honor the Lord this morning with the reading. We have one verse to read.

And you're going to be like, Pastor Bryson, this is not the most profound verse, but it's an important one. Here we go. James chapter one, as we start our new study through the book of James, chapter one, verse one, James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes dispersed abroad.

Greetings. Let's pray. And we're going to dive into the scriptures this morning.

Father, we thank you today for your word. We thank you that it's your word that changes our hearts and our minds and our lives. Lord, we ask and pray this morning that as we begin this new study through the book of James, that this would be life-changing and transformative, that this would not just be something that we hear, but God, something that would really dwell in our hearts, Lord, that the word would get into us, that it might overflow out of our hearts and our minds and our mouths and the lives of people around us.

God, we ask and pray in the name of Jesus this morning, that again, our hearts would be open, our minds ready to receive your word. Holy Spirit, speak. It's in your name we pray.

Amen. Hey, you guys can be seated. We're not going to dive too deep, right? One of the nice things I like about James, I say dive too deep.

We're going to do more context today, and I think it's really important. James is a really unique book in the sense that I think to understand the context is going to help us as we walk through this study. And the purpose of this study is to forge.

So as we get into James, you're going to see kind of that trial and how the Lord works in our faith, but to forge a genuine faith through trials and obedience so that it reveals our desperate need for Jesus and our total rest in his finished work. As we walk through this study over the next couple of months, it should take us to the end of June. This is what I want us to see in the scripture.

This is what I pray takes place in our life, that your faith is strengthened and not just like I feel good or I have a better prayer life or a better Bible study life. Those things are important, and I'm not downplaying those things, but that through trials and obedience, that you would find that your faith is strengthened, that your belief and trust in the Lord and the work that he's doing would be even stronger. I pray that what we see through this study is that it's not about us.

Like one of the biggest things I think we can take away from the James is that it is not about what you do or you don't do. The Bible says in Romans, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, so this is not about hitting the mark of perfection, but to strive to follow the commands of God and at the same time recognize that we can't, and it's in that recognition that we can't that a lot of people get really discouraged, and they're like, well, if I can't do it, I'm just not going to do any of them, right? But I want us to see not a discouraging word of I can't do this, but Christ has accomplished this on my behalf, and it's in that that we find rest, and I find these kind of things kind of almost like a paradox with each other. I love it what James talks about because he talks about trials and the struggles of life through and how God uses that to produce faith, and you might walk away going, okay, man, this is like about action and let's do this, but then James at the same time is about rest and sitting really in the Lord and His finished work, and so both things can be true at the same time, that God can use difficult things, but that God also wants us to rest in what He's done.

So I want to take a few moments and share with you guys a little bit of context. The first one is this, is who is James? I think that's always a really interesting and kind of fascinating thing to talk about. So it is widely believed that the author is James.

Yes, that's who we get the name of the book from, but there's really two James that we see in the New Testament. One is James the disciple. So you got James and John, the sons of thunder.

Well, it's most likely not him because we learned in Acts 12.2 that he was actually killed by Herod, King Herod. So really James is the first martyr, or excuse me, he's not the first martyr, he's the first disciple or the first apostle to be killed. So unlikely to be him.

It's more likely that it's James, the half-brother of Jesus, and we learned about James in Galatians 1.19 that he is the brother of Jesus, and again half-brother because Mary is his mom, but obviously Jesus had no earthly father, and so that makes him a half-brother. One of the things I think is really cool about James is that he was actually an early skeptic of Jesus. So in Mark 3.21, one of the things that you learn is that as Jesus is back in Bethlehem, it actually says that his family thinks that he's crazy.

Now, I don't know about you, I can't imagine growing up with Jesus as a brother, because if we know that Jesus was perfect, that he was tempted but he never fell into temptation, that he was tempted in all ways but never fell, I just want you to imagine literally having a perfect brother. I mean, he does nothing wrong, ever. He is literally the perfect child, and you're over here just like, okay, mom loves him, and also we learn in Scripture that Mary has a special prayer that she receives from Jesus, right? Can you imagine growing up and hearing the story of the angel who visited your mom to tell you of the forecoming Messiah that would, I mean, like can you just imagine for a second, all right? So it's interesting that we don't really learn that James hates his brother, although that would be my inference, right? Because I can only imagine what that's like, but he definitely thought he was crazy when he came out as the Messiah, where he said he was the Messiah, and in John 7 verse 5, we also learn that it says that his brothers did not believe him.

So initially in Jesus's ministry, James is a skeptic. He's literally grown up with Jesus. He's seen his perfection.

He claims to be the Messiah, right? His mom literally says, right, what do we say, whose kid is that? That's God's kid, amen. And so you have James, this brother who doesn't believe in Jesus, and yet there's a book in the Bible named after him. So what happens in between? So in 1 Corinthians 5, 17, we learn that James is one of the few people who is actually witness to the resurrection of Jesus, that he actually sees the resurrected body of Jesus Christ, and we don't know the specific story.

