STUDIES IN JAMES

�� A contemporary author who loves mysteries describes his frustration when the mystery gets too great.� A friend gave him a mystery book to read, and soon he found himself deep in the midst of the sinister plot.� "Imagine my consternation," he says, "as I came to the end of the unraveling of the mystery to find the last page had been torn out.� The final lines of that next to the last page went like this:� 'What was it that Mrs. Daisy Dick had seen when she looked through the window of the tower‑that had torn from her that last terrible shriek of protest, that cry of No!� No!� as she plunged to her death on the flagstones beneath?'"� She plunged, and the reader was left hanging in the air because the conclusion was missing.� That was more mystery than he cared for.

�� The letter of James begins with a mystery also, and this mystery is one that has caused a great deal of frustration.� Many have found it hard to be happy with the unknown.� Thousands of pages have been written about the mystery.� It is the same mystery that you would experience if you received a letter signed James.� If you only knew one James, the mystery would not be difficult to solve, but if you knew several by that name it could be quite a task to figure out which one it was who wrote the letter.�

�� This is the mystery which has faced scholars all through history.� Nobody but the God who inspired him to write knows for sure which James of the New Testament wrote this letter.� There are four men by the name of James in the New Testament, and each of them has been made to be the author of this letter.� Some argue that it could have been a James not mentioned in the New Testament at all.� Tradition has attributed this letter to the James who was the� brother of Jesus.� He opposed Jesus until after the resurrection.� Jesus made a special appearance to His brother when He rose from the dead, and James became a believer and a dedicated leader in the church at Jerusalem.� Paul called him one of the pillars of the church, and though he was not an Apostle, he was for many years the head of the home church of Christianity.

�� The vast majority of scholars through history agree that the evidence supports this tradition.� James writes with the authority of one who lived with the Master of the art of living.� This letter is more like the Lord's Sermon On The Mount than anything else in the New Testament.� You might think it is a waste of time to dwell on who the author was, but not so.� Thousands of hours of the time of the greatest Christian scholars in history have been consumed in struggling to solve the mystery of who James was.� If you are not convinced of the authority of the author, but believe he was just some godly man writing down some pious advice, it will undermine the value of what God is saying to you in this letter.�

�� This happened to Martin Luther, and to many others.� He did not consider the letter of James to be equal with the other Scripture written by the Apostles.� He called it an Epistle of straw, and when he published his Bible in German, he put James in the back, and he didn't even list it in the contents.� He influenced many others including Tyndale to follow the same pattern in their Bibles.� Luther did not reject James, but he made it second class Scripture.� There is an extremely value lesson to learn from Luther's attitude toward the letter of James.� It is a lesson that can help us avoid the folly of many of God's greatest servants.

�� First we have to understand why Luther had the attitude he did.� Luther was a reformer in constant conflict with the Catholic church leaders.� Luther's main theme was justification by faith.� Luther emphasized the need for personal faith in Jesus Christ; a trust in His atonement, and His shed blood for forgiveness of sin.� The death and resurrection of Christ, and faith in the Christ who died and rose were the foundations of his Reformation theology.�� The letter of James does not deal with these things at all.� It does not mention the blood of Christ, or His death and resurrection.� James does not emphasize faith, but his focus is on good works.� He even says that faith without works is dead.� The opponents of Luther used the book of James constantly in their debates with him.� The result was that Luther looked upon James as a hindrance to the doctrine of justification by faith.�

�� Luther did what Christians are always in danger of doing in reaction to controversy.� They blind their minds to the fact that the whole Bible is the Word of God.� The greatest tragedies in Christian history are those who come about because Christians pick and choose which parts of God's revelation they are going to live by.� Every time this happens it produces a kind of Christianity which is a perversion.� All cults are based on selected Scriptures instead of the whole counsel of God.� No church and no Christian will ever have the kind of balance that leads to true godliness and Christlikeness until they can accept all the Scripture as their authority for faith and practice.

�� Luther could not see beyond his conflict, and rise above it to incorporate the practical emphasis of James on works with his emphasis on faith.� The result was Lutheranism in Germany and surrounding nations came to a point where dead faith dominated.� Luther had God's truth about faith, but he didn't have the balance of God's truth about works, and because he failed to listen to all of God's Word his movement was not all it might have been.� It was the dead orthodoxy of Lutheranism that led to the formation of other evangelical denominations, which would not have been necessary had Luther listened to James.

�� If we can learn from Luther's mistake, we can find God's best instead of His second best.� Do not reject anything in God's Word just because it seems to contradict, or conflict, with a truth you hold to be precious.� Do not ignore parts of the Bible that are misused and abused by cults and extremists.� Jesus said we are to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.� All Scripture is inspired of God and profitable, and not just the parts you like best.� If you pick and choose, you will be an unbalanced Christian.� What you have may be good, but it will never be God's best.�

�� All of this relates to the letter of James because it is a part of the Bible which has suffered from attack and abuse.� Many have ignored it in building their Christian lives.� Those who have studied it, however, have found that it does not at all conflict with Paul, but, in fact, adds to, and compliments Paul.� James is not writing to help Christians formulate doctrine.� He is writing to help Christians make doctrine practical.� James is a man of action, and his letter is on how to put faith to work.� It is practical from start to finish, and you cannot criticize him for not saying anything about basic Christian doctrines, for that was not his purpose in writing.�

�� Calvin points out that God does not require every man to handle the same arguments.� Paul was chosen by God to deal with certain aspects of God's truth.� James was used to communicate other aspects of God's truth.� There would be no point in the letter of James if all he said was what Paul had already said.� James did not fail because he wrote nothing of the cross or resurrection.� It was not his purpose to do so, and every man is to be judged according to what his purpose is, and not according to what others think his purpose should have been.�

�� Let's begin our study of this letter then with the assurance that whoever James was, he was a channel through whom God spoke in his day, and through whom he continues to speak today.� Some will not like James because he speaks too frankly on subjects where all Christians have some big hang‑ups.� He will step on all or our toes before he is done.� He will hit all of the major weaknesses and sins of the Christian life, and he will hit them hard.�

�� Doremus Hayes, one of the greatest Bible teachers of all time, writes in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, "There are those who talk holiness and are hypocrites; those who make profession of perfect love and yet cannot live peaceably with their brethren; those who are full of pious phraseology but fail in practical philanthropy.� This epistle was written for them.....The quietists who are satisfied to sit and sing themselves away to everlasting bliss ought to read this epistle until they catch its bugle note of inspiration to present activity and continuous good deeds.� All who are long on theory and short on practice ought to steep themselves in the spirit of James."�

�� If true doctrine was enough to be an adequate Christian, James says that the demons themselves would be perfect Christians, for they believe that God is one.� The demons acknowledge Jesus as the Son of the Most High in the Gospels, but they believed the truth and tremble says James in 2:19.� Their theology doesn't do them or anyone else any good because it is truth not obeyed and practically applied.� If one's creed does not control one's conduct, his creed is not worth the paper it is written on.� Many will feel the wrath of God who had a beautiful creed, but who never learned the lesson of James to put it into practice.� James wants to see saints in shoe leather, and not just in stained glass windows.� The Christianity of James is Christianity in action.� It is above all‑practical.�

�� One of the greatest problems the church has struggled with all through history is that of getting Christians to act like Christians.� It is no problem to get them to talk like Christians, and to believe doctrine like Christians should, but it is a battle to get them to act like Christians should, and that is why James is such an important part of God's total revelation.� It wakes us up to the realization that all our belief, and all our words are dead and useless unless they lead us to practical action that does some good.� Action is what makes faith come alive.� All the Christian talk about faith, hope, and love are only theory until action makes them real to life.

�� C. S. Lewis captured the essence of the message of James when he wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you love your neighbor or not; act as if you did.�� As soon as you do this you find one of the great secrets.� When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him."�� We so often fail to be Christian because we want to get the feeling we love someone instead of acting on God's Word, and finding that out of action love comes.� James says that theoretical Christianity is not the religion of the Bible.� If your religion is not practical, it is not biblical, even if everything you say if from the Bible.� We need to recognize that we cannot wait until we feel like being Christian.� We need to just go ahead and act like a Christian should, for it is being a doer of the word that really matters.

�� James is a great believer in prayer.� Tradition calls him camel knees because he spent so much time on them in prayer that he developed calluses.� However, he does not hesitate to blast away at all the superficial ideas of prayer that many Christians have.� Prayer is not always answered, and he makes this clear.� Prayer can be abused and misused.� Prayer that does not get results is of no value.� Nothing counts with James which is not practical, and that even includes prayer.

�� James has such a love for the practical because that was the emphasis of his Lord and brother Jesus Christ.� You remember when the rich young ruler came to Jesus, and he acknowledge that he had kept all the commandments from his youth, but he asked Jesus what he still lacked.� Jesus knew he was a good man, and a reverent man.� Jesus loved him, but he said that he still lacked one thing, and so he said, "Go and sell what you have and give to the poor."� Jesus said that he had a beautiful religion, but it lacked practical application in life that helps solve some human problem.� The young man went away sorrowful because he just couldn't see getting so practical that would cost him a great deal.� He wanted religion to be a comfort to him, and to give him assurance of eternal life.� He didn't want a religion that made him get out of the ivory tower of his pleasant isolation from the sufferings of others, and do something about it.� That, however, is the only kind of religion that is Christlike, and the only kind of Christianity we find in James.� You don't just pray for a man who is hungry, you give him something to eat.

�� James condemns all the pious religion of those who say lovely things and believe glorious things, but who do not do the practical things that help meet human needs.� If James was going to be stranded on a deserted island, and he could only have one book with him, he would not likely say, as most Christians would, give me the Bible. James would likely choose a book about survival or on how to build a boat so he could get back into the stream of life where he could be a channel of truth and love into the lives of others.�

�� James is theology in action; a creed in conduct, and a call to practice what we preach, and to walk the talk. Vance Havner said, "We do not actually believe any more than we are willing to put into practice." A study of this letter will reveal, not what you believe, but whether or not you really do believe what you say you believe.� Bob Harrington said, "What this nation needs is a better me." That is practical theology. It is what we see in Paul when he spoke his first words when confronted by the Living Lord. He asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" That is the question the whole book of James urges us to ask daily.��

2.�� SUCCESSFUL SUFFERING� Based on James 1:1‑8

�� Imagine the testing of the body in such a sport as football.� To be on your feet and seconds later brought to the ground hard and fast.� Then to get up and do it again, and again, and again, but constantly moving forward.� All of that falling is not what wins the game, but whether or not you win depends a great deal on how you fall.� In fact, it has been pointed out that when the coaches begin to train their teams the first lesson they teach is not how to make a touchdown, but how to fall.� For days they learn to fall limp and to roll so as not to be injured.� There is nothing good about a fall.� It is only a hindrance to reaching the goal, but if you don't learn how to fall successfully it is not likely you will ever get a chance to reach the goal.� All the training is not to cross the goal line, but to survive until you get there.

�� What is true in football is likewise true in life in general.� If we� hope to make life a successful experience, and reach some worthy goals, the first thing we need to learn is how to fall.� Life is always filled with obstacles to overcome.� Scripture says, "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."� And, "Man that is born of a woman is a few days, and full of troubles," says the book of Job.� The Bible from Genesis to Revelation gives a realistic picture of life, and that picture looks more like a washboard than a slide.� We must face the facts of Scripture and history and realize that the future holds trials, troubles, and for some even tragedy.� This realism in the Bible, however, is combined with an optimism because it reveals to us the way to triumph through our trials.�

�� The Bible is very practical and one of the books most noted for being practical is the book of James.� It was written by James, not the Apostle, but James the brother of our Lord.� It was written by a man who grew up with Jesus in the same family, and who knew his teachings very well.� There are more references to the Sermon on the Mount in James than in all the other Epistles put together.� It also has the distinction of being one of the first books of the New Testament to be written.� It was written about 45A.D.; less than 20 years after the death of Jesus.� The very first lesson that James teaches, like that of the football coach, is the lesson on how to fall, or if we were to give it a title we might call it, The Secret Of Successful Suffering.� In these first few verses James tells us of three requirements necessary for the successful suffering of trials.� The first is‑

I.� A POSITIVE RESPONSE OF THE WILL TO TRIALS.� verse 2.

�� The difference between tragedy and triumph is all in how you count your trials.� James says by an act of the will count it all joy when tried.� Don't let circumstances take you captive and control your life, but compel them to yield the fruit of joy by a choice of the will.� The Christian is never to be under the circumstances, always on top of them.� Faith does not change what life brings to you, but it is to change what you bring to life.� Every trial calls for a choice that involves the will.� It is not what happens that determines a person attitude, but how they chose to count what happens.� One man can get a flat on the way to work and count it a blast from the hand of fate, and be upset all day because he lost an hour of work.� Another can have the same experience and count it as the providential protection of God that may have saved his life, and he rejoices all day in thanksgiving to God.� The difference between the scowling crab and a smiling Christian is all in how you count your trials.� The scowler counts them a jinx; the smiler counts them a joy.�

�� The Bible has a high view of man's will power, especially after he has been delivered from being dominated by the forces of evil.� For James to say, count it all joy, it is assumed that if they will so choose they have the will power to do so, and only if they do can they be successful in their suffering.� James can urge them, warn them, and counsel them, but only they can make the choice, but they can if they will.

�� When those two planes crashed in mid air some years ago killing all aboard there were three men who watched it on the radar screen.� They saw the two planes on a collision course and they shouted and shouted until they saw them hit.� One of them became violently ill, the second passed out, and the third� had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized.� They saw the danger but did not have control of the plane, and so all their efforts were in vain.� So it is in our experiences of falling into trials.� James can shout, count it all joy; preachers down through history can shout it; your friends can shout it, but then all they can do is stand and watch you go down unless your will responds in a positive manner and counts it all joy.� In other words, your will is the pilot in your life.� If it gives up all is lost, but if it refuses to be defeated you can never fail.� Your plans may fail, and the plane may go down, but the positive will, even then, land you safely with the parachute of joy.� As long as the will responds positively there is no such thing as defeat.�

�� When Dr. Maxwell from Prairie Bible Institute was in the Twin Cities, he told the story of the first man to bring a plane out of a tail spin.� His name was Stinson, I believe.� He was flying one day doing some fancy tricks when suddenly he went into a tail spin.� No one had ever come out of a tail spin before.� He tried everything he could think of.� He pushed and pulled, turned and twisted, and nothing happened.� It looked hopeless and time was short as he plunged toward the earth.� He finally decided to give it everything and get it over, and to his amazement, as he gave it the gas he pulled out of the tail spin.� He wondered, could it be he discovered the way to come out of a tail spin?� The only way to know was to try again, so he climbed up high and purposely went into another tail spin, and came out of it by the same method.� By an act of the will he turned a trial that had always brought tragedy into triumph.

