Consistent Christianity (James)
February 2, 2020
Our goal is to understand the book of James better. This is one of the most debated books in Christianity because the purpose of James is different from the purpose of most New Testament writers. However, when we look at this book carefully, we find that it lines up perfectly with the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. Some phrases seem to be pulled directly out of Jesus’ mouth. Of course, we know that everything James says is consistent with Paul and all of the other apostles. Most assume that James is the Lord’s brother, who became a leader in the Lord’s church in Jerusalem. If this is true, the words of this man should be precious to us. They could be seen as providing us with an inside view of the life of Jesus. Who knows our Lord better than his relatives?
It should come as no surprise to us that James is often referred to as the wisdom literature of the New Testament. He seems to create many sayings in his letter that are easy for us to hold onto: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only,” “Every good and perfect gift is from above,” “Faith without works is dead,” “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” It also contains many pictures that are intended to blow our minds: “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness,” “The one who doubts is like the waves of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” The book has many themes throughout it. It discusses speech, money, and double-mindedness repeatedly in the text to hit on some major flaws in our lives today.
What Is James About?
How many of us go through trials in our lives? Think about how many different trials we go through. There are trials at the beginning of our life for understanding the way things work, not getting what we want when we want it, getting through school, trying to fit in with people, trying to find a purpose, and overcoming the hormonal changes that we all go through. There are trials in the middle of life that include broken relationships, figuring out who is trying to take advantage of you, losing people we care about, failure, and trying to have a family. Then there are trials in the later years of maintaining relationships, struggling with pain and health problems as the body breaks down, and trying to keep up or deal with the ever-changing society. These trials will impact us all, and there are many more trials that I’m sure we could add to this list. All of the trials I listed are associated with living on this earth as a human being. But as Christians, we face a different set of trials. Why? Because we are living our lives with a higher purpose. We want to become like God, glorify his name, and bring others to him. Our goal is perfection. How do we deal with the trials that bring us closer to perfection? This is what James writes to us about. He wants us to grow through our trials to be consistent with the life of Christ in our everyday walk.
James 1:1--5 (ESV) --- 1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
At the beginning of this letter, James tells his readers to count trials to be a joy. From the outside, this seems ridiculous, but he tells us that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, which eventually leads us to perfection. This is a big idea for the book. We need to have a new perspective on trials to be sure that we are growing properly toward perfection. A Christian’s life is to be spent pursuing Christ-likeness in every test. Then, he points out how hard this is by saying, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God.” James is telling us that if we don’t understand why this trial is happening, we can ask God, and he will help us gain wisdom through trial. Every testing of our faith is intended to make us more steadfast. The rest of the book discusses different temptations that we face in our tests.
Temptations
At first, it seems unfortunate that God would let our faith be tested. We don’t particularly enjoy the process of being tested. We would much rather enjoy the benefits of the trial without the pain and suffering that goes into it. However, if we want to reach perfection, this is the only way to get there. Jesus himself had to learn obedience through what he suffered. But our suffering will look much different than his. Remember how Jesus was tested in the wilderness, and he passed every test. That is not what we do. We aren’t even close to that. Twenty plus years of rebellious living makes it hard to change over to a sin-free life. As we go through trials, we will inevitably face temptations. James addresses the different temptations we will meet in the body of his letter.
Doubting God’s Goodness (1:6-18)
The first temptation we face is how we look at God during the trials.
James 1:13--15 (ESV) --- 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
If I sin, it is not because God tempted me. It is not anyone else’s fault but my own. We may be tempted to question God’s goodness for letting us go through the trial. But we need to grow and understand that our hearts want something that they should not. My heart needs to be transformed by the love of God as I understand what sin does to our relationship with him. This is a principle that James wants us to carry through the letter. All of our temptations are the result of our desires.
Ignoring God’s Word (1:19-27)
The second temptation we face is to see our failures and mistakes as we study God’s word and decide to do nothing to change.
James 1:21--25 (ESV) --- 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
The word of God is supposed to provoke a change of who we are. As we study God’s word, we are looking into a mirror and finding out what is wrong with us. This tests our faith to see if we love ourselves more than we love who God wants us to become. Notice the words in verse 25, “The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres.” Is this the way we think of study? There are typically two responses when we see something we are doing wrong in the word of God. 1) Ignoring the mistakes I am making in my life. 2) Consider what we can do to grow out of making those mistakes. James calls this doing the word instead of just hearing the word. If we only hear the word, we are failing to be consistent with the religion we profess to have.