I find this really we don't know the moment. All we know is that he had some sort of a conversation with Jesus, and as a result, he gave his heart and life to his brother. And again, I just want to point out because I have a—I don't know if you all have siblings in here—I have a brother, okay, and obviously my brother is not Jesus.

Now one time he made a joke at youth group that he was like Jesus, and we were all like, okay, bro, calm down, right? But he's definitely not Jesus. It would be very hard and humbling to submit myself to my brother, and my brother's not perfect, and I wasn't a skeptic, and I didn't see all of these things, but at some point he surrenders himself to Jesus, and what we learn is that James actually becomes an early leader in the church. In Galatians 2.9, we learn that, and then also in Acts chapter 15, we learn that he's part of the Jerusalem council when Paul goes back and visits, and he says, hey, there's all of these conversations going on about circumcision versus not circumcising Gentiles.

What do we say? What do we do? And James is actually the one that speaks up and says, here's what we need to say, and here's how we need to address this. Now I think it's just kind of worth noting there are people who actually believe that James, rather than Peter, is actually considered the leader of the Jerusalem church in its earliest days. There's all kinds of debate and tension about that.

One way or the other, I couldn't tell you if he was or he was not, but he was definitely a leader, and it's also believed—I know, a lot of context, but it's really important—it's also believed that James is the first book written in the New Testament. Now, chronologically speaking, it obviously doesn't happen first, right? The gospels take place chronologically, but it's believed that the James is written before the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and even the book of Acts, right? And why does that matter? Why do I think that's important? This is really the earliest form of scripture that we have for the New Testament church, because the gospels won't go on—won't be written for another decade or so later, right, from our understanding of how this works. And I think it's just really important and really profound, because what we see here are a lot of the themes of a follower of Jesus Christ and markers of what it means to follow Jesus.

We're going to talk about that here in just a second. Now, what's the context, right? So, James says right here in his word, James, he is a servant of God. So again, we see that humble submission, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Again, I don't know about you, but that would be hard to submit to your brother, especially growing up with a brother who's Jesus. And he's writing specifically to the tribes dispersed abroad. Now, who are the twelve tribes? And here's why this matters.

The twelve tribes are the Jewish Christians who were scattered after the martyrdom of Stetum in Acts chapter 8, verse 1. So, if you guys remember from our study through the book of Acts, Acts chapter 7, at the very end, Stephen is stoned to death. And then in chapter 8, verse 1, what we learn is that Paul is actually the one taking the coats, and it says from there that the church was scattered, meaning the church was dispersed. It was sent out.

And so, he's writing to Jewish Christians who are not currently living in Jerusalem. And so, here's what we understand about them is that they have a Jewish background, and that's going to come into play because James is going to talk a lot about the commands of following God. But it also means this, that they have faith in Jesus already.

And so, he's writing to people who already have a saving faith in Jesus Christ. I think it's really important that we recognize this letter contextually is not written to those who are not believers in Christ. And why does this matter? Because there's a lot of people who like to take James and Paul and pin them against each other.

Because James is going to go on to talk about how faith and works come together, and Paul's more of a just faith alone and Christ alone kind of guy in his letters and writing. So, what will happen is a lot of people will come in and say, see, here's the inconsistencies. James is saying one thing about salvation.

Paul is saying another thing about salvation. They're both in the Bible, so they can't be true, so they contradict themselves. And so, therefore, the Bible can't be true.

And it's really an overly simplistic approach because it's not a pinning against each other. It's a lack of contextual understanding. James is not saying that we are saved by our works, and he's not downplaying the importance of faith in Christ for salvation.

What he is saying is that it's faith in Christ that saves us, and as a result, it overflows into works because he's not talking to people who are not Christians, or in this context, right, Christians, and specifically Jewish Christians. But Paul was sent to the who? To the Gentiles. He's writing to a different group of people.

They don't have the Jewish understanding. They don't even have a biblical understanding of any of these things. So, I just want to point that out because we need to recognize that obedience does not earn God's love and acceptance.

It is a result of the love and acceptance that has already ours through Jesus Christ on the cross, okay? So, we're not pinning James and Paul against each other. They're working with each other. Now, what are some of the major themes we're going to talk about during this study? The first thing we're going to see is wisdom and commands.

So, James loves Proverbs because the proverbial language is sprinkled all throughout his work, but I also think it's really fascinating. He also has a lot of commands. In fact, there's 108 verses in the book of James, and in that, more than half of them contain a command.

So, if you were like, man, I'm going to be overwhelmed with all the things that I'm supposed to do, that's kind of the point, right? There's a lot to do, but a lot of what he takes is from the Sermon on the Mount. So, actually, a few months ago, Aaron and I worked through kind of our timeline, and so what we're going to do is in June, we're going to finish this study through the book of James. In July, we'll take kind of a devotional break, and then in August, we will pick up.