�� Scripture tells us that God works in all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, but nothing works for good to those who will not count it good.� If we refuse to consider a thing good even when it is, it will not be good for us.� Like the woman who always complained about so many bad potatoes in her field.� One year almost all of them were good, and then she complained because she had no bad ones to feed the pigs.� Even blessings are not good to the person with a negative will, but to the person with a positive will even trials can bring joy.� But James makes it clear that this positive response of the will to trials must be based on the second requirement which is‑

II.� A POSITIVE RECOGNITION OF THE WORTH OF TRIALS.� verses 3 and 4.

�� The Scriptures tell us that no chastening for the present seems to be joyous.� James does not expect us to be joyful because we are suffering, or even while we are suffering, though that is not impossible, but the joy comes in reflection and by our recognizing how even trials can help us attain the spiritual goals of our life.� If we allow them, they can teach us patience, which is an essential virtue in becoming all that God wants us to be.� The joy we can have in trials is in recognizing that Christlike character is our goal, and if trials can help us to be more like Him, then we can rejoice and suffer successfully.

�� Virtues grow out of the possibility of vices.� Who has ever been brave who did not have a chance to be a coward?� How can one have courage who has never faced danger?� Who can know what patience is who has never been tried by impatience?� Trials are opportunities to develop virtues.� It is not the trial that brings joy, but the knowledge that the trial can teach us things that are never learned by a life of ease. Nobody would ever bother to watch football if there were no obstacles to overcome. Take away the opposition and the game loses all meaning.

�� A young Italian working in an American stone quarry had both eyes blinded, and he lost one arm by careless handling of dynamite by others.� He was helpless and the future looked dark, but a woman who lived near the hospital where he was, and who knew Italian, had compassion on him, and she helped him get into a school for the blind.� He was grateful for the fact that someone cared, and he became an eager student.� He went on to become one of the most popular teachers in that school.� If he had never had his tragic experience he likely would have remained an illiterate the rest of his life.� The loss of his sight lead to him seeing more than he ever did before.� He once said, "The day of my accident was the birthday of my mind."� He counted his trial all joy.�

�� Archidimus in Thucydides, the famous Greek historian, said, "We should remember that man differs little from man except that he turns out best who is trained in the sharpest school."� Henry Howard has pointed out that this is true in nature as well.� The Australian black‑butt is a tree that grows in rich soil where there is a great deal of rain, and they grow so close together they are sheltered from the wind and storm.� It becomes huge in its life of luxury and ease, and it grows to a height of 300 feet, but in its sheltered life it develops no toughness of fiber, and, therefore, is practically worthless for any purpose where endurance is required.

�

�� In contrast with this tree is the English oak which battles the storms from its birth until it is strong and mature.� It grows slow but solid. The Australian‑butt will rot under ground in 6 months, but English oak is used in England for underground wooden pipes, and after 300 years they were dug up and found to be as good as when they were laid.� The proof that it is the trials endured that gives it the strength is that if the English oak is planted in Australia with its less vigorous climate, it grows twice as fast and is much feebler.� Therefore, even nature teaches that trials are of great worth in producing quality.

�� Who can find a greater quality of music than that of Handel's Messiah?� It did not come� out of a life of ease, but one of great trial.� In his biography we read, "His health and his fortune �had reached the lowest ebb.� His right side had become paralyzed, and his money was all gone.� His creditors seized him and threatened him with imprisonment.� For a brief time he was tempted to give up the fight, but then he rebounded again to compose the greatest of his inspirations, the epic Messiah."� If all had been going great for him, he may never have created his greatest work.

�� The greatest trial in all of history led to the greatest triumph in all of history.� When Jesus in the agony of Gethsemane recognized the worth of what He was to suffer for, responded with His will saying, "Not my will but thine be done."� He counted it all joy to go to the cross.� Scripture says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross."� Never has there been such successful suffering, and James urges us to follow that same pattern that Jesus followed by making a positive response of the will to trials, based on a positive recognition of the worth of trials.� The particular value which James stresses is patience, which we will not deal with now, for now we want to look at the third requirement which is‑

III.� A POSITIVE REQUEST FOR WISDOM IN TRIALS.� verses 5‑8.

�� In a sense, we are ending with the beginning.� We are covering last that which comes first.� Just as the response of the will is based on our recognition of the worth of trials, so our recognition of the worth of trials is based on our request for wisdom to be able to see it.� In other words, learning how to triumph in trials, and to suffer successfully, begins with prayer for the wisdom needed to guide our will to the proper choices.�� Success in anything for the Christian comes down to the simple phrase, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."�

�� Like the football player, we do not wait until the tackler is upon us before we learn how to fall.� We learn this before the trial comes.� A Japanese proverb says, "Dig the well before you are thirsty."� Another says, "Shingle the roof before the storm."� The football player prepares through practice; the Christian prepares through prayer.� James is saying, if you don't have the will power to count it all joy when trials come; if you are not convinced that trials can be of great value, then you lack the wisdom which only God can give.� Therefore, you had better make a positive request for such wisdom, for without it you can never suffer successfully.�

�� Notice, he does not say we are to ask to be delivered from trials, but ask for the wisdom necessary to make them work for good in your life.� Alexander Maclaren said that the lack of wisdom is the chief defect in the average Christian.� It comes only by persevering in prayer.� Paul was constantly praying for the Christians of his day that they might have the wisdom of God.� In Col. 1:9 we read, "We do not cease to pray for you that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."� We have not because we ask not James says.� Here is a clear statement that to ask for wisdom is always in the will of God, and God delights to grant it.� James himself was known to be a man of prayer, and that explains his practical wisdom.� Tradition says he has knees like a camel because he spent so much time on them.�

�� Donald M. Baillie relates of how in the 17th century the Westminister Assembly met to draw up a Protestant Confession of Faith.� At that assembly was Dr. John Selden, one of the greatest scholars of the day, but who was a defender of the Erastian heresy.� He gave such a brilliant argument for the heresy that the good Presbyterians there were at a loss as how to defend the truth.� Then, unexpectedly, George Gillespie, a young Scotsman, rose in the meeting and spoke against the heresy in an amazingly effective way which swept away years of labor on the part of Dr. Selden.� When his speech was over his friends got a hold of the notebook that had lain in front of him hoping to find the outline of his argument, but on the page they found nothing but a single sentence penciled over and over again as he sat there waiting to speak.� There were just three Latin words, "Da lucem, Domine," which means "Give light, O Lord."� He lacked wisdom but he asked of God.

�� Wisdom includes knowledge, but is more, for it is the ability to use knowledge to arrive at the best ends by the best means.� Wisdom directs the use of knowledge.� Many people have the knowledge of� how to drive a car, but they lack the wisdom which is necessary to drive it properly.� When a drunken man wants to drive a car, it is not knowledge he lacks, but wisdom.� Wisdom is the capacity to use knowledge effectively for good purposes.� Everyone suffers, but only the wise makes a success of it, for only the wise recognize that trials can be of profit if they are wisely used.�

�� Disraeli said, "The fool wonders but the wise man asks."� But notice that our asking must be positive.� It must be in faith without doubt.� God is ever ready to grant the request for wisdom, but He cannot answer the prayer of the double minded.�� This is one who is not sure he wants God's will,� and so he would not be able to receive the wisdom of God anyway.� He is like Augustine who in his early prayers before he came all out for Christ use to pray, "O God, make me pure, but not now." He was double minded.� He wanted to follow two paths at the same time.� Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, for you will love the one and hate the other. The double minded man literally does not have a prayer. God refuses to grant any request from such a person. They are like people who are "Trying to serve the Lord in such a way as not to offend the devil." They think they can be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and get by with it. God demands a simple and single minded faith.

�� The lesson on how to suffer successfully involves the whole of one's spiritual life and relationship to God. In learning this lesson we will learn that which is necessary to be a complete and entire Christian. We will learn to fall in such a way that we are brought closer to our goal of Christlikeness for having fallen. We will do this by a positive response of the will to trials; by a positive recognition of the worth of trials, and by a positive request for wisdom in our trial. The most important thing to remember is that we must be asking God for wisdom if we are going to suffer successfully.

3.�� DON'T WASTE ANYTHING� Based on James 1:2‑4

�� Marcus Bach in his book The Power of Perception tells of how great worth is found in waste.� An old lead and zinc mine had been abandoned for years.� It appeared a worthless worn out pit with all its value exhausted.� But when man developed a new need, a need for Tungsten, the waste deposits from this old mine were re‑assayed and discovered to be full of Tungsten.� The ghost mine sprang back into life, and a thriving community grew up because waste could produce worth.� In other words, it was not waste at all, but valuable stuff.� Bach says, no mine is ever totally exhausted, and all waste just waits for man to discover a new use for it.� As men develop the power of perception, they see new values in what they formerly threw away.� Numerous are the examples of how what were once waste products are now valued products.

�� Nothing is more practical than the art of turning waste into worth and James the brother of our Lord was an expert.� He has the power to perceive the worth in what everyone else tends to call worthless‑the trials of life.� What can be a greater waste in life than to suffer trials and tribulation?� We count it all joy when we can escape these worthless types of waste.� But James, with an advanced perception, says you are throwing away your own treasure .� There is great value to be gotten from tough times. �In fact, it is one of life's most precious values‑the virtue of patience.

�� Less you think that patience is a very simple thing, let me point out how it covers a multitude of complex feelings and attitudes.�

1.� It means a calm waiting in hope.� This is the patience of the gardener or farmer who plants his seed and then must wait to see the fruit.�

2.� It means endurance of trial; a putting up with what is not pleasant, such as a nine year old boy who is convinced he can learn to be the world's greatest drummer.�

3.� It means self‑control.� When too many things happen at once, you can still keep your cool and not go to pieces, but persevere through them all.� There are many different degrees of this virtue.�

�� James says to Christians who are struggling with life's adversities‑don't waste anything in life‑not even your negative experiences, for they contain great potential.� They can be used to produce the costly value of patience.� If you lack the wisdom to see this, ask God for it, says James, for none are so wise as those who have the power of perception that can explore the waste deposits of human burdens, and see how they can be turned into human blessings.� May God grant us wisdom as we try to see what James reveals concerning the value and the vision of patience.�

I.� THE VALUE OF PATIENCE.�

�� Patience is a hard to win virtue.� It does not come from reading books and hearing sermons.� You cannot teach patience, because it is not taught, it is caught, and it is only caught by getting into the stream of life's trials.� Patience is like a purple heart.� The only way you can get it is by getting wounded in battle.� The great Henry Ward Beecher said,� "There is no such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear.� No man can learn patience except by going out into the hurly‑burly world, and taking life just as it blows....and riding out the gale."� We cannot learn patience by this message, but we can learn to appreciate its value.

�� You have to be thoroughly convinced of the value of patience if� you are going to pay the price to obtain it.� Men fight for their country, and for their family, and for the honor of their faith, but whoever heard of fighting against adversity, and all the while counting it a joy because they are thereby gaining the virtue of patience.� We all know it is a wonderful thing to have, but is it that precious?� James clearly implies that it is.� It is so valuable to possess it that those who see its value can even suffer in joy when they know that their suffering is leading them to more patience.� Only a deep grasp of this value will enable any Christian to practice what James tells them to do.� Men can only enjoy suffering that pays high dividends.�

�� Men can suffer long fearful journeys, and hunger and thirst and pain of every description, if the end result is gold.� Men have suffered everything for gold, and just the hope of possessing it drove them to endure agonies beyond our comprehension.� A value less tangible, but just as real as gold, is glory, and again, there is no end to the suffering men and women will joyfully endure for glory.� The world of sports alone is ample evidence of this.� Millions of muscles shriek out in painful agony, yet there is no let up and relief, for the price must be paid for glory.� The point is, people count it all joy to suffer for any goal they are convinced is of high worth.� We fail to be motivated to suffer for the sake of patience, because we have undervalued it, and do not consider it as one of life's precious possessions for the personality.�

�� There is no doubt about it, Paul saw eye to eye with James on the value of patience, for Paul says it is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and in the great love chapter of I Cor. 13, the first positive characteristic of ideal love is patience.� In Rom. 5:3, Paul uses the word in the same way as James does when he says that tribulation worketh patience.� Jesus used this same word when He described the good soil in the parable of the sower as that which holds fast the seed of the word, and brings forth fruit with patience.� There are other texts we could look at, but these are sufficient to convince us that patience is a virtue which is a key

to the fruitful Christian life.�

�� As soon as James opens his letter with a greeting, he launches into the praises of this virtue that is so precious that it ought to make us enjoy our trials.� If we cannot see the value in patience, we will not see the value in the trials that help produce it.� In 1934 the huge Jonker diamond was discovered in South Africa.� It was given to Lazare Kaplan, the patriarch of diamond cutters.� The owner also sent a plan for cutting it, but Kaplan said, had he followed that plan it would have been destroyed.� He spent one year just studying that stone, and planning how to turn it into 12 smaller stones.� Only after great patience in planning did he go to work, and his patience paid off, for he turned that egg size crystal into a dozen immortal gems.� Only recognition of great value could motivate such patience.� Nobody could exercise such patience to produce a ring of little value.� It takes great value to motivate patience.�

�� If you do not see the great value in patience, you will not see the worth of any kind of suffering.� Only a value system which places a high worth on patience can give you the power to perceive value in tribulation.� If you lack such a value system, you will consider all forms of suffering as worthless, and so you will waste a good chunk of your life's experiences.� James says you don't have to waste any experience of life, but can rejoice in its value if you see it develops patience.� What could be more practical than asking God to give you the wisdom to be able to turn all waste into worth.� Those who think like James are incurable optimists.� If even life's rough roads are increasing your supply of patience, then you can rejoice while you groan and moan.� You don't have to like the suffering, but you can't help but like the fringe benefits, if you are building up your patience.� Someone wrote, "Patience is like the pearl among the gems.� By its quiet radiance it brightens every human grace, and adorns every Christian excellence."�

�� In the history of Christian missions, it has been the virtue of patience that made the difference.� William Carey, the father of modern missions, labored 7 years before he won his first convert.� This has been true for many, and you just can't write the history of Christian missions without people of patience.� The second thing we want to consider is‑

II.� THE VISION OF PATIENCE.