Deceiving Ourselves About Sin (1:26-5:6)
The last two verses of Chapter 1 launch us into the third section of the letter that touches deep inside our hearts. He says that we are deceiving ourselves and making our religion worthless. How? We keep on sinning with no regard to the two greatest commandments. These two commandments are equivalent to the whole law. All of these sins have to do with the two great commands of the Law and Jesus, to love God and our neighbor.
Hating Our Neighbor (2:1-5:6)
In Chapter 2, James starts giving us specific, practical examples of sins that are against our neighbor. We ignore the needs of others and the will of God as we focus on ourselves. James points us to the sin of partiality to show us how easy it is to have the wrong heart. We can do something as small as paying extra attention to those who will benefit us and paying no attention to those who give us no benefit. This is what a dead faith looks like. This should terrify us. Something as small as loving ourselves and pursuing our benefit can put us in the wrong if it leads us to mistreat the poor and lowly around us.
In Chapter 3, James speaks against our speech. In verse 2, he says, “We all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.” Then, he lays out all of the problems we face with our tongue. We simultaneously bless the Lord and curse our neighbor, who was made in God’s image with it. This reveals that we still have wickedness inside of us, and we need to learn to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. We need wisdom from above to be pure and produce good fruits with our tongues. We need to overcome selfish ambition, bitter jealousy, and proud boasting so that we can love our neighbor as we should.
In Chapters 4 and 5, he mentions other sins that we commit against our neighbors. We fight and quarrel with them, judge them as though we have a right to speak against anyone, and take advantage of people for financial gain. But the main focus of these chapters is on our failure to keep the first and greatest command.
Loving This World (4:1-5:6)
In Chapter 4, he transitions to talk about our love for this world.
James 4:2--5 (ESV) --- 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
Again, James says that the significant problem is inside of us; our own desires are leading us away from God’s desires. We have a passion and drive for things that satisfy us in this life instead of the things that satisfy our creator. God has done and is doing everything for us to love him more than this world. Yet, we struggle to accept the things of God. What is the solution? Submission.
James 4:6--10 (ESV) --- 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
We need to let go of ourselves and focus our lives around God. We must be a friend of God with faith in him, and reject the idea of being a friend of the world. Our love for this world blinds us to two very important truths. 1) We can die at any time. 2) Our treasures on earth will perish with us. We deceive ourselves into forgetting these truths, and we get so focused on this life that we willingly sin against our neighbors and God while deceiving ourselves to believe that everything is okay.
Patience, Prayer, and Praise
After James tells us about all of these trials, tests, and temptations that we go through, he transitions in 5:7 to talk about two solutions to all of our problems. We need to have the patience of a farmer who works and endures patiently with trust in God until he can enjoy the fruit of his labor. He also points to Job to remind us of the trials of Job’s life. Job endured so much pain and suffering to help him overcome his pride and to help him grow toward perfection. This is what we need in our lives. We need to grow toward the image of God so that we glorify his name.
In verse 12, he points out what we might be tempted to do in our impatience.
James 5:12 (ESV) --- 12 But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
These are the words of Christ that we just studied last week. James wants us to focus on the purpose that God has in our lives and press on through the struggle and suffering with faithfulness. We don’t need to swear to God to get out of the pain. We need to learn patience. All of the pain and suffering will be taken away for all eternity if we remain faithful to the end.
While we wait, we need to pray to God for help or sing his praise as we understand his grace toward us in helping us grow. God hears the prayers of the humble. If we confess our sins and strive to be like God, he will listen to our prayers and help us get through the trials of life with wisdom and understanding.
James 5:16--18 (ESV) --- 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
The book ends with an encouragement to confess our sins to one another and to pray for one another like Elijah. He started the book with a focus on prayer for wisdom to understand our trials, and he ends the book with a focus on prayer. But this prayer is for help as we try to lift one another up. He ends with a focus on loving our brothers and helping each other grow toward perfection. The letter ends abruptly with this final appeal.
James 5:19--20 (ESV) --- 19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Conclusion
James is a terrific book for understanding what Christianity is really all about. We are choosing the more difficult path in life. It is the path of fulfilling the word of God by loving God more than anything else and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is the path of Christ. If we have a living faith, this is the path we want to take, no matter how difficult the trial is. We want to overcome temptations and desires to sin so that we can glorify God because we love him more than sin.