We're actually going to walk through the Sermon on the Mount this fall leading into Christmas and then for the rest of the year. So, we have some stuff planned, right? I think it's going to be good, and I think the Lord's going to use it in a mighty way. I think this is really important because if you lack wisdom or you feel like you don't know what to do, this book gives you a lot of the answers for that, and if you're like, I don't know how to follow Jesus, there's a lot of commands in here, and again, they both work really, really well together.

What I love about James is that it's super practical. It has a lot of imagery, but ultimately, we're going to see wisdom and command. We're also going to see faith and works.

What does it mean to have a living and active faith in Jesus Christ, no matter our situation? I want to pause here and just encourage you, church. Faith is really easy when things are easy, or at least the word of faith or, you know, just speaking things or praying, right? What do you do, and where do you go when things get really hard? Because, right, we talked about a few weeks ago through the book of Acts when Paul was in the storm, right? I told you guys what my pastor said. He said, you're either in a storm, you're feeling it, you're coming out of a storm, and you're just like, oh, thank you, God, right? I can breathe again.

He said, or you're heading into a storm. We are all in one of those three spots, and where is our faith, and what does faith look like when we walk through those things? Because when we're coming out of a storm, it's really easy to be like, oh man, I'm good, God, and I have faith, because you're no longer in it. But when you're in the thick of it, and when you're walking through it, most of the time what ends up happening, I'm not saying you specifically, but I'm saying the general Christian, we just collapse.

We start to question, and we get, God, where are you? What are you doing? Why have you abandoned me? And it's like, where was that faith you just had a few months ago, when you were walking around telling people, like, God's got you, you can do this, I'm praying for you, brother, praying for you, sister. Now, all of a sudden, you're in the middle of it. How do we have faith that weathers every storm? Because you want people to see Christ in and through your life.

They're gonna see Christ, I think, oftentimes the most when they know you're going through it, and you have just that steady faith. I have three great grandmas. Well, they've since, of course, passed, but I had three great grandmas that just really, really, really loved the Lord.

And I just, I don't know what it is, especially, maybe it's kind of growing up in the Midwest, where I was, there was this really interesting mixture of, like, the Midwest and the South kind of combining together, and I don't know why. It's always just, like, the faithful grandma, you know what I mean? I don't know why. It's never the grandpa.

Men need to step up a little bit, but it's always the grandma. And I don't know, have you ever just met somebody who's just walked with Christ for a really long time, and they're just like, you know what, I've seen God work, I've seen God move, and I just know He's gonna get you, like, and it's just like, and it's not like just words of reassurance, but it's like they actually believe it because they've seen it. I'm like, I pray for that level of just steady faith, that no matter what comes my way, no matter what email I get, phone call I receive, bill, letter in the mail, right, no matter what it is, that it's like, we're just walking in faith because we trust in the Lord, because we know what it means to have faith in God, because we actually, our faith is not in this world and what we can do or accomplish.

It's not in our skills or our abilities, our situations, but it's in Christ and in Christ alone. I'm not up here preaching like I have it, by the way, I'm gonna fully admit that to you. I'm praying that through this study the Lord gives me that gift, but what does it mean to have a living and active faith? What does it mean to live out our faith as a result of the work that Jesus has done for us on the cross? It's one thing to believe in God.

It's another thing to go and do what God has asked us to do, and when we live out our faith, I think sometimes we think living out our faith just means like, you know, I have a verse in my Instagram bio or, you know, I'm nice to people, you know, maybe you guys don't think that, but generically speaking, you hear those things sometimes like, yeah, I have faith in God. I have, you know, John 3 16 in my Instagram bio. Okay, again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, right? If Aaron's like getting on his phone right now, like take this out of my Instagram bio, but I'm not saying that, but really what is it? Because when we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we have faith in the Lord and it's steady faith that weathers every situation, we know that there is a work that God has called us to, and so faith is not meant to just to be held on to.

It's not just like this little thing that we kind of keep contained to ourselves, like we have it and God uses it, that it might bless others, that it might build his church, that it might advance his kingdom forward, and so what does it mean and look like to actually live out our faith? Not just to say I have faith, right? Because James is going to go on to say, hey, if you say you have faith, that's great, but if you have no works as evidence to show, then what good is it, right? He talks about the Word of God being like looking in a mirror and walking away and forgetting, right? You ever done that before? Like you look at your hair, you take a step, and you're like, cowlick, right? You just kind of fix it really, really quickly. That's what he's saying. How quickly do we forget the Word of God? Now, there's two things that James is going to emphasize here.

Number one, James is primarily concerned with how Christians live out their faith. Is my life—I want you to ask yourself these questions, just on a humble moment of reflection—is my life characterized by living works of faith? I mean, really, can I step back and can I say, if I took a pulse of my life, if somebody was to fully observe me, you know, which is always kind of a creepy sentiment, but I mean, really, like if someone was just to see you and the ins and outs and everything in between, would they look at your life and say, that's a life marked by faith and somebody who's living it out? Do my actions, words, and the things I do reflect what I profess to believe? Again, it's one thing to say I believe in Christ, it's another thing to come to church, but is what I'm doing lining up with what I say? Do I have humility? James is going to talk a lot about humility, and again, I kind of joke about how hard it would be to submit yourself to your brother, but I mean, really, truly, like, I mean, he calls himself a servant. I think that's really important.

Very first verse we read, James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't just see himself as a follower. He doesn't see himself just as a leader.

He says, I am indebted to God and to my brother, Jesus Christ, for the work that he did on the cross. That takes humility. Even for us, it's going to take some humility to say, I'm a servant of the Lord.

Not my will, but yours be done. You must become greater and greater. I must become less and less.

Can we actually say that, do we have hearts that strive to be humble? Do I always love others the way I should? I don't know about you, this is where I get in trouble sometimes. I love a lot of people. There's a lot of moments where I'm like, I don't really like a lot of people.

That's just kind of how I get, I'm very, if you don't know this about me, I'm very opinionated. You talk to me for five seconds, you're going to figure that out pretty quickly, right? I love people, but sometimes I struggle to like people because I just, you know, you get, you know what I mean? We all have our, we all have our weaknesses, okay? This one's mine, all right? But am I actually loving others the way I should? For me, I think my biggest conviction oftentimes is my family, my wife and my kiddos, right? They're my first ministry. If I'm not loving them well, man, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do the work that Christ has called me to.

God's placed people in your life, again, to show and share the love of Jesus. I want you to know it can't be an either or. If you just share Jesus without love, who would receive that? Hey, here's the free gift of salvation.

Also, I'm a mean, nasty, hateful person to you. No one's going to receive that. Hey, I just want to, I want to bless you today.

Here's a free coffee. Okay, well that's great. There's a lot of people who don't love God who do really nice things.

We have to share and show the love of Christ. Am I steadfast in prayer? And again, we're not up here preaching perfection, but steadfast. Do I pray without ceasing? Do I, do I seek the Lord in prayer? You know, she's going to hate me for this, but one of things I appreciate the most about Darla is like, I know that she prays throughout her day as things come up.

We've talked about this before, right? I think sometimes we think that praying throughout the day or being steadfast in prayer just means I'm locked into a room for eight hours. Like, I don't know about you guys. I would run out of things to talk about at some point.

I would go crazy. But do we just have hearts that just go to God throughout the day? We have tech, we text, right? There's somebody in your life. I bet you text throughout the day.

You talk to maybe you have a coworker. You have to email. We communicate with people all the time throughout the day.

Why not our heavenly father? So do we do any of these the way we should? The short answer is no. The further we get into James, the more I hope you see that you can't and don't do all of the calls and commands that God has asked you to do. Try and strive as we might.

We all fall short. So welcome. You are in good company this morning.

The goal of James is not to beat you down. And too often, I think pastors and preachers and people, maybe even well-meaning, they use the word of God to beat people down. But I don't want to do that through this study.

I want to call you up that you would become increasingly aware of your need for Jesus. Now, James first is primarily concerned with you as a follower of Jesus, living out your faith. And then secondly, he's concerned that we would learn to rest in the complete and finished work of Jesus.

This is also something we don't do very well. Because we can know Easter Sunday. We can know it is finished.

We can know the tomb is empty. We can know the scripture that says he cast our sins as far as the east is from the west. We can know these things, but do we rest in these things? And again, the goal of James is not to beat you down, but it's also not to call you to just get busy with work.

And I think a lot of times, if we're not careful, we get really so caught up in the God, I'm doing all of these things for you. I'm reading my Bible. I'm praying.

I'm loving people in your name. I don't want to, but I'm doing it in your name, Jesus. I'm praying.

Even though I feel like I'm talking, right? We can get into this. If we're not careful, we get into the God, do you not see what I'm doing for you? And then if we're also not careful, we get into the God, here's what I'm doing, and I need you to rubber stamp this. And instead, what we have to learn how to do is yes, live out our faith, but rest in the completed work of Jesus Christ.

We're going to see that Jesus was steadfast under trials. You aren't, but he was. That you cannot perfectly keep the whole law, and yet he did.

We struggle to submit to God, amen, right? And yet he perfectly submitted himself to the will of the Father. We're going to see that while pride swells up in us, he humbled himself to the point of the cross, and God exalted him. Studying James, this is what I wrote, studying James should make us long for and love the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we belong, body, soul.