James 1:2-4
In my brief time with you, I have been trying to learn and discern what kind of pastoral leadership would most bless you. As I pray for you I ask the Lord to lead me in this. It needs to be acknowledged again that you and I are in a process of discerning whether it is the Lord’s will for me to remain with you as your next pastor. This is why I have not yet officially candidated for you. I am still to be considered as pulpit supply, or interim pastor, while we all continue to pray and seek the Lord’s will.
Nevertheless, even if I am not able to stay with you much longer, we would do well to have sermons that apply directly to your immediate needs as a congregation. So now that I have been with you a couple of months and we have gotten past the Christmas season and its traditional texts and messages having to do with our Lord’s coming, I believe that I am now in a position to share with you, as the Lord leads, the things I believe you and I need to hear, contemplate and rejoice in so as to make progress in developing the Lord’s work through this little congregation in Manton, MI.
That is why I want to lead you through a series of messages that work through the very practical book of James. It is a book about how to live in Christian community. It is a book that addresses many issues that the modern church must still wrestle with. This is a book that is dedicated to discipleship and will challenge us to live out our faith very realistically. It is not so much about making new disciples as it is about Christians being good healthy disciples of the gospel through faith in Jesus Christ.
Every congregation needs to focus first and foremost on being spiritually healthy through faith in Jesus Christ because healthy things grow. When a congregation is small in number there can easily be too much of a focus on thoughts like, “We need more people, what can we do?” All we need to remember is that the New Testament Church began with only twelve! And they did not look around at each other and wonder how they could get more people to join them.
No, they prayed. They worshiped God. The relied on him to send them power as they waited. And when God moved among them things just happened! So, you don’t need to worry about your lack of resources. You need to focus on being a healthy congregation that worships God and follows his instructions for living. That’s what I aim to teach you in this series through the book of James.
But first it is wise to discuss the author. Who wrote this book? We know his name is James, but there are some fascinating details in his identity and greeting that we do well to notice. The James who wrote this book is not one of the original twelve apostles. It is most commonly believed that the author grew up with Jesus. James is one of the other sons of Joseph and Mary. We believe he was the next one born after Jesus. Matthew 13:55 lists “Jesus’ brothers as James, Joseph, Simon and Judas.” (And that Judas was also not one of the twelve original apostles, not the one we think of, the one who betrayed Jesus.) Because of the usual social customs of the day, we may conclude that James may been the second oldest after Jesus because he was named first in this list of Jesus’ brothers.
So, James was a younger brother to Jesus, and had probably heard multiple times the amazing stories surrounding the birth of his older brother. But in spite of that, James, along with his other brothers, probably didn’t become a believer until after Jesus’ resurrection. We have this little snippet from Mark 3:20-21, “Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” This is also recorded in Luke 8. And in John 7:5 it is simply declared outright, “even his own brothers did not believe in him.” James was one of those brothers.
However, by the time James wrote this letter he was certainly a faithful disciple of the Way and very likely an important figure in the early church. We know this because of the ways that Paul referred to him in several of his epistles. Specifically, in Galatians 1:19, Paul says that he “saw none of the other apostle’s—only James, the Lord’s brother.” That means that by this time James was thought of as an official apostle.
Yet, when he penned this letter, James did not pull rank or use his direct family connection with Jesus as anything to add weight to his words. He identified himself as a servant; a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. James did not place himself above his spiritual brothers and sisters in the Church, but rather he listed himself as among them. Thus, in his greeting he has already set an example of the kind of humility his letter will preach about as he goes on. At the same time, God’s prophets and others with authority were all called servants of God. So, even though he humbly did not say, “I am Jesus’ brother!” James was here also giving expression to his calling to write such an instructive letter. He did have authority in the church, as a servant leader.
This humble way of addressing the church establishes a pattern for church leaders to be servants of God and looking out for the best interest of the people they care about. One saying says that pastors should not be in their positions for the income, but rather, for the outcome. And later in the letter James has a dire warning for people who might aspire to lead the church with teaching and preaching.
Next, we consider the recipients of this letter. To whom was James writing? He says he wrote to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations.” That would make you think of the true Israelites. But we know the letter was addressed to believing Christians, not just Jews. So, we believe the label “twelve tribes” now refers symbolically to all the different kinds of people all over the known world, among the nations, who were coming to faith in Jesus. These were Gentiles being added to the Jews, or “grafted in.” They had to be taught how to live out their new faith in the various contexts and trials they were facing.
So, this is a letter to the whole church, and as such, it has a timeless quality so that its instruction does speak to us as well. In addition, all Christians should call themselves servants of the Lord, with the emphasis on serving, whether that is a seemingly small task such as cleaning up the fellowship hall, or the daunting task of daring to speak for God in preparing the message and songs for worship. Both are simply works of service, rendered according to the gifts God has given each servant.
So, James, writes as a servant of the Lord who is concerned about the well-being of his brothers and sisters in the church all over the world, made up of the various congregations, wherever they exist. Because this letter is preserved as part of the Bible we are quite sure that it was read in many churches, being carried from place to place by other servants of the Lord who thought it was well worth sharing.
And the first thing that James says to these various groups of believers is a very strange exhortation that many would find it hard to swallow. He says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Trials of many kinds means exactly that. Trials can come from persecution against the church, from internal struggles against sin, or from any and all kinds of internal or external forces. Diseases and difficulties of many kinds can occur unexpectedly. None of them are welcome in and of themselves. But all of them can be used by God to strengthen our character. The word that we translate as trials has a very specific meaning that says these are unplanned trials. Stuff that just happens and then we have to deal with it. James is not talking here about hard tasks we take up on purpose to accomplish something.
James is talking about stress and suffering. We don’t like it. We’d rather live without it. But it could be one of the most important elements of life. James’ message in the opening lines of his book is supposed to be an encouraging message! Rejoice when trials come because stress make healthy things grow.
Think of a seed underground. It has the weight of the soil on top. The rough sand rubs into the hull that is getting softer as the moisture works its way in. But these conditions, and the warmth of the sun, cause the life inside the tough hull to push its way out. Both a root and a shoot, tender yet strong, have to push past the rough grains of dirt. The root finds a way down through hard packed soil. Perhaps there are rocks in the way. The root will find a way around any obstacle in its quest for water. The shoot has to push up against the weight of the soil above. It may go through spaces between grains of dirt, but almost always a little clump of soil is lifted up by the growing plant as it breaks through to the surface. And how many of you have seen that some plants are strong enough to push through asphalt?
The quest for life and healthy growth comes with a lot of stress. In fact, many plants won’t grow right without that stress. A simple google search gives ample articles that affirm that stress is good for plants. “A plant that has been coddled in the greenhouse may not perform as well once taken to a more stressful environment. What’s a grower to do? One strategy is to purposely stress plants to make them more compact or enhance their ability to thrive once they hit a more stressful environment.”[i] Also, there are flower buds with tightly wrapped outer leaves that have to stretch until they burst so the blossom can spread out. If you try to ease the stress and tear open the bud to try to help the flower it will die instead.
And most notably, Jesus himself said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” There is no greater stress than that of dying! James 1:2-4 says that stress is good for us too. Specifically, when we take everything as from the hand of God and maintain a prayerful focus on the character of God and his promises such as in Romans 8:28, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
James said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Give thanks for the stresses of life that come to strengthen your faith. The emphasis here is on keep the faith! And let trials come if they are only used by God to make your faith stronger!
This goes so far that Jesus’ teaching requires us to be willing to die to ourselves. This is expressed most clearly in the admonition that we should all be ready to take up a cross if we say we are following Jesus.
Faith strengthened by stress makes a healthy church grow. A tree that puts down deep roots to find water is what bears fruit. The energy of the tree is focused in finding that water, not on making fruit. When the tree has enough water, the fruit is automatic. The water that flows through the ground is taken up by the roots and flows through the tree and that is what produces fruit. Similarly for us, we cannot grow in number or produced any kind of fruit for God unless we are intently focused on sending down roots into the water of the living word. We have to go deep so that we can grow strong and produce fruit.
As we focus on worshipping God and praying to him, both as individuals and when we are together, that is how we send down deep roots that sustain our faith when times are hard. Then hard times can only strengthen our faith as we see God hold true to his promises. This is what causes us to become people who bear fruit, the fruit of the Spirit that is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control. That’s the kind of person that people who do not yet believe the gospel are drawn to. And then you get to introduce them to Jesus and maybe even invite them to church and that his how the church grows in numbers.
To receive Communion is to partake of the suffering of Christ. It is to remember the stress and suffering he endured for our sake. It is also to acknowledge that our sins played a role in making Christ’s suffering and death necessary. He died for our sake literally. It is not just a meaning we give to something that happened long ago. It is exactly what God intended for us to apply to our hearts today.
When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you and your sins, me and mine, and every other person who ever lived or ever would live and commit sin in this world. He died for all of that. And once we know that and see that it proves how much he love us, we long to live lives that do not add to Christ’s suffering. One old song asks, “Does he still feel the nails every time I sin?” And I become willing to suffer something that feels like deprivation and stress as I bear the trial of a temptation and do not give in.
If you want the little New Beginnings Church of Manton to remain open and be an important element of the Lord’s work in this area to save lost souls, you can’t pin all your hopes on getting good enough leadership. You each have to take responsibility upon yourselves to be devoted to Christ in a way that is willing to die for him or put up with a little suffering as you offer yourselves as living sacrifices. Then together you become a good, healthy congregation that eagerly desires to serve the Lord no matter what it costs, even if you have to suffer for it, because you understand the role that suffering and stress plays in ensuring that your congregation grows healthy and strong.
But you can’t just tell yourself, “Yeah I’m going to do that.” What you really have to focus on is how much God loves you and allow your spirit to respond to that, to what Christ has done for you. Everything depends upon your faith in Jesus! When you love and praise the Lord for his great sacrifice, you will also end up loving and serving the Lord so that others may be saved. Praise the Lord!
In my brief time with you, I have been trying to learn and discern what kind of pastoral leadership would most bless you. As I pray for you I ask the Lord to lead me in this. It needs to be acknowledged again that you and I are in a process of discerning whether it is the Lord’s will for me to remain with you as your next pastor. This is why I have not yet officially candidated for you. I am still to be considered as pulpit supply, or interim pastor, while we all continue to pray and seek the Lord’s will.
Nevertheless, even if I am not able to stay with you much longer, we would do well to have sermons that apply directly to your immediate needs as a congregation. So now that I have been with you a couple of months and we have gotten past the Christmas season and its traditional texts and messages having to do with our Lord’s coming, I believe that I am now in a position to share with you, as the Lord leads, the things I believe you and I need to hear, contemplate and rejoice in so as to make progress in developing the Lord’s work through this little congregation in Manton, MI.
That is why I want to lead you through a series of messages that work through the very practical book of James. It is a book about how to live in Christian community. It is a book that addresses many issues that the modern church must still wrestle with. This is a book that is dedicated to discipleship and will challenge us to live out our faith very realistically. It is not so much about making new disciples as it is about Christians being good healthy disciples of the gospel through faith in Jesus Christ.
Every congregation needs to focus first and foremost on being spiritually healthy through faith in Jesus Christ because healthy things grow. When a congregation is small in number there can easily be too much of a focus on thoughts like, “We need more people, what can we do?” All we need to remember is that the New Testament Church began with only twelve! And they did not look around at each other and wonder how they could get more people to join them.
No, they prayed. They worshiped God. The relied on him to send them power as they waited. And when God moved among them things just happened! So, you don’t need to worry about your lack of resources. You need to focus on being a healthy congregation that worships God and follows his instructions for living. That’s what I aim to teach you in this series through the book of James.
But first it is wise to discuss the author. Who wrote this book? We know his name is James, but there are some fascinating details in his identity and greeting that we do well to notice. The James who wrote this book is not one of the original twelve apostles. It is most commonly believed that the author grew up with Jesus. James is one of the other sons of Joseph and Mary. We believe he was the next one born after Jesus. Matthew 13:55 lists “Jesus’ brothers as James, Joseph, Simon and Judas.” (And that Judas was also not one of the twelve original apostles, not the one we think of, the one who betrayed Jesus.) Because of the usual social customs of the day, we may conclude that James may been the second oldest after Jesus because he was named first in this list of Jesus’ brothers.
So, James was a younger brother to Jesus, and had probably heard multiple times the amazing stories surrounding the birth of his older brother. But in spite of that, James, along with his other brothers, probably didn’t become a believer until after Jesus’ resurrection. We have this little snippet from Mark 3:20-21, “Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” This is also recorded in Luke 8. And in John 7:5 it is simply declared outright, “even his own brothers did not believe in him.” James was one of those brothers.
However, by the time James wrote this letter he was certainly a faithful disciple of the Way and very likely an important figure in the early church. We know this because of the ways that Paul referred to him in several of his epistles. Specifically, in Galatians 1:19, Paul says that he “saw none of the other apostle’s—only James, the Lord’s brother.” That means that by this time James was thought of as an official apostle.
Yet, when he penned this letter, James did not pull rank or use his direct family connection with Jesus as anything to add weight to his words. He identified himself as a servant; a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. James did not place himself above his spiritual brothers and sisters in the Church, but rather he listed himself as among them. Thus, in his greeting he has already set an example of the kind of humility his letter will preach about as he goes on. At the same time, God’s prophets and others with authority were all called servants of God. So, even though he humbly did not say, “I am Jesus’ brother!” James was here also giving expression to his calling to write such an instructive letter. He did have authority in the church, as a servant leader.
This humble way of addressing the church establishes a pattern for church leaders to be servants of God and looking out for the best interest of the people they care about. One saying says that pastors should not be in their positions for the income, but rather, for the outcome. And later in the letter James has a dire warning for people who might aspire to lead the church with teaching and preaching.
Next, we consider the recipients of this letter. To whom was James writing? He says he wrote to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations.” That would make you think of the true Israelites. But we know the letter was addressed to believing Christians, not just Jews. So, we believe the label “twelve tribes” now refers symbolically to all the different kinds of people all over the known world, among the nations, who were coming to faith in Jesus. These were Gentiles being added to the Jews, or “grafted in.” They had to be taught how to live out their new faith in the various contexts and trials they were facing.
So, this is a letter to the whole church, and as such, it has a timeless quality so that its instruction does speak to us as well. In addition, all Christians should call themselves servants of the Lord, with the emphasis on serving, whether that is a seemingly small task such as cleaning up the fellowship hall, or the daunting task of daring to speak for God in preparing the message and songs for worship. Both are simply works of service, rendered according to the gifts God has given each servant.
So, James, writes as a servant of the Lord who is concerned about the well-being of his brothers and sisters in the church all over the world, made up of the various congregations, wherever they exist. Because this letter is preserved as part of the Bible we are quite sure that it was read in many churches, being carried from place to place by other servants of the Lord who thought it was well worth sharing.
And the first thing that James says to these various groups of believers is a very strange exhortation that many would find it hard to swallow. He says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Trials of many kinds means exactly that. Trials can come from persecution against the church, from internal struggles against sin, or from any and all kinds of internal or external forces. Diseases and difficulties of many kinds can occur unexpectedly. None of them are welcome in and of themselves. But all of them can be used by God to strengthen our character. The word that we translate as trials has a very specific meaning that says these are unplanned trials. Stuff that just happens and then we have to deal with it. James is not talking here about hard tasks we take up on purpose to accomplish something.
James is talking about stress and suffering. We don’t like it. We’d rather live without it. But it could be one of the most important elements of life. James’ message in the opening lines of his book is supposed to be an encouraging message! Rejoice when trials come because stress make healthy things grow.
Think of a seed underground. It has the weight of the soil on top. The rough sand rubs into the hull that is getting softer as the moisture works its way in. But these conditions, and the warmth of the sun, cause the life inside the tough hull to push its way out. Both a root and a shoot, tender yet strong, have to push past the rough grains of dirt. The root finds a way down through hard packed soil. Perhaps there are rocks in the way. The root will find a way around any obstacle in its quest for water. The shoot has to push up against the weight of the soil above. It may go through spaces between grains of dirt, but almost always a little clump of soil is lifted up by the growing plant as it breaks through to the surface. And how many of you have seen that some plants are strong enough to push through asphalt?
The quest for life and healthy growth comes with a lot of stress. In fact, many plants won’t grow right without that stress. A simple google search gives ample articles that affirm that stress is good for plants. “A plant that has been coddled in the greenhouse may not perform as well once taken to a more stressful environment. What’s a grower to do? One strategy is to purposely stress plants to make them more compact or enhance their ability to thrive once they hit a more stressful environment.”[i] Also, there are flower buds with tightly wrapped outer leaves that have to stretch until they burst so the blossom can spread out. If you try to ease the stress and tear open the bud to try to help the flower it will die instead.
And most notably, Jesus himself said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” There is no greater stress than that of dying! James 1:2-4 says that stress is good for us too. Specifically, when we take everything as from the hand of God and maintain a prayerful focus on the character of God and his promises such as in Romans 8:28, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
James said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Give thanks for the stresses of life that come to strengthen your faith. The emphasis here is on keep the faith! And let trials come if they are only used by God to make your faith stronger!
This goes so far that Jesus’ teaching requires us to be willing to die to ourselves. This is expressed most clearly in the admonition that we should all be ready to take up a cross if we say we are following Jesus.
Faith strengthened by stress makes a healthy church grow. A tree that puts down deep roots to find water is what bears fruit. The energy of the tree is focused in finding that water, not on making fruit. When the tree has enough water, the fruit is automatic. The water that flows through the ground is taken up by the roots and flows through the tree and that is what produces fruit. Similarly for us, we cannot grow in number or produced any kind of fruit for God unless we are intently focused on sending down roots into the water of the living word. We have to go deep so that we can grow strong and produce fruit.
As we focus on worshipping God and praying to him, both as individuals and when we are together, that is how we send down deep roots that sustain our faith when times are hard. Then hard times can only strengthen our faith as we see God hold true to his promises. This is what causes us to become people who bear fruit, the fruit of the Spirit that is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control. That’s the kind of person that people who do not yet believe the gospel are drawn to. And then you get to introduce them to Jesus and maybe even invite them to church and that his how the church grows in numbers.
To receive Communion is to partake of the suffering of Christ. It is to remember the stress and suffering he endured for our sake. It is also to acknowledge that our sins played a role in making Christ’s suffering and death necessary. He died for our sake literally. It is not just a meaning we give to something that happened long ago. It is exactly what God intended for us to apply to our hearts today.
When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you and your sins, me and mine, and every other person who ever lived or ever would live and commit sin in this world. He died for all of that. And once we know that and see that it proves how much he love us, we long to live lives that do not add to Christ’s suffering. One old song asks, “Does he still feel the nails every time I sin?” And I become willing to suffer something that feels like deprivation and stress as I bear the trial of a temptation and do not give in.
If you want the little New Beginnings Church of Manton to remain open and be an important element of the Lord’s work in this area to save lost souls, you can’t pin all your hopes on getting good enough leadership. You each have to take responsibility upon yourselves to be devoted to Christ in a way that is willing to die for him or put up with a little suffering as you offer yourselves as living sacrifices. Then together you become a good, healthy congregation that eagerly desires to serve the Lord no matter what it costs, even if you have to suffer for it, because you understand the role that suffering and stress plays in ensuring that your congregation grows healthy and strong.
But you can’t just tell yourself, “Yeah I’m going to do that.” What you really have to focus on is how much God loves you and allow your spirit to respond to that, to what Christ has done for you. Everything depends upon your faith in Jesus! When you love and praise the Lord for his great sacrifice, you will also end up loving and serving the Lord so that others may be saved. Praise the Lord!
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