�� The person who possesses patience perceives life with a particular perspective.� He sees life from the point of view of the whole and not just the part.� He sees the long run of things, and not just the now of them.� He has a vision that penetrates the cloudy now, and sees into the sunny yet to be.� James has a vision, not just of the present suffering of trials, but of the long range effects of what they can produce in us through patient endurance. He sees the outcome of it all leading to Christians being made complete, and lacking in nothing.� If the only way to the castle is by means of a rough road, than rejoice that you are on that rough road, for better to be struggling up toward and ideal than walking in ease down a road to no where.�

�� James does not portray the Christian life in a superficial manner.� It is a false hope to tell people the Christian life is the answer to all their problems.� The Gospel is not, come to Jesus and live happily ever after.� The Christian life is often a struggle and a battle, and an uphill climb over many obstacles, but it is worth it all because the end result is a happy ever after with a great sense of satisfaction, because we have come through the trials of life more like our Lord, who made it possible for us to fight the good fight by His grace. The point is, if this year is going to be a good year of Christian growth, it will not be all blue skies and barbecues.� There will be some struggle and hard decisions that force us to move up or down on the scale of Christlikeness.� James says, don't waste these times, but catch a vision of the value to be gotten out of them.

�� The patient Christian sees life as a process in which God works out His plan by stages and degrees.� This is a perspective based on wisdom.� God made reality this way, and it is folly to try to make it any other way.� God could have made it so babies were born a week after conception, but He chose to make it 9 months so life would begin with a process of waiting and expecting.� God could have made man so he would be like some animals, and be very soon independent after birth, but instead He made it so they need a long process of care and training.� This provides a school of patience for both parents and child.� Family life is a process of growth in learning patience.� Life is made to develop by degrees.� Jesus entered this process and grew in wisdom, and in stature and in favor with God and man.� At 12 He already felt the need to be about His Fathers business, but God made it so He had to go home with Mary and Joseph and live in patient growth for 18 more years.

�� Jesus spent most of His life learning to develop patience.� Without this long process His humanity could not have endured the injustice of His arrest, trial, and crucifixion.� Jesus needed time to develop this virtue, and so do we.� There is no such thing as instant maturity.� The fruit of the Spirit, like the fruit of the soil, takes time to develop to maturity. Nobody is fully loving, joyful, peaceful, or patient upon conversion.� These and all other Christian truth grow by degrees.�

�� The virtue of patience is essential to every aspect of the Christian life.� You cannot become anything God wants you to be without patience.� Patience gives you the ability to see life in its wholeness and the long run.� It enables you to see how the trials of life can be part of the process you need to develop in specific areas you would neglect without them. Shakespeare said, "How poor are they who have not patience!� What wound did ever heal but by degrees."� Healing, growing, becoming Christlike‑they are all achieved by degrees, and, therefore, patience is a necessity.�

�� The vision of patience enables us to be ever moving toward the goal of being complete, lacking nothing.� Impatient Christians always stop short of this goal.� The impatient Christian gets a glimpse of a Biblical truth, and immediately begins to proclaim he has found the key to the Scriptures.� He tends to blow it out of all proportions, and many will not go along with his enthusiasm, and so he starts his own church, or cult, and becomes an extremist, fighting the rest of the body.� The patient Christian takes time to see how new light and insight fits into the whole picture, and how to incorporate all aspects of truth into the whole.� The result is, he brings greater unity rather than division to the body.

�� Inpatient Christians have looked at Paul's emphasis on faith and the emphasis of James on works, and have concluded there is conflict, and so they choose up sides.� Patient Christians look deeper, and see both Paul and James in agreement, for the two must be part of the whole for there to be any authentic Christianity.� Patience builds, but impatience destroys.�� If you want to be the best possible Christian, James says nothing is more practical than the development of patience.� Try and imagine any other Christian virtue being complete without patience.� Imagine an impatient love.� I'll love you if you snap it up.�� Sure I love my neighbor for a while, but when I asked him to come to church, and he said no, I gave up on him.� Impatient love is not Biblical love.�

�� Joy that is impatient will not last in a trial.� If all goes smoothly impatient joy can function, but patient joy can function even when the way gets rough, for it knows God can use even this to make us more Christlike.� Go though the list of Christian virtues, and see how all of them lose their value if not combined with patience.� The problem with everyone of us is that our Christian virtues tend to all have a breaking point.� We will be kind and gentle when all is normal, but lose our cool and become like an unenlightened pagan when the waters get rough.� We have not arrived at the point where we lack nothing, for we clearly do not have the patience to be complete in the exercise of our virtues.�

�� Patience is both active and passive.� It can press on or hold on, which ever is needed. The active patience is called perseverance or persistence.� It is a never giving up spirit� that plugs away even when progress seems hopeless.� A father was scolding his son for his lack of ambition.� "Why when I was your age I worked ten hours a day and five hours a night washing dishes."� The son said, "I'm proud of you dad.� If it hadn't been for your pluck and perseverance, I might have to do something like that myself."� Wise are the parents who make their children do what they don't have to do, just to learn to be patient. Even in our day of greater leisure, every person needs to be prepared to plod.� Shakespeare said, "Though patience is a tired mare, yet she will plod."�

�� If God did not have patience, the world would long ago be gone.� Love is patient says Paul, and God is love says John, and so God is patient.� The only way we can live the Christian life is by developing patience.� You cannot love yourself or your neighbor without patience.� Impatience is the key sign of immaturity.� The Christian who wants instant success in himself, or in others, will be a neurotic Christian.� They will never be happy, for they spend their entire life fighting the reality of life.� All of their energy will be spent in seeking shortcuts to holiness, and despising those who will not join them in their futile search.� Impatience mars every gift and perverts every grace so that even what is good becomes a waste.�

�� The whole point of Satan's attack on Christ in the wilderness was to entice Him into impatience.� Don't wait for food, turn the stones into bread now.� Don't wait for popularity, jump off the temple and get the crowds now.� Don't wait for power, bow to me and have� your kingdom now.� Satan's greatest trick is to get us to be impatient.� D. L. Moody said,� "Paul when writing to Titus, second chapter first verse, tells him to be sound in faith, in love and in patience.� Now in this age ever since I can remember, the church has been very jealous about men being unsound in the faith.....They draw their ecclesiastical sword and cut at him, but he may be ever so unsound in love and they don't say anything.� He may be ever so defective in patience‑he may be irritable and fretful all the time, but they never deal with him....I believe God cannot use many of His servants because they are full of irritability and impatience."� Moody, like James, is saying, let's get practical.� What earthly good is a Christian who believes in the Trinity, but who is so impatient he turns everybody off?�

�� The passive patience is endurance.� It stands fast and takes a pounding, but does not yield.� It patiently holds on waiting in expectation for a victory.� If mud splatters on your clothing, you tend to want to wipe it off now, but if you wait until it dries it will not smear, and come off much easier.� The unknown poet writes,

O wait, impatient heart!

�� As winter waits, her song‑birds fled,

And every nestling blossom dead.

�� Beyond the purple seas they sing!

Beneath soft snows they sleep!

They only sleep.� Sweet patience keep,

�� And wait, as winter waits the spring.

�� We must confess that it is one of hardest things to do, for so many things in life put pressure on us.� Jesus, even in His perfection, still felt the tremendous pull of impatience. How long must I endure this generation, He moaned as He came to the edge of His own breaking point.� The folly of man; their blindness and pettiness, and weakness puts even divine patience to the test.� Trials put all of us against the wall at some point.� What do we do?� We hang on.� Many rescues take place because victims are able to hang on just a little longer than what seems possible.�

�� Jesus had to endure the weakness of those who loved Him as well as the wickedness of those who loathed Him.

O who like thee, so calm, so bright,

Thou Son of man, Thou Light of light!

O who like thee did ever go

So patient through a world of woe!

Those who are not willing to endure trials will just not become what God intends for them to be.� If the Son of God needed to learn obedience by what He suffered, how much more must we endure to learn.� It is just a part of God's universal plan for all life to grow by degrees, and by struggle.�

I wish I were big the acorn said,

Like the great, green oak tree, over head‑

Cool shadows it throws for all who pass‑

But I am so useless and small‑‑alas!

Only be patient, a kind voice spoke,

I was not always a mighty Oak;

For my beginning was humble, too;

Once I was an acorn‑‑just like you!

�� Roberta Symmes

�� Emerson said, "Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience."� Study of one of the great Sequoias in California indicate it was a sapling in 271 B.C.� 516 years later it was damaged by fire.� For over a century it repaired that damage, and grew layer after layer over the scar.� God built patience into that mighty tree, and it survived.� You and I have the potential for patience as well, but we must choose to develop it, and only testing can help us do that.� Nothing can be more practical than for us to ask God for the wisdom to see� the value in testing, so that we do not waste anything.�

4.�� PERSISTENTLY PATIENT� Based on James 1:3‑4

�� All our lives we are being tested on our ability to wait.� Those who fail to learn early become candidates for insanity.� Nothing is more frustrating than to have an impatient mind in a world where you cannot control all that is necessary to fulfill all your desires and dreams.� Gutzon Borglum, who craved the Mount Rushmore Memorial, was asked if the faces he had craved were perfect in detail?� He replied that the nose of George Washington was an inch too long, but that it would erode to exactly the right length in about 10 thousand years.� If he had been a perfectionist without patience, he would have worried himself to death over this detail, but he had the wisdom to accept his limitations, and leave perfection to the patient working of nature.

�� Those who do not learn this lesson, and who just cannot accept their limitations, can never become mature adults, let alone mature Christians. Maturity is directly dependant upon one's patience.� When a baby cries the mother usually goes immediately to satisfy it's need.� As the child gets older there are longer intervals between its wishes and the fulfillment.� Parents ought to make sure of this by design.� When we say a child is spoiled it really boils down to the fact that they have not been taught patience.� Their wishes have always been fulfilled with only short intervals between.� They have not been discipline to wait.� They expect the world to jump when they say frog.� They are demanding, and they expect to get what they want right now.� They are intolerant of anyone or anything that stands between them and fulfillment of their wishes.� Immaturity is largely a matter of impatience, just as maturity is largely a matter of patience.� Mature� people have the ability to endure the postponement of wish fulfillment.

�� A child is usually by nature impatient, and so also immature.� If it wants a piece of candy before supper and you say they have to wait until after supper, there can be quite a storm stirred up in them.� The child can act as if the world has lost all meaning, and there is nothing more to live for.� They can fall on the floor, kick and cry, and be uttering crushed by this denial.� This is all a part of the process of becoming mature.� The child must deliberately be made to endure the trials of being denied.� This is the only way they can learn that wishes are not automatically and immediately fulfilled in life.� Parents do their children a great injustice when they send them into the world unprepared for trial and denial.�� They must be taught how to suffer and endure postponement.�

�� God is not so unwise in raising His children.� James is saying to Christians that they are to rejoice in the trials that come into their lives, for only by these can they learn patience, and only through patience can they ever be perfect or mature.� The Christian who is raised in a sheltered situation, and who is never allowed to wrestle with the problems of life, and the problems of faith, and who is never made to confront the challenge of unbelief, is not prepared to live in the world as it is.� Such Christians are forced to withdraw from the battle into their own shell, and live in fear lest something makes them lose their faith.� This is not what a Christian is to be.� He is to be a soldier of the cross.� He is to be out on the front lines confronting problems greater than his ability to solve, for only there will he learn to be patient, and to trust that God can work even where the Christian's limitations make him unable to work.�

�� To learn patience is identical with becoming Christlike.� Jesus submitted to the limitations of the flesh, and to the slow but sure way of success through patience.� Paul in Rom. 15:5 calls God the God of patience.� If God was not patient history would have ended long ago.� All through the Old Testament we see His patience and long suffering with Israel.� Even before that we see His patience with Adam and Eve.� Instead of striking them dead for their sin, He let them continue to live, and He promised them redemption.� After a multitude of failures on the part of Israel, God persisted in being their God, and He patiently worked and waited for the fullness of time to send forth His Son.

�� Jesus was not created like Adam.� He was not ready to go to work as soon as the breathe of life was breathed into Him.� He had to go through the process of growth.� He patiently worked as a carpenter until he was 30 years old, even though at age 12 He sensed the call to be about His Father's business.� What a demonstration of patient waiting.� I have seen men so impatient in their desire to preach the Gospel that they dropped out of college or seminary, and they took a short cut through a board that did not demand high standards of education.� Jesus could wait, but they could not.� Jesus could patiently prepare, and fully fulfill all that was required, but we often think God's plan needs us now whether we are prepared or� not.

�� I felt this way often, and I wanted to quit my education, but as I look back I can see the impatience was not motivated by God's will, but by the desire to escape the discipline it took to persist in what is hard.�� It is a real trail to go to school for so many years, and have to meet constant deadlines, and be under constant pressure, but I count it all joy now that I suffered those trials, for through them I learned patience, which is absolutely necessary to do the will of God.�

�� Jesus had to have patience to see men perishing without the Gospel, and yet wait until He was 30 to reveal Himself.� Then when He began His public ministry He spent another 40 days being tried in the desert.� You would think just waiting that long would be trial enough, but not so.� Jesus had to go on demonstrating patience over and over again.� Even in the temptation Satan offered Jesus a short cut by which He could rule the world, but Jesus chose the long hard way of the cross.� He began His ministry with men whom He came to save opposing Him.� He was hated and mocked, and leaders sought to trip Him up by watching every move, and listening to every word, hoping to catch Him in a heresy.� He was criticized for every action, and finally His enemies nailed Him to the cross.� Yet through it all we do not see Jesus becoming bitter because He was misunderstood.� He did not grow sour on mankind because of their ingratitude.� He patiently endured, and even on the cross He prayed for God to forgive them.� No one has ever demonstrated the virtue of patience like Jesus.��

O who like Thee, so calm, so bright,

Thou Son of man, Thou Light of light;

O who like Thee did ever go

So patient through a world of woe!

�� We can never fully imitate the patience of Christ, but it is our duty as Christians to try by His grace.� We must learn the patience of Christ to a large degree in order to be of worthwhile service to Him.� That is why James says that we are to count it all joy when we are tried, for trials present you with an opportunity to learn patience.� A concordance will reveal that the New Testament exalts the virtue of patience to a very high level, and makes it clear that one cannot be a mature Christian without it.� It is one of the fruits of the Spirit.�

�� It is a virtue of such obvious and essential value that it is universally exalted and praised.� This means it is not limited to Christians, but is a value among all people, no person can be mature without it.� This means that the Christian ought to give all the more heed to its importance.� If a value is held in common with pagans, and even atheists, the Christian ought to be a greater possessor of that virtue than they are.�

�� Tertullian, in a famous sermon preached in the 2nd century, said of patience, "Its good quality, even they who live blindly, honor with the title of the highest virtue.� Philosophers, indeed who are counted creatures of some wisdom, ascribe so much to it that while they disagree among themselves in the various humors of their jests, and the strive of rival opinions, yet having a common regard for patience alone, in respect of this one alone of their pursuits they are joined in peace; in this they conspire together; in this they are confederate; this they pursue with one mind in aspiring after virtue."

�� No pagan religion, or moralistic philosophy, or humanism can get far in producing any virtues in people without patience.� For you cannot even be an adjusted and mature person without it.� This only shows how much more the Christian needs patience to fulfill the higher ideals and standards of Christ.� If one cannot even be a good pagan without it, it is impossible to be a good Christian without it.

�� Therefore, do not look at trials as evil, but as opportunities to develop patience.�� It takes patience even to learn patience in trials.� So often we are like a child who is so concerned about his present wishes that he does not even consider developing virtues for the future.� We often use prayer as a means to cut down the time between our desires and their fulfillment.� We do not want to go the long hard way, and so we ask God to give us wisdom without searching for it.� We ask God to change us without going through the painful process of change.� We ask God to work immediately rather than through the laws He has written into reality.� We want a religion like that of the magician.� He pulls trees out of the hat right before our eyes, and without all the nuisance of planting, watering, and waiting.� In body building people count it all joy to endure trial, for they know that is the only way to build muscle.� We forget that the same thing is true for building up the soul.

�� Who has not had a child or loved one who was sick, and prayed that they would be spared the suffering and be healed, and yet had to go on watching the pain continue until it has run its course?� Does God not care?� It is because God does care that He does not spoil us like being like those foolish parents who jump at every whim and wish of their children, and never discipline them by keeping them waiting.� God wants children who learn to wait, and who can endure.� These are the two aspects of the meaning of patience.� It is the ability to wait and hope, and to endure without giving up.� It is being persistent in your goal of being Christlike when everything seems to hinder it and oppose it.�

�� Being patient is essential for just normal life adjustment.� It is of double necessity to live the Christian life.� Thomas A. Kempis said, "All men commend the patience, although few be willing to practice it."� We must be among those few if we expect our lives to be the best instruments for God's glory.� Susanna Wesley had as great a task as any woman has ever had with her large family, but her patience enabled her to do such a marvelous job of it.� She raised children that changed the course of history.� John Wesley became a famous Christian leader, but it took a lot of patience to raise him.� His father once said to his mother, "How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead the same thing 20 times over?"� She replied, "If I had told him but 19 times, I should have lost all my labor."� She was persistently patient, and that is why her life is used in millions of sermons as an illustration of the Christian life.�

�� Fruit growing takes patience.� Most of us want to get the fruits of the Spirit just like we get our groceries.� We want to walk along and pick up what we desire and be done with it.� This would be possible if we could acquire fruits grown by someone else, but in the moral and spiritual realm every person has to grow their own.� The process calls for discipline and patience.� Those who cannot persist and wait until they develop and grow will never progress to the point of perfection.� If you cannot wait, you cannot win.� Hovey said, "Impatience strikes a death blow to all the graces of the Holy Spirit.� Not one of them can remain intact in an impatient soul."� On the other hand he said, "Every act of real patience, under severe trial, tends to strengthen itself and all other graces."� The bottom line is that we can only be all that God wants us to be by learning to be persistently patient.��

5.�� WHO CAN BE PERFECT?� Based on James 1:4

�� Mozart was only 25 years old when he settled in Vienna in 1781.� Ten years later he was dead, but his commitment to perfection made his mark live on and crown him as one of the princes of music.� Those ten years were years of struggle for survival.� He lived in poverty with little food, and often even without heat in the winter.� His publisher threatened to stop giving him any payment at all if he did not write in a more popular style.� Mozart replied, "Then, my good sir, I have only to resign and die of starvation.� I cannot write as you demand."� He refused to dedicate his gift to the trivial, and he went on writing his matchless music which made him so famous after his death.� He aimed for perfection, not because it paid well, but because he do no other.� The love for quality was in his blood.� James is informing us that this should be the goal of every Christian, for God is perfect, and we are to be partakers of the divine nature.

�� Facing life's trials with joy and patience is not just to prove we can do it, but that we might be perfect and complete, and lacking in nothing.� Someone will immediately take issue with James and ask, "Who can be perfect?"� We said James was a very practical writer, but how can he be practical and so soon jump off the deep end, and write of being perfect?�

�� If there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on, it is the realistic truth that nobody is perfect.� Jesus Christ is the only candidate for the office of perfection, and James, of all people, should know that, and not introduce such a concept in his letter.� Is it possible that James was just expressing a sense of humor, for that is usually the only realm in which we deal with perfection. The poet writing from a doctor's perspective put it this way,

The perfect patient let us praise: He's never sick on Saturdays,

In waiting rooms he does not burn. But gladly sits and waits his turn. And even, I have heard it said, Begs other, please go on ahead.

He takes advice, he does as told; He had a heart of solid gold.

He pays his bills, without a fail, In cash, or by the same day's mail.

He has but one small fault I'd list: He doesn't (what a shame!) exist.

�� This seems to be the major defect in all perfect people‑they are conspicuous by their absence, and just do not exist.� Spurgeon wrote, "He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly.� I never saw a perfect man.� Every rose has its thorn and everyday its night."� Shakespeare summed it up, "No perfection is so absolute, that some impurity doth not pollute."� But what are we to do with James?� Are we to write off his words as humor, and say he must have been joking, or should we just skip over such things, and not ask so many questions?� This is often the approach to things we do not understand, but it is folly and sin.� If you do not understand what the Bible is saying, then you need to search until you do.� Bible reading is not enough.� We need to study the Bible until we do understand what God is saying.� So we are going to study the biblical concept of perfection so that we know what God expects of us.� First let's consider‑

I. THE EXPECTATION OF PERFECTION.

�� James is not alone in expecting Christians to be perfect.� Both the Old Testament and the New Testament have many text that make it clear that believers are expected to press on to perfection.� This expectation is not hidden away in some obscure corner of the Bible where scholars have to dig to find it.� It is written so often, and so clearly, that he who runs may read.�

�� James did not set up the standard of perfection.� He only echo's his Lord and brother, who in the Sermon on the Mount, made the most absolute statement on perfection to be found anywhere.� In Matt. 5:48 Jesus said, "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."� Jesus expected His followers to be perfect.� That may sound impossible; especially to be perfect like God, but the point is, that is what is expected.� Why should Jesus expect less than the best?� The Old Testament saints attained perfection, and so why not New Testament saints?�� Listen to these texts:

Gen. 6:9, "Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generation."

Job 1:8,�� "A perfect and an upright man..."

I Kings 11:4, "The heart of David was perfect with the Lord his God."

I Kings 15:14, "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days."

�� If these men of God of old could be perfect in some sense in spite of their sins and blunders, how can we expect God to expect less from us who have his best in Jesus Christ?� Anything less than perfection is not only sub‑Christian, it is sub‑Judaism.� It is below the ideal of the entire Bible.� There are many other references in the Old Testament, but we must move on to look at the exalted expectation of the New Testament.� Eph. 4:11‑13 says, "And he gave some Apostles, and some prophets; and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."�

�� Paul believed it could be done, for he wrote even to the sinful saints of Corinth and said in II Cor. 13:11, "Be perfect."� In 7:1 he urges them to be cleansed from sin and perfected in holiness.� Some did attain it, for in I Cor. 2:6 he wrote, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect."� In Heb. 5 the Christians are being rebuked for being on milk when they should be eating the meat of the Word.� They are forever on the bottle of the simple Gospel, and they never go on to the profound heights to which God is calling.� After this rebuke he says in 6:1, "Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to perfection...."� God does not want His children in elementary school forever, anymore than we want our children to remain on that level.

�� One of the most wide spread heresies among Christians is the idea that all God cares about is getting people saved.� The Bible, however, makes it clear that God is not satisfied until His children are perfected, and made complete and mature in Christ.� We cannot begin to quote all the evidence, for the entire New Testament was written for this purpose.� The whole concept of Bible study is based on this assumption that by studying the Word of God we can become Christlike in character and conduct.� God is concerned about quality.� He wants justified sinners, but He wants them to become sanctified saints.� Calvin Coolidge refused to run for a second term as president of the United States.� He said it was because there was no room for advancement.� This is never the case for the Christian, for there is always room for progress.

�� The expectation of perfection can be burdensome.� It is like the new bank president being introduced to the employees.� One of the tellers said, "I have worked here for 40 years, and in all that time I have only made one mistake."� "Good," said the new president, "but hereafter be more careful."� He expected perfection, and that is too much to expect.� Sydney Harris wrote, "Nothing is perfect is what we say when we want to justify our current state of imperfection; the statement is made not because it is true (which it is) but because it offers us a plausible defense against improvements, and this is more dangerous and misleading than a lie."� We do not want anyone to expect perfection from us, but we cannot escape the fact that that is what is expected of us in Scripture.� Let us look next at‑

II. THE EXPLANATION OF PERFECTION.

�� Now that we know that it is expected, we need to know what it is that is expected.� How can we be expected to be what we know that no one but Christ has ever been?� Who can be perfect?� Christians who try and face up to the biblical expectation without an biblical explanation often make the Scripture a stumbling block, and a basis for a nervous breakdown.� A Christian perfectionist who does not understand what the Bible means often become a neurotic, guilt‑ridden, self‑hating Christian.� If they do manage to maintain some stability, they are a plague to others with their cursed perfectionism.� They become the Felix Ungers of the religious world.� They are tormented in trying to be as spotless as those in heaven.

�� There is much written on the dangers of perfectionism by both secular and Christian counselors, but our purpose is not to try and understand what biblical perfection isn't.� Our task is to try and understand what it is.� If we can grasp what it is, we do not have to worry about the follies of exaggeration.� Elimination of the doctrine of perfection is one extreme, and exaggeration of it is the opposite extreme.� You can only stay on the narrow path of truth by finding a proper explanation of what the Bible means by perfect.

�� The Greek word here is the usual Greek word for perfect.� It is teleios, and it means to reach a goal; to accomplish a task and complete it, and to bring it to perfection.� If your goal is to raise tomatoes which weigh a pound a piece, then when they reach one pound you have completed your goal, and it is teleios‑perfect.� You have created the perfect tomato.� Perfection is a matter of development toward a goal until that goal is reached.� If my goal is to run three miles, and I run those three miles, I have had a perfect run.� It may not be perfect for the one whose goal is to run five miles, but it is for me because my goal was three.�

�� Growing Christians are constantly reaching new goals, and so they are constantly being perfected.� James is especially concerned here about a perfected faith.� What is a perfected faith?� Faith means trust, and so a perfect faith would be a trust which is continuous, and which cannot be shaken by circumstances.� It is to be able to say with Job, "Though he slay me yet will I trust him."� That is perfected faith.� Paul wrote in I Thess. 3:10, "Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith."� A perfect faith is essential, and that is why James says be glad when your faith is tested, for an untested faith can never be perfected, and who wants a weak faith that might let you down when life gets hard?�

�� A faith that cannot survive trials is not worth having, and if a crisis makes you lose it, you will never be what God wants you to be.� Testing is essential to perfection.� Everything is tested these days.� If the wings on a jet cannot stand the test, the plane is no good.� If the brakes on your car cannot stand the test, the car is no good.� Everything has to be tested to see if it can hold up and reach the goal for which it is made.� If it cannot accomplish the purpose for its existence, it is of no value to create it.�

�� A Christian can have a perfect faith; a faith that has reached its goal, and will trust in God no matter what.� A faith that only lasts until the pressure gets to a certain point is like a bridge that goes half way across a river.� It is incomplete and greatly lacking, but just as a bridge can go all the way and be a perfect bridge because it accomplishes its goal of getting across the total river, so are faith can be perfect, and get us all the way through life's trials with complete trust in Jesus Christ.� That is perfection, and it can be done, and has been done by millions, and will be done by millions more.� Who can be perfect?� Every Christian can be, and is expected to be perfect.

�� A bridge that gets you over the river may be imperfect in many ways.� It may need paint; it may need fixing, and it may have many rough spots, but if it complete its purpose of getting you over the river, it is in that aspect perfect.� In the Christian life perfection is relative and will not be absolute until we are transformed to be like Christ Himself.� That is why Paul in the same context says he is not perfect, and then says that he is perfect.� Paul's paradox applies to all of us.� In Phil. 3:12 he says, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect..."� He goes on to say that he presses on toward the mark of perfection, but then in verse 15 he says, "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded."� Paul is saying that the perfect Christian is one who clearly recognizes that he is not perfect, and must be ever pressing on.� Part of perfection is being aware of your imperfections.

�� What this means practically is that we must be ever growing, but that we can be perfect in our present state of growth.� Everyone of us can be right now living fully up to the light that God has given us.� We can be completing all that He wills for us to do, and that is to be living a perfect Christian life.� Everyone can see room for improvement, and all of us can see the defects in our lives, and so we all say that no one is perfect.� However, if you are constantly growing, developing, and overcoming as you grow, you are at each stage of your growth in a state of perfection, for you are living at that point in complete obedience to God as you understand His will.� That is what God expects of us, and the Bible says it is possible to live on that level.� Only those who believe it is possible will keep pressing on toward perfection.� If you live today in full obedience to what you understand of God's will, you are living today in perfection.�

�� This explains how the Old Testament saints, who sinned, could also have a perfect heart toward God, and walk in perfection before Him.� A perfect Christian today can still fail God tomorrow, and that is why he must be constantly growing and striving to perfect every area of his life.� It is because perfection is relative that it can be real.� To be perfect is to be all you can be for God.� To live in frustration because you cannot be something or someone you are not, is to misunderstand what God wants.� A perfect piano cannot be an organ or guitar.� Each has its own purpose, and each is perfected when it fulfills its purpose.� So it is with the individual children of God.� To get depressed and disgusted with yourself, and feel guilty because you can't be something you are not, is to be on the path of imperfection.� Being the best of what you are is what it means to be perfect.�

�� Someone might remind us, however, that Jesus said we were to be as perfect as God.� That is certainly impossible!� No it isn't when you understand it.� God's perfection consists in always doing what He knows to be good and wise.� We can do just the same as His children.� We are not equal with God, for the finite can never be infinite, but the thimble can be just as full as the swimming pool, and man can be just as obedient to what he knows as God can.� It is likeness to God, and not equally with God, that is expected.� If we act always in a way consistent with our redeemed nature, we are perfect in the midst of our many imperfections.�

�� If we sin, and we immediately recognize this to be an offense against God, and we confess it and seek its forgiveness, this is a part of the perfect relationship to God.� Absolute perfection is still ahead, but relative perfection is to be attained now.� A little girl was asked by her teacher, "Where is the dot over that i?"� The little girl said, "It is still in the pencil."� The final perfection when every i will be dotted, and every t will be crossed is still in the pencil as God writes the history of our lives, but God continues to write, and everyday He writes can be a day in which we live in perfection.� If I say that my goal today is to read three chapters of the Bible, treat everyone I know in love, and not choose to do anything I know displeasing to God, that is teleios‑perfect.� I have fulfilled the purpose of God in my life for this day.�

�� I once had to fix our vacuum cleaner, and all I had was my rusty old pliers and bent wrench. I was able to get it apart and back together with these tools, and it worked. These tools were perfect for the job. That means they helped me achieve my goal. They had many defects, but they were still able to get me to my goal, and so they were perfect. God needs people in the world to get His will done on earth as it is in heaven. We may have many defects, but if we help God reach His goal, then we are perfect. This means that every one of us can be perfect tools to touch some life for His glory. God does not expect us to be frustrated by the call to perfection, but to be encouraged because it is possible for any of us, even with all our imperfections. God does not expect us to be now what we will eventually be, but He expects us to be what we can be now, and that is tools that get the job done.

�� John� Wesley was a great believer in Christian perfection, and he wrote a whole book about it, and he has influenced millions. Many suggested that he should call it something else other than perfection, for that leads people to be confused. He responded, "As to the word, it is scriptural, therefore, neither you nor I can in conscience object against it, unless we would send the Holy Ghost to school and teach Him to speak who made the tongue." Perfection is a valid biblical word and the only problem with it is our lack of understanding what the Bible means by it. Hopefully we have made that clear so that it need not be a problem in our minds.

� ��Perfect has to do with purpose. God's purpose in this fallen world is to redeem the lost, bring good out of evil, and guide His children to grow in Christlikeness. The primary tool for this task is love, as it is expressed through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, and continually through His earthly body‑the church. It is the perfect tool to get the job done. Who can be perfect? We can, for we can be channels of the tool of Christ's love every day, and help fulfill the purpose of God in the lives we touch every day.

6.�� ASKING GOD based on James 1:5‑8

�� Two brothers came to the U.S. from Europe in 1845 to make their fortune. The older brother had a trade for he knew how to make sauerkraut, and so he took a wagon train west to California to raise cabbages. The younger brother went to school to study metallurgy. Several years passed, and the younger brother went to visit his older brother. As the older brother was showing him around the cabbage fields he noticed he was not paying any attention to what he was explaining, and he protested, "You really don't care about my work do you?" The younger brother picked up a stone and said, "Do you know what this is? It is quartz, and that yellow spot is gold. You have been raising cabbages on a gold field." It turned out to be one of the greatest gold strikes ever in Eldorado County.

�� Raising cabbages on a gold field is what every person does when they fail to fulfill the potential of what they possess. In the realm of prayer almost every child of God is raising cabbages on a gold field. We are playing marbles with pearls and do not begin to fulfill the potential of prayer.� It has always been so, and James in 4:2 says, "You do not have, because you do not ask." Only that angel who is the accountant of heaven could ever know how many blessings God's people never receive because they never ask. Someone told the story of a man who was being shown the glories of heaven, and his angelic guide showed him a vast storage area of beautiful gifts God wanted to give His children on earth, but they never asked. The story is fiction, but the truth of it is fact.

�� In the next verse James says to the Christians, "When you do ask you don't receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions." To ask for a wrong motive is just as fruitless as not asking at all. A 7 year old boy was told by his mother that he could not go to the Sunday School picnic because of his disobedience. By the next morning she had softened, as mother usually do, and she told him he could go after all. He took the news so quietly that she asked him, "What's the matter, don't you want to go?" He sighed and said, "Its too late now Mom. I've already prayed for rain."� He saw prayer as a way to get even with others. Prayer was a means by which we get God to do our will.

�� If only children had this immature concept of prayer, it would not be so bad, but the fact is, many Christian adults are also immature amateurs when it comes to prayer. We all miss its potential, and spend our lives raising cabbages on this gold field of spiritual riches. Prayer is the most universal aspect of man's religious nature. Man is such a praying creature that even an atheist has a hard time to keep from praying in certain situations. Like the girl in Russian who was taking a test to qualify for a job in the Soviet government. One of the questions was, What is the inscription of the Sarmian Wall? She answered, "Religion is the opiate of the people." She was not sure, however, and so obsessed with a desire to know that she went the 7 miles out of the way to check. When she saw the exact words she had given, she was so relieved that she sighed, "Thank God."� It is sometimes hard for unbelievers to escape all prayer.

�� Charles Steinmetz, the great scientist, was asked what field for future research holds the greatest promise, and he replied instantly, "Prayer, find out about prayer." That is what we intend to do, because James very quickly in his letter gets to this subject of prayer. He knows you cannot get far in any direction spiritually without prayer. She knew that the Apostles of his divine brother and Lord never asked Him to teach them to preach or teach, but did ask, "Lord, teach is to pray." James was such a man of prayer that he was known as camel knees, because he spent so much time on them in prayer.� He will help us see how important and practical prayer is for effective Christian living. The first thing he makes clear is,

I. THE REASON FOR PRAYER v. 5

�� The reason we pray is because we have a need.� James says that if you feel you lack wisdom, ask God.� Prayer is first of all a confession of our own inadequacy.�

Say, what is prayer, when it is prayer indeed?

The mighty utterance of a mighty need.

The man is praying who doth press with might

Out of his darkness into God's own light.

Saying prayers and praying are not the same thing.� Many times we say prayers because it is the appropriate thing to do, but to really pray is to feel a need that only God can satisfy.�

�� If you are facing trials and lack the wisdom to see how they can make you a better Christian, you know you have a need.� You can petition God and ask in all sincerity, "Lord, give me wisdom.� I don't see any good.� I cannot find any value in what I have to endure.� Give me the wisdom to see it."� The greater we feel the need, the greater the fervency of our prayer.� Those who feel no need do not pray with any sense of urgency.� Need is the basis for earnest prayer, for recognition of need is the reason we pray at all.� We just do not ask for what we do not need, or for what we do not recognize as a need.

�� What we are saying is that there are different degrees of earnestness in praying.� The degree varies with the sense of need.� This was true even in the experience of our Lord.� Certainly Jesus never prayed a superficial prayer, but He did pray with varying degrees of need, even as we do.� In His hour of greatest need in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke tells us in Luke 22:44 that when he went to pray the second time, "...being in agony he prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground."� Never on this planet was a need ever felt more deeply, and never was prayer ever offered in greater earnest.� Jesus establishes this truth by His life and teaching: The greater the reality of one's need, the greater the reality of prayer.�

�� In His parable on the Prodigal Son He pictures the Prodigal feeding the pigs, and coming to a full awareness of his need.� "How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!� I will arise and go to my father."� When he felt his need deeply enough, he went to the source where his need could be met.� When he felt self‑sufficient he left his father, but need brought him back, and need is what brings men back to God.

�� Lincoln faced the burden of a great nation being torn apart at the seams, and he felt an intensity of need as few men ever have, and he wrote, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day."� Here is intense and earnest prayer based on need felt so deeply that only God could meet it.

�� We are all in a civil war, but because we do not feel it deeply, we do not pray earnestly about it. It is the war within ourselves to live for the flesh, and the things of the world, or to live for the spirit, and the things of Christ. He came to seek and to save the lost, but because we do not feel deeply that the lost are really lost, we do not have intense prayer for their salvation, and we do not witness to them earnestly. Consciously or unconsciously we feel that there is always time, or that there will be a second chance, and their is nothing to worry about. By this subtle trick Satan takes most of the army of the Lord out of the battle, and slows down the conquering march of the kingdom to a crawl.� Until we really feel strongly the need of getting lost people saved, we will not pray seriously for that to happen, nor will we pray for the wisdom to know how to communicate the Gospel to them.

�� Prayer is the link between supply and demand.� Need reaches out for resources to satisfy it.� This has very practical consequences in our prayer life.� It means that our real prayer life is in our desires.� "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire."� I might say a prayer which goes, "Lord give me a deeper understanding of your Word," but if my real desire is to get more money, and my greatest need I feel is the lack of cash, then all day long by my life I am praying, "Lord give me more money."� You real prayer is for what you really feel you have a need.� You can ask for wisdom in 10 prayers a day, but if you do not feel any need for it, you will not receive it, for God knows that is not your real prayer.� We can learn to ask for all kinds of things that sound good, but if they do not meet a need, it is not truly prayer.�

�� The reason behind all true prayer is a sense of need.� If any lack wisdom let him ask of God says James.� He knows all do lack it, but if Christians do not feel this lack, and sense a need for it, there is no point in asking.� Only what you really need is what you really ask for, for need is the reason you pray.� After giving us the reason for prayer James next reveals‑

II. THE REQUIREMENT OF PRAYER.� v. 6

�� Recognizing a need is essential, but in itself it is not enough to get the need met by prayer. James says you must ask in faith with no doubting.� God requires faith before he meets a need.� If you do not believe God can give you the wisdom you lack to enable you to rejoice in life's trials, then you just as well save your breath.� God gets personally involved in the laws of prayer, and they are not like natural laws.� A man can cast seed into the ground, and whether he believes they can grow or not they will come forth and bear fruit.� Prayer is not so impersonal.� In prayer you are dealing with nature's Lord, and you cannot just send request to heaven and expect them to be answered regardless of your personal faith.� "He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of them that diligently seek Him."� If you lack such assurance, God will not grant your request.�

�� James is a practical man, and he is not interested in prayer that doesn't work, and so in this first reference to prayer, and in his last one in 5:15 he makes it clear that faith is the requirement for effective prayer.� In that final reference he says it is the prayer of faith that will save the sick.� Prayer without faith is not practical because it just doesn't work.� The motto says, "Prayer changes things." But to be fully accurate it should say that the prayer of faith changes things.� Without this requirement being meet prayer changes nothing.� James is only echoing his Lord and brother, for Jesus said in Matt. 21:22, "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."� Remove the requirement of faith, and prayer holds no promise.

�� Faith involves confidence in your need being legitimate.� In other words, if you sense a need, you must believe that God can and will satisfy that need before it does any good to pray.� To pray without such confidence is to fail to meet God's requirement, and such praying will be ineffective.� You might just as well go out and try to sell a product that you have no confidence in as to try and get God to meet your need without faith.� If you said to a prospective customer, "I would like to sell you this vacuum cleaner, but I not sure it works better than others.� I'm not even sure it works, because I didn't want to try it at home since we just got new carpet.� A lot of people say its not a bad little machine.� Would you want one?"� Your answer is clearly going to be no!� Without faith in your product you will not please man, and without faith in your prayer you will not please God.�

�� God is more discerning than any man, but even men will not give a positive response to a faithless request.� God will not reward the negative.� A perfect, or mature faith is a faith that says that my need is legitimate, and that my God is adequate, and He will supply what my need demands.� The doubter, on the other hand, is tossed about like a wave in the wind.� He is not certain what he needs, and shifts his conviction back and forth every day.� He is not convinced God would meet his need even if he was certain, and so he fails to meet God's requirement for prayer.� The result leads to our third point.�

III. THE REJECTION OF PRAYER.� v. 7‑8

�� If you read a hundred books on prayer, probably 90 of them will each that prayer is always answered.� It is fantastic the lengths to which Christians will go to try and prove what is clearly contrary to the plain teaching of the Word of God.� James tells it like it is.� He says that if we pray, not in faith, but with doubt and double‑mindedness, we will not receive anything of the Lord.� Some will try and get around this by saying God always answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is no.� It is a clever face‑saving trick to prevent the Christian from blaming himself for his faithlessness.� He can throw the responsibility back on God and say, "Well God said no that time."�

�� The fact is, God does say no sometimes.� He did to Paul's request to be healed of his thorn in the flesh, but what is dishonest is to put all unanswered prayer in this category, and fail to see that believers are often themselves responsible for the lack of an answer.� There is such a thing as prayer that is rejected.� God refuses to listen and respond to it at all.� He does not say no, for He ignores it because it is unworthy.� For example, if a believe has sinned in his life, but still wants God's blessing, he is double minded.� He wants to serve 2 masters, and Scripture says his prayer will not even be heard.� This was true in the Old Testament, and it is true in the New Testament, and it is true today.� In Isa. 59:1‑2 we read, "Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you so that He does not hear."� The prophet is not telling them that God is saying no to their prayer.� He is telling them that God is not even listening.� Their prayer is not being answered at all.

�� David understood this, and in Ps. 66:18‑20 he wrote, "If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!" David knew that God did reject prayer, and there are many reasons all of which revolve around man's doublemindedness. If you do not practice the golden rule, you will have many prayers rejected. If you do not forgive others your prayer for forgiveness will not be heard. If you do not meet others needs when you are able, your needs will not be met when you cry out to God. Peter even says that not living together properly as husband and wife can lead to prayers being unanswered.

�� Those who try and escape this clear teaching of James, and other Scriptures, will fail to realize their own responsibility, and, therefore, never correct their lives and press on to perfection. They will remain immature Christians. A. W. Tozer, that great prophet of the Christian And Missionary Alliance denomination, hit hard at the evils of teaching that God always answers prayer. In one of his editorials he wrote, "The God‑always‑answers‑prayer sophistry leaves the praying man without discipline. By the exercise of this bit of smooth casuistry he ignores the necessity to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, and actually takes God's flat refusal to answer his prayer as the very answer itself. Of course such a man will not grow in holiness; he will never learn how to wrestle and wait; he will never know correction; he will not hear the voice of God calling him forward; he will never arrive at the place where he is morally and spiritually fit to have his prayers answered. His wrong philosophy has ruined him."

�� James is to practical and realistic to let Christians think prayers are always answered. If we listen to James we will see that effective prayer with our lives. We must shape up and follow Christ, for it is out of obedience that faith and confidence grow, and this is the requirement for answered prayer. Effective praying is simply the result of effective Christian living. A good prayer life is the practical result of a life of commitment to Christ. Our greatest need is to live in obedience, and we know God will hear our prayer for wisdom to do so. The answer to this prayer is the key to answers to all other legitimate prayers. It all begins by asking God.

7.�� CHRISTIAN DIGNITY�� Based on James 1:9f

�� An old business man once spoke at his club and told of how he made an investment which brought him great dividends, but for which he did not have to pay a cent of taxes.� One night as he closed his store he found a dirty boy of 12 crouched against the building trying to protect himself from the blowing snow.� He took the boy inside and fed him, and he listened to his story.� All of his family had recently died of the flu, and he had no relatives.� The store owner gave him some clothes and $25.00.� He advised him to buy a ticket to go West, and get a rancher to take him on.

�� Fifteen years passed and he never heard a word.� Then one day the young man returned, not as a rider of the range, but as Dr. Fredrick Miller, the man who had made headlines for isolating the flu bug that had left him a orphan.� The old man had invested in a lowly person.� He was an economic and social nobody, but by investing in him he did more for humanity than if he had given away all his wealth.�

�� Every nobody can become somebody, and that is why everybody is worthy of investment.� This is God's view of man, for it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for the ungodly.� God is no haphazard and foolish investor.� When He gave His Son, and His Son gave His life, they expected that investment to pay off with eternal dividends.� They knew that all men, however, lowly, could become sons of God.� Every man is a potential child of the King.� Every man can be born again into the royal family of the Risen, Reigning, Returning Redeemer.� This is the theological foundation for Christian dignity, and a sense of self‑respect.�

�� James is very much concerned about his subject of Christian dignity, for if Christians do not have a proper grasp of it, they will be poorly prepared to face life's trials. �Verses 9‑11 is a troublesome paragraph to most students of the Bible, for it does not appear to have any connection with what goes before and what comes after.� James writes in verse 2 of counting it joy when you meet various trials, and then he goes on to refer to the need for wisdom to attain the goal of perfection.� In verse 12 he takes up the theme again of enduring trials.� Before and after these verses the theme is trials of life.� It is obvious that James in these verses we are looking at is dealing with some specific examples of the trials Christians must face, and they are poverty and prosperity.

�� James, as we have emphasized, is very practical, and he knows that one of the greatest trials Christians will face all through history is the trial that comes with too little or too much money, fame, and prestige. Christians will be on both sides of the track, and both have their dangers.� Poor Christians and rich Christians both fail to find happiness and a sense of fulfillment in God's will because they lack a proper understanding of Christian dignity.

�� The Apostle Paul was a man could abound and be abased, and be content in either state.� That is, he could be a happy poor man, or a happy rich man.� Externals made no difference to him because the basis for his happiness, well being, and self‑respect, was not in external circumstances, but in the internal Christ.� For him to live was Christ, and it was Christ in him that was the hope of glory.� This is the attitude that James is trying to communicate to all Christians.� Let's look at his counsel first of all to‑

I. THE LOWLY BROTHER v. 9.

�� We need to establish in our minds that all Christians are not in the same category. Christians are in many different categories, and here they are divided between the lower class and the upper class; the poor and the rich.� The common man and the man of culture are two clear categories.� Some Christians eat out at McDonald's, and others eat at the Black Angus.� Some Christians always have a struggle to make ends meet, and others have money available at all times.�� This is one of the facts of life.� It has always been true, and always will be true.

�� This means that not all Christian teaching applies to the same people.� What may be of value for the poor Christian will not be of value for the rich Christian.� James has two perspectives here, and he deals with the two categories in two different ways. Christians must be dealt with according to their individual status, and not like a herd of cattle.� If this is true in the matter of economic and social status, it is true in many other categories as well.� A true respect for people's personality and dignity demands that you deal with them as individuals with particular and special needs.�

�� James recognizes that the poor and lowly Christian has a unique trial in life, and that he needs a particular kind of wisdom to gain the victory.� What is the trial of the brother of low degree?� Most of should know, for most of us, as most Christians through history, fall into this first category.� It is hard to be poor and not envy the rich.� It is hard to be a nobody and not be jealous of those who are popular.� Most Christians feel they are obscure and unknown, and they can easily get depressed about their place in life if they let negative thinking dominate their mind.� Most can see themselves in this poem:

Common as the wayside grasses,

Ordinary as the soil.

By the score he daily passes

Going to and from his toil.

Stranger he to wealth and fame‑

He is only what's‑his‑name.�� Author Unknown

�� Our names are known only by a few, and most all of them are as equally unknown to the world as we are. Christians can allow their lowly state, and their lack of money and fame, to crush them and leave them feeling worthless.� When a Christians feels like he or she is a nobody, and good for nothing, they not only destroy their own joy, but are a hindrance to others.� A person who feels like a worthless nobody tends to play the part.� They do nothing, for they have no gifts.� They try no service, for they are not worthy.� The devil has defeated such Christians because they are ignorant of the reality of their Christian dignity.� Much that calls itself Christian humility is just a lack of self‑respect.

�� That is why James urges the lowly brother to boast in his exaltation.� The Greek word refers to professing boldly something for which you are proud.� James is saying that every Christian has something to be proud about.� He has a status in Christ that is so lofty that he need not feel inferior to any man.� The foolish Christian who lies in the dust like a worthless worm is denying that his life is hid with Christ in God.� He is declaring that love has not lifted him and set his feet on the solid rock.� He is still psychologically down in the miry clay.�

�� If only Christians could see that it is a denial of their Christian dignity as children of God they would cease forever to pity themselves as if they were worthless orphans.� In 2:5 James writes this way according to the Living Bible‑"Listen to me, dear brothers: God has chosen poor people to be rich in faith, and the kingdom of heaven is theirs, for that is the gift God has promised to all those who love Him."� If you love God, you are an heir of the greatest fortune in the universe.� You have the highest status known to man, and even the archangels cannot top it.�

�� American Christians have become so enamoured with the success imagine that they have only multiplied the tensions that Christians normally have anyway.� Several years ago a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor wrote what he called an open letter to Jane Ordinary.� It was published in Christianity Today.� Let me share a portion of that letter.�

Dear Jane:

"I'm writing to help you shake this feeling of uselessness that

has overtaken you.� Several times you have said that you don't

see how Christ can possibly use you‑you're nobody special.� The

church must bear part of the responsibility for making you feel

as you do.� I have in mind the success‑story mentality of the church.

Our church periodicals tell the story of John J. Moneybags who

uses his influential position to witness for Christ.� At the church

youth banquet we have testimony from all‑American football

star Ox Kickoffski, who commands the respect of his teammates

when he witnesses for Christ.� We've lead you to think that if you

don't have the leverage of stardom or a big position in the business

world, you might as well keep your mouth shut‑nobody cares what

Christ has done for� you."�

�� People of fame, like movie stars, sportsmen, and scientists were first used by the church to show the world that being a Christian did not hold you back in any way from being the best of what you could be. Christianity was consistent with being brilliant, strong, handsome, talented, and rich.� All of this is true, but it has caused Christians themselves to lose their sense of balance.� They have forgotten that Jesus is just as concerned about the common person.� As a matter of fact, he has an even greater investment in the average man than in the superstars, not only because there so many more of them, but because he has chosen them as the main resource for the building of His church.

�� Listen to Paul in I Cor. 1:26‑28, "For consider your call, brethern; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are."� We are deceived is we think that Great Commission of Christ is going to be fulfilled by people of fame and fortune. Just about every organization serving Christ is this world would fold up without the support of the common average Christian.

�� If the community is influenced in any lasting way for Christ, it will not be because we have famous Christians in our midst. It will only be when the average Christian realizes the dignity Christ has given them, and begins to boast in his exaltation, as James says he should. It is the average Christian that is the hope of the average sinner, for he will only be deeply impressed by what he sees Christ doing in those on his level. Bob Hope can lift him with a laugh for awhile, but only John Doe Christian can point him to a Hope that will lift him to a new life forever. So boast in your exaltation says James. Rejoice that God has given you a position and a power that General Motors executives cannot touch without submission to Christ.

�� When W. D. Jackson gave his Presidential address to the Baptist Union of Great Britain, he told of how he was in spiritual darkness as he fought in World War I. He stayed in a little village in France where a peasant family took him in. It was a humble home, but a godly home, and when he heard the children pray before they went to bed the flame of faith began to kindle in his heart. He never eve knew their names, and it wouldn't make any difference, for nobody knew them anyway. They were used to change the life of a man who became a national Christian leader. The fact is, almost all men of Christian fame were won to Christ by some lowly brother who had a proper respect for what they were as a child of God.

�� When a Christian loses respect for himself, and fails to boast in his exaltation, and be proud of what God has done for him, and in him, he will not be a channel for God to do through him what He intended to do. All useful Christians are proud of what they have become in Christ. They are not proud of what they were, nor are they proud of how far short they still are from the ideal, but they rejoice that they are no longer what they were, and are moving toward the ideal. Christians will never gain the victory over the trial of being just average until they face realistically their Christian dignity as children of God. If you go through your daily trivial routines thinking nobody cares what you are or do, and that you have as much effect on this world's values as you have on the weather, you will be a defeated Christian, and think it is normal. You become a doubleminded Christian, and James has just warned that this will lead you to receive nothing from the Lord. It is the Christian whose mind is set on things above, and who is conscious of his heritage and dignity as a Christian who will live what he sings‑

A tent or a cottage, why should I care?

They're building a palace for me over there;

Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing;

All glory to God, I'm a child of the king.

�� James goes on in chapter two to point out that a poor personal attitude toward one's own dignity will lead to social problems of treating others also according to their earthly treasures, rather than for what they are in Christ. In other words, prejudice and bigotry grow out of false concepts of one's own personal dignity. If you think you are nothing you will tend to treat those with less than you like they are dirt, and you will give an evil preference to those who have wealth.� This matter of Christian dignity and a sense of self respect is an important issue personally and socially. The world need, and the church needs, Christians who can, in spite of deficiencies in the material and social realm, boast in their exaltation in Christ.

8.�� CHRISTIAN HUMILITY� Based on James 1:10‑11

�� A young girl from a very wealthy family decided to write a story about poor people for her assignment in school.� Her story began like this:� "Once upon a time there was a poor family.� The father was poor, the mother was poor, the children were poor, the butler was poor, the chauffeur was poor, the maid was poor, and the gardener was poor.� Everybody was poor."� The little girls concept of poverty was obviously colored by her own environment.� This is true for all of us, however, even though it may not be as conspicuous as it was in her case.

�� Poverty and prosperity are relative terms, and who is rich and who is poor is often very hard to define.� People with very little income in our society can own almost everything that people with large incomes own.�� They usually pay more for it in the long run, but they can have it if they wish.� I remember the surprise I got one day when I took a bag of groceries up some dilapidated steps and pounded on a poor excuse for a door.� It almost came off when I did.� I was on an errand of mercy to give these poor people a gift of necessities from the church.� When I stepped into the house I saw the children dirty and ragged watching a large color television.� This was back in the 70's when most of the church members who were giving the food did not yet own a colored set.�

�� In our society you don't have to wait until you can afford it.� You can have luxuries today if you are willing to sacrifice necessities.� We can't knock it, for such freedom of choice is a freedom most of the world does not have.� Most would have little if they had to wait until they could afford it.� Richard Armor gives us a humorous insight into this reality.

The bride white of hair, is stooped over her cane,

�� Her faltering footsteps need guiding,

While down the church aisle, with a wan, toothless smile,

�� The groom in a wheelchair comes riding,

And who is this elderly couple, you ask?

�� You'll find when you've closely explored it,

That here is that rare, most conservative pair,

�� Who waited till they could afford it.

�� Such people are more than rare, for they are extinct in our society, for we live where even the poor are rich with luxuries that millions never possess in other parts of the world.� This means that most Christians today need to listen to James when he gives advice to the rich, as well as his advice to the poor.� American Christians are both relatively poor, and relatively rich, and so they can be defeated by the trials that come with either poverty or prosperity.�

�� In our previous message we focused our attention on the trial of poverty and lowliness, and we discovered that we can conquer the tendency toward depression and feeling like a worthless nobody through an honest realization of our Christian dignity.� We have a right to be proud as children of God, and we have in Christ that which makes us the richest people on earth.� We can say with the poet,

Lord of the poor, when earth you trod,

The lot you chose was hard and poor;

You taught us hardness to endure,

And so to gain through hurt and pain

The wealth that lasts for evermore.

A proper sense of our Christian dignity will make us rich, and victorious over the trials that come from lacking the best this world has to offer.

�� Now we want to focus our attention on verse 10‑11 where the opposite trial is dealt with, and that is the trial of prosperity.� The treatment of this problem calls for an understanding of Christian humility. Christian dignity and humility must be combined in that Christian who hopes to beat both battles‑the battle of fearful depression, and the battle of false pride.

�� James in verse 10 says the rich Christian is to rejoice in that he is made low, or to rejoice in his humiliation.� This is in contrast to the poor Christian rejoicing in his exaltation.� What does it mean that the rich Christian has been made low in Christ, when the poor have been lifted?� Certainly the rich are exalted also when they became children of God.� James is not denying this.� He is giving advice on how to gain victory over trials, and the trial of the rich will be the tendency to put their trust in, and find their prestige in their material possessions.�

�� James is telling rich Christians they are to gain the victory over this danger by recognizing that in Christ they have been made equal with the brother of low degree.� They have actually lost something by coming to Christ.� They have lost the right to be respected for their wealth alone. Christian humility demands that they see themselves as God sees them, and He sees them on a level of equality with all His children.� As rich Christians they have no right to lord it over their brethren in Christ who have much less.� If they shun them, or treat them as unworthy of equality, they show that they are still measuring life's values by the world's standard.� They are failing to conquer in the trial of prosperity, and they will end up with less reward than their brothers of low degree who do succeed in conquering in their trial.�

�� The poor Christian is in danger of thinking too little of himself, and the rich Christian is in danger of thinking too highly of himself. One fails without a sense of dignity, and the other fails without a sense of humility. The Apostle Paul had everything going for him as a leader among the Pharisees. She had position, power and possessions, but he gave it all up, and he counted it as refuse in order that he might have Christ. Jesus Christ was the pearl of great price for which he sold all that he had that he might possess it. The greatest thing that ever happened to Paul was when he got knocked off his high horse of pharisaical pride, and was brought low to the level of Christian humility.

�� From that point on Paul was all things to all men. He could stand with dignity before Apostles or kings. He could serve the lowly like a common slave. He even wrote a letter for a slave to Philemon. Paul was a rich man who discovered greater riches in Christ, and escaped the world's value system. Like James, he was concerned that rich Christians not get defeated by trust in their riches. He wrote to Timothy in I Tim. 6:17‑19, "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, land to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."

�� James is saying that very same thing. He too wants rich Christians to escape the temptation of wealth, and gain God's best. They can only do so by constantly and consciously rejoicing in their Christian humility. That is, by being grateful that their eyes have been opened to the folly of measuring a persons value by the possessions he has acquired. Christian humility is not saying that you are nothing, or that you are of little value. �It is simply recognizing that your dignity and worth as a person is not based on material possessions or social position.� Your dignity is based on what Jesus did for you, and for all who receive Him.� Your humility is an awareness that you are on the same level with all of God's children.� When a Christian thinks he is something special because of what he has, he is living on the level of worldly pride.� When he has the same pride as the poor Christian based on being a part of the family of God, then he has the Christian humility he needs to be victorious over the trial of riches.

�� When the rich Christian has been brought low so that he recognizes his equality with the poor Christian, that is when he can rejoice says James.� He is saying you can be happy when you no longer have to base your dignity on those things which cannot last.� This explains how a person can rejoice in losing something, and in being brought low.� He has lost what is passing away, and by being brought low he has gained a sense of his dignity that will last forever.� He has lost a passing security to gain an eternal security.� A Christian who finds his security in God alone can face any trial and be victorious.� He can be a poor Joseph who became rich, or a rich Job who became poor, and either way, like Paul, be content in whatever state he is.� Worldly wealth is of withering worth, but in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.� You are truly rich when Christ is the foundation of your wealth.�

�� The rich will have a hard time doing what James advises.� Many will live defeated lives because they cannot stop basing their dignity on earthly standards.� Most everything James says about the rich in this letter is negative.� He knows how hard it is for them to escape the pride of class and position.� James, as a leader of the church of Jerusalem, no doubt knew people personally who fit these words of Cullen the poet‑

She thinks that even up in heaven

Her class lies late and snores,

While poor servant cherubs rise at seven

To do celestial chores.�

�� God wants all believers to have a sense of dignity and security, but if they find it in power, possessions, or position, rather than in Christ, they have no greater security than the world has which passes away. Christian humility is simply a recognition that all the passing values of this world are no basis for pride or dignity.� It is a recognition that the true basis for these things is available to all people equally.� A rich Christian can rejoice that he has lost his reason for pride in his riches, and found the same everlasting foundation in Christ that the poor brother has found.�

�� The whole point James is driving at here in his counsel to Christians is that there physical circumstances must always be balanced with the proper spiritual virtues, or they will be defeated by life's trials.� If you are poor, you must experience spiritual prosperity, and if you are rich, you must experience spiritual humility.� If you do not balance out life with the proper spiritual virtues, your physical circumstances will determine your character, and you will be no different than the non‑ Christian, and that means you have a defeated Christian life.� Satan has succeeded in neutralizing your witness. �

�� A wise Christian is one who never lets poverty or prosperity hinder his service for Christ.� If you are too poor to serve Christ with joy, or too rich to have the time to serve Christ in humility, you have been blinded to the true values of life.� You are a double minded man, and James says you will receive nothing from the Lord in that state.� Do not let Satan rob you of God's best, but get all the riches He wants to give you by practicing Christian humility.

9.�� HOW TO RECEIVE A ROYAL REWARD� James 1:12‑18

�� In modern educational psychology we read such statements as, "Learning takes place only when the act that is performed is reinforced or rewarded."� And, "Without reward, people fail to learn."� Educators are more and more realizing that rewards play a major part in teaching that is effective.� God was well aware of this truth long before man.� In Heb. 11:6 we read, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him."� In Matt. 5:11‑12 we read, "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.� Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven."�

�� To want rewards is perfectly normal.� Intelligent beings take a course of action that results in the best reward by nature.� We are made that way by God. James is only following the teaching of his divine brother when he tells us to count it all joy when we fall into trials, knowing there is great reward in endurance.� James is trying to teach us the secret of receiving a royal reward.� He breaks this practical lesson into two sections.� One is positive and the other is negative.�

I. HE DECLARES A FINAL OBJECTIVE.� v. 12.

�� James says we are not suffering for sufferings sake just as the football players are not on the field taking those spills just for the sake of putting their body to a test.� They are enduring those trials because they have a goal to reach.� The Christian who endures trials also has a goal to reach, and it is the final objective for which he was created.� It is to receive the royal reward of the crown of life.�

�� When Jesus spoke to the church of Smyrna thought the Apostle John in Rev. 2:10 he said, "Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.� I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for 10 days.� Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life."� One of the early church martyrs was Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna.� He refused to sacrifice to Caesar.� At his trial the Proconsul said, "Curse Christ and I will release you."� Polycarp spoke those words for which he has become famous.� "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong.� How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"�

He was put to the stake and the fire was kindled, but wing blew the flame around him, and so the executioner killed him with a sword.� He was faithful unto death, and, therefore, he received the reward that both Jesus and James speak of‑the crown of life.�

�� What is this crown of life that is worth dying for?� It is the ultimate goal, and final objective of our existence.� It is that quality of life which is in perfect harmony with God.� To live without fellowship with God is to have only the rags of life.� To live in perfect fellowship with God is to have the crown of life.� The crown of life goes only to those who endure all things for the sake of Christ.� It is that quality of life that enables a person to reign with Christ because they are in perfect harmony with the Lord of life.� It is the life of love, praise, and service which we see displayed by the saints in heaven as they are pictured in Revelation.�

�� How do we receive this royal reward?� James says the road to this reward is the road of endurance.� Kings only want tried men in their army, and so how much more does the King of Kings want tried men and women to serve with Him?� The trials of life are training us for the day of our coronation when we receive the crown of life. The requirement is that we endure. It is not just suffering trials that is important, for that is as easy as falling off a log. It is the enduring of the trials that is vital. It is not blessed are they who escape, but blessed are they who endure. Endurance is the key, and this means that we must be convinced that suffering can be successful, and that it prepares us for attaining our final objective of being Christlike.� Only as we are convinced that trials can be of worth can we endure.� Robert Service wrote,

And so in the strife of the battle of life,

Its easy to fight when you're winning;

Its easy to slave, and starve and be brave,

When the dawn of success is beginning.

But the man who can meet despair and defeat

With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;

The man who can fight to heaven's own height

Is the man who can fight when he's losing.

�� Endurance is being positive when circumstances are negative.� It is not just passive suffering, for many can do this.� Some pagan people's even let great injuries be inflicted on their bodies without a murmur.� This is not Christian endurance.� Christian endurance is like that of Christ when He endured the cross, and ask God to forgive those who crucified Him.� It is like Madam Chiang Kai Shek saying, after all the Japanese did to China, "There must be no bitterness.� No matter what we have undergone and suffered, we must try to forgive those who injured us, and remember only the lesson gained thereby."

�� Christian endurance is not only to go all the way, but to go all the way in the right spirit, and without self‑pity, discontent, and giving up.� Some endure great trials to the end, but allow themselves to become bitter, and this is not being prepared for receiving the crown of life.� One fails the test who is not more Christlike for having taken it.� Both of the thieves endured the same suffering on the cross, but the suffering of one cause him to look to Christ and receive the crown of life.� The other bore it also, but he never looked to Christ, and so he was tried and failed.� No one suffers successfully and receives the reward who is not made more Christlike in their trials.� The secret of receiving the reward is endurance, and the secret of endurance is in looking to Christ.�

�� Why should I fear the darkest hour,

Or tremble at the tempter's power?

Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower.

Though hot the fight, why quite the field?

Why must I either flee or yield,

Since Jesus is my mighty shield?

Against me earth and hell combined,

But on my side is power Divine;

Jesus is all, and He is mine.�� Author Unknown

�� In declaring our final objective, James not only tells of the reward, and the road by which we reach it, but also the result in the present because of following that road to the ultimate reward.� The result is present happiness.� The man who by faith in the promise of God is enduring trials, and counting them joy, has found the secret of the happy life.� The world think happiness is found in having, but the Bible says it is found, not in what we have, but in whom we hope.� Happiness is that attitude of life that knows there is meaning and purpose no matter how rough the road gets.� Without this hope and expectation there can be no lasting happiness.�

�� Solomon in Ecclesiastes says that he had everything.� He had wisdom, wealth, wine, and women, and yet he concluded that all was vanity, and he found no happiness in all that the world could offer.� Apart from hope in God there is no such thing as happiness, but with this hope, though we lose all else, we are yet blessed.� Ignatius was the Bishop of Antioch.� He was ordained by either Peter or Paul.� He was the first prominent Christian to be martyred after the Apostles.� When he was being taken by the Romans to be thrown to the wild beasts in the Coliseum, he wrote a letter to the Christians in Rome, and he said, "I bid all men know that of my own free will I die for God.� Let me be given to the wild beasts for through them I attain unto God.� I am God's wheat.� I am ground by the wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.� Come fire and cross and grappling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, racking of limps, crushing of my whole body; only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ."�

�� He counted it joy, and he endured to the end with a happiness that only Christ can give.� The truth that James teaches here has been proved over and over again in the lives of those who have had to endure persecution.� If you follow the road of endurance, it will lead you to the royal reward of the crown of life.� Endurance is based on the hope of reward, and the knowing that things will not always be as they now are. Change may come through death that leads you into the eternal kingdom, or it may come in time, and you get to see reward in this life for holding on. Every negative circumstance is only temporary, and every trial will one day be just a memory.

Once in Persia reigned a king

Who upon his signet ring

Graved a maxim true and wise

Which, if held before his eyes,

Gave him wisdom at a glance;

Fit for any change or chance.

Helpful words, and these are they;

Even this shall pass away.�� Author Unknown

�� Recognition of this enables people to endure failure, knowing that success can still be ahead. Most successful people have to endure many trials of failure before they get to the reward of success. Abraham Lincoln marched off to the Black Hawk War as a Captain, and he returned demoted to a private. If he would have let failure defeat him, he never would have been heard of again. But he endured that trial, and now everyone has heard of him. Even the rewards of this life go to those who endure. Edgar Guest put in 4 lines the philosophy that has led to the heroes of history, and the kind of people James says every Christian should be.

One broken dream is not the end of dreaming.

One shattered hope is not the end of hoping;

Beyond the storm and tempest stars are gleaming,

Still plan your castles though your castles fall.

�This is the basic theme of James, but he has a negative side he has to deal with.�

II. HE DENOUNCES A FALSE OBJECTION.� vv. 13‑15.

�� Someone might conclude after hearing all this about the worth and value of trials if they are endured, that if one fails to overcome temptation that it is God's fault. If a man is tempted and falls, he might be further tempted to say, "Why should I lose the reward because I fell, It was God who put me to the test? If He hadn't tested me I would not have fallen."� James says is response to this false conclusion, "Now wait, lets not get confused about what I am saying. I have not been talking about falling into sin. I have been talking about the troubles and trials of life that come because you are seeking to live for Christ. If you are going to talk about enticement to sin, it is a different story. God has nothing to do with this at all. If you fall into sin, and suffer trials because of it, and you endure those trials, that has nothing to do with receiving the crown of life."

�� God may test you, but He will never tempt you. To test is to bring out the best in you, but to tempt is to bring out the worst. God tests, but Satan tempts. They are both trials, but one has the goal of making you more than you now are, and the other has the goal of making you less than you are now are.� God put Abraham to the test to try his faith, but when Abraham lied to Pharaoh about his wife being his sister, that was sin and God had nothing to do with tempting his to tell such a lie.

�� Man from the beginning has wanted to throw blame on someone else for his sin, and if possible blame it all on God. He made everything that is, and He is the Author of life, and so He should be held responsible, and not me. God made alcohol possible, and so all the consequences of drinking must be blamed on Him. He is the one who made the tobacco plant, and so He is the one to blame for cancer of the lungs. When Adam blamed Eve for his sin, he was really blaming God. He said in Gen. 3:12, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." You are the one who gave me this woman, and so who is really to blame for what has happened here? That is what Adam was saying, and implying that God was to blame.� Ever since man has looked for ways to blame God for all the evil of life and history.

�� James makes the strongest statement possible, and he declares that God cannot be tempted to evil and He never tempts anyone else to evil. It is contrary to His very nature. Everything good in life comes from God, but He is not the author of any evil.� He is the father of lights, and the giver of every good and perfect gift. He never changes either, and so He does not once in a while slip some evil into the world. He is consistently always good, and never the cause of what is bad.� There is an ancient legend of a king who died, and ambassadors were sent to choose a successor between two infant twins. Both were sleeping, but they noticed that one had his tiny fist closed, and the other has his hand wide open. They chose the one with the open hand, and he became known as the generous King with the open hand. This describes the God of the Bible. He is the giver of all the good gifts that men receive.

�� James tells us about the character of God to show how foolish it is to try and blame Him for all the trials of life that come from the sins of people who yield to temptation. These do not qualify for the royal reward. Those who think that God is the author of these temptations are doubleminded in their thinking about God. He is not the author of both good and evil. Sweet and bitter water do not come from the same well. He does not tempt to do the very things that He forbids men to do.� It is a shame that God's character has to be defended, but the fact is it is being called into question all the time. There are major theologies even that make God the author of evil by saying that He predestined the sins that people commit. We need to give heed to the strong statement of James and recognize that any theology that makes God the author of sin and evil is a false theology.

�� Do not blame God for that lust in you that makes sinful behavior look so attractive. When you do recognize that you have an enemy within that is enticing you to what God forbids, then you are facing a trial that can count for the reward, for you will be trying to endure not giving into temptation for the sake of obeying your Lord. This can be a legitimate trial that qualifies for the royal reward. It is Satan's testing and not God's, but if you endure and stay faithful to God, it will lead to reward because you are doing it for Him. Most of the trials that James is thinking of are the external trials of persecution, but the internal trials of temptation are even more universal, and these are the trials that most of us today will have to endure. We are seldom persecuted, but we are always tempted. We are not tempted by God, but our culture is tempting us every day.

�� The Christian does not escape the struggle with temptation. C. S. Lewis, one of the great Christian authors of the 20th century wrote of his struggle in a letter. "Pray for me; I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thought at present; one of these black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even� kind of pleasure in thinking evil."� Every Christian has the potential of evil thoughts of all kinds. They may not be the same as his, but they cover the whole world of evil. It is wise to be aware of just how evil your thoughts can be, for then you are not shocked at what can happen inside your head. You need to share these thoughts openly with God and denounce them as that which is not your will, just as you know they are not God's will. You are not evil to have such thoughts, but they can be a temptation to follow through and do evil.

�� It is your responsibility of know where your weakness is, and in what areas you need to pray for God's wisdom to overcome the temptation. Paul says in I Cor. 10:13, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." That is what James is saying in verse 5. Ask God for wisdom, and if you ask believing, you will receive what is needed to endure and conquer temptation, and you will then stand the test and receive the royal reward of the crown of life.

10.� ANGRY SAINTS�� Based on James 1:19‑20

�� Near the end of the last century a group of minors in a mid‑Western state became angry.� They expressed that anger by igniting a carload of coal and pushing it down the mine shaft.� Like most who act in anger, they could not foresee the long range consequences of their action.� When the burning coal struck the bottom of the mine it spread to the layers of coal within the earth, and 52 years later it was still burning. It consumed 12 million tons of coal, and burned over an area of 10 square miles.� Now and then a road would cave in that had been undermined by the eating fire.� Property values in the whole area were greatly reduced, and all of the people suffered.� One farmer even dug up roasted potatoes from his field.� All efforts to quench the fire were fruitless, and so a moment of anger led to a lifetime of living with the consequences.

�� What those minors did illustrates what millions of individuals are doing daily by letting their lives be controlled by anger.� Add the letter D to� the word anger, and you have danger.� In a state of anger we are only one letter away from danger.� This means all of us live dangerously, because all of us get angry.� It is a universal human emotion, and the saints must wrestle with this trial, along with all the others they face.

�� James does not say we are to eliminate anger.� He says we are to be slow to anger. James is too realistic and practical to think that the saints will never feel angry.� Anger in itself is a normal and legitimate human emotion, but it is so little understood that most men fail to find its values, and let it be expressed in destructive, rather than constructive, ways.� There are no sinful emotions; only sinful uses of them.� Anger is no more sinful than joy, for God and Jesus experienced both of them.�

�� Anger handled properly will make a Christian more effective in living the Christian life.� Anger is a form of energy, and energy has to be used in some way.� You cannot destroy it.� You have to channel it, and like atomic energy, you can channel it to purposes of destruction, or to purposes of construction where it will be helpful rather than harmful.� When we are dealing with anger, we are dealing with a powerful energy which will serve the cause of good or evil, and, therefore, it is important for Christians to understand all they can about this energy which they possess.

�� Since most of the energy of anger is used for evil, the predominant emphasis of Scripture is on the peril of anger.� In verse 20 James makes it clear that the anger of man is not a fit instrument for doing the will of God.� The chances of being just and merciful when you are angry are about as great as the chances of removing a sliver gently with a wood saw.� It is just not the right tool for the job, and anger is just not the right tool for expressing God's righteousness.� That is why we read so many places in Scripture of the peril of anger, and the need to forsake its path.

Psa. 37:8, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath."�

Psa. 14:17, "He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly."

Pro. 22: 24‑25, "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shall not go lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy soul."

Pro. 29:22, "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression."

The Old Testament looks at anger as folly, but in the New Testament the language is even stronger, for anger is seen as one of the gravest of sins.� Matt. 5:22, "But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."�� Paul, in several places, lists anger, strife, and wrath as the sins which make the saints carnal.� He writes in Titus 1:7, that a bishop must be blameless, "...Not self‑willed, not soon angry."� All that the Bible says about the peril of anger is backed up by studies in modern psychology.

�� On the other hand, we dare not close the door on the positive side, and so before we look further at the perilous power of anger, we want to look at‑

I.� THE POSITIVE POWER OF ANGER.

�� James implies there is some value to anger by putting it in the same category with speaking.� He says we are to be slow to speak and slow to anger.� He does not say give up speaking and anger altogether, but recognize that both can do more harm than good, so use your tongue and your emotion of anger very cautiously.� Nitroglycerin can do a lot of good, but it can also blow everything to pieces if handled carelessly.� So it is with both speech and anger.� Speaking can be used for the glory of God, and so can anger.� Paul makes this clear in Eph. 4:26:� "Be ye angry but do not sin:� do not let the sun go down on your anger."� So, it is possible to be angry and not sin, and this means there can be a positive side to anger.�

�� Two things characterize a positive Biblical anger.� 1.� It is slow in coming.� 2.� It is fast in departing.�

Prov. 14:29, "He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly."

Prov. 16:42, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty...."

Eccles. 7:9, "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry."� Counting to ten is a Biblical idea. All of these texts emphasize the point James is stressing.� We are to be slow in anger. Paul stresses the point that we are to quickly settle the issue of anger and not let the sun go down on our wrath.� Anger is to be hard to come, and easy to go.

�� Jesus is our ideal in everything, and he reveals in his manhood the ideal of positive anger.� The wrath of the Lamb is not our ideal, for what Jesus does as Lord is not for our example.� It is what He did as man that is to be our guideline to follow.� We have no right to play God, but we have a responsibility to be all that man can be by God's help, and that means to be Christlike.� If we examine our Lord's anger, we discover that He was slow to anger, and when it did come, He expressed it, and did not hold a grudge.� Jesus became angry with His disciples when they persisted in their blindness.� He rebuked them and said, "Oh ye of little faith."� When Peter insisted on holding Him back from fulfilling His purpose, He sharply responded, "Get thee behind me Satan."�

�� Anger expressed toward a loved one, not to hurt them, but to inform them, or prevent them from folly, is a positive anger, and is often necessary to maintain a good relationship. Husbands and wives who use anger properly never have to suffer the negative us of it. Jesus used it to communicate His frustration with those whom He loved.� If we do not learn this, we often let frustration go until it explodes, and that kind of anger is never positive.

�� A wife felt for years that her husband did not share his part of the cost when they went out for an evening with other couples.� It griped her, and she resented it, but she supressed it.� Supressing anger is something like trying to keep and inflated inner tube under water.� Part of it pops up, and while your struggle to get that part under, it pops up in another place, and finally you lose control and it leaps to the surface.� Supressed anger will pop up someplace else if it is not expressed.� Millions of people don't know it, but their physical problems are the result of supressed anger.� If you don't let it out, that energy has to do something, and it usually does harm to your body or mind.� It is like trying to hide a fire:� Something is going to get burned.�

�� Getting back to our story, the wife ended up with a need for therapy, and in a group session her resentment came out.� When she let her husband know about it she discovered that he had contributed his share all along in a quiet and unassuming way.� The point is, had she expressed her anger to him, and got it off her chest how she thought he was a cheap skate, the truth would have come out in the open, and the problem would have been solved before it became an issue.� Positive anger informs others of your hurt, and is not a means by which you hurt others.�

�� Anger is energy, and energy moves us to action.� The only way we ever get any problem in life settled is by someone getting angry and deciding to get to the bottom of it.� The people who strive for excellence are those who get angry with mediocrity and shoddiness. Jesus did this when He drove out the money changers in the temple.� That was positive anger because its purpose was not to do harm, but to protect others against a great injustice and evil.� If you can watch people being treated unfairly and unjustly, and not get angry, you are not being Christlike in your attitude.�

�� Prisons were vile hell holes until John Howard lost his temper, and did something about it.� Slavery was entrenched in our society until Lincoln got mad, and hit it hard.� Hospitals were terrible nightmares for the sick until Florence Nightengale got angry, and hurled her anger at government officials until things were changed.� Most of the great changes for good in the world begin with an angry saint.� A wife said to her husband, before you go to work give the maid a scolding.� He said I thought you were satisfied with her.� I am, but she is beating carpets today and she always does it better when she is angry.� Some things are done best when we are angry, and this is especially true when we fight evil.�

�� Martin Luther said, "When I am angry, I can pray well and preach well."� When you are angry you really care, and caring is what counts.� The man who lets nothing bother him, cares about nothing.� If you do care, and have the compassion of Christ, you will be angry at all the forces that mistreat and injure people.� Anger at evil is one of the ways the energy of compassion is produced.� If men never get angry at evil, there is no power generated in them to work for a change.� Jesus had a healthy anger against injustice, and He made His protest.� As God, He judged those who refused to heed His protest as a man.

�� The positive anger of a Christian is anger that motivates us to protest against evil.� It instantly becomes a perilous power, however, if we take it upon ourselves and try and carry out the judgment of God.� Anger which motivates us to fight unjust laws and practices

is positive, but anger which leads us to destroy the lives and property of the guilty, is anger which does not work the righteousness of God.�

�� The positive anger of Christ is brought out clearly in Mark chapter 3.� Jesus entered the synagogue, and saw a man with a withered hand.� Jesus had compassion on him, but He saw the Pharisees watching Him to see if He would heal on the Sabbath.� Verse 5 says, "And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart."� Jesus did not care what they would do, for He knew it was right to do good on the Sabbath, and so He healed the man.� He did not start a fight with the Pharisees and seek them do them injury. Positive anger drives us to do what is good and constructive.� The prejudices of people should not move us to fight them, but to help the people they oppress.� That is letting the energy of anger be used in such a way that it becomes a virtue.� That is being angry and not sinning, as Paul commands.�

�� Anger without compassion is not positive anger, and will always do harm for the cause of Christ.� Spiros Zodhiates tells of a church which had two candidates who came, and both preached on hell.� They both used the same text, and had the same Biblical position, but the people voted for the second rather than the first.� When asked why, they said the first one spoke as if he were glad people were going to hell, the second one seemed sorry for it. Both had the doctrine right, but only one had a Christlike spirit.� The truth of Christ without the love of Christ can never accomplish the work of Christ.� That is what Paul is saying in verse 20.� The anger of man just will not do the work of God.� Only that anger which is controlled by the spirit of Christ can be used for such a positive purpose.� Look now at‑

II.� THE PERILOUS POWER OF ANGER.�

�� Anger has always been one of the seven deadly sins, but few Christians treat it as a serious sin.� They have to ignore the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, and the whole of Christian history to do this, but this is a small obstacle for the human heart which is deceitful above all things.� We can easily deceive ourselves into believing that anger is a mere trifle, and not to be compared with the sins we condemn in others.�

�� One of the reasons we minimize the sin of anger is just because it is so common among the saints.� Like the world, we tend to think if something is common, it must be okay.� If everybody is doing it, it cannot be wrong to do it.� If everybody loses their temper now and then, it is perfectly normal, and therefore, acceptable.� We follow this logic because we hate to face up to the fact that we all have a tiger in our tank that can suddenly give us power to do evil.� June Callwood in her book, Love, Hate, Fear, Anger And The Other Lively Emotions writes, "One of the most appalling discoveries a person can make about himself is to meet the hellhound of anger he contains.� A glimpse of this inner hyena leaves a man shaken and confused."�

�� Cain rose up and killed his brother in anger, but he was not a freak, he was normal man who didn't know how to control the energy of anger.� It has happened to born again Christians.� In a fit of anger they have killed someone.� More than one Christian has served a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.� I read of one who got in a fight with his boss and gave him a push.� The boss hit his head on a piece of metal and died.� Of course, this was not the intention of the Christian who pushed him, but that is the nature of anger.� It tends toward accomplishing evil ends rather than the righteousness of God.

�� Moses, the meekest man alive, and greatest man of God of his day, let his anger get the best of him.� He struck the rock he was to merely speak to, and God punished him for this act of anger by preventing him from leading Israel into the promise land.� Angry saints can be dangerous to themselves, and to others.� Studies have shown that when anger takes over the rest of the brain is as if it was paralyzed.� That means anger can turn a man into a robot gone bezerk.� There is no control, and one is not subject to the leading of reason, common sense, or the Holy Spirit.�

�� Anger is a primary cause of prejudice.� If you are angry at� how life is going for you, and angry at yourself for being poor, or angry because you are not shown respect because you are not rich, anger may be suppressed and come out as prejudice toward others.� A test at Yale revealed this.� A group of men were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their feelings toward people of another race.� After the questionnaire was filled they were promised and exciting night of entertainment.� They were in a good mood as they anticipated a great evening, and they had a high degree of respect for the minority group they were being questioned on.�

�� Then it was announced that the evenings entertainment had to be canceled for some organizational meeting that meant nothing to them.� They were angry and aggravated, and in that state they were asked to fill out one more form.� The results revealed a radical change in their attitude toward the minority group.� Prejudice and negative feelings of all kinds were brought out as they expressed their anger.� The point is, and angry man cannot relate to others honestly.� Anger creates all kinds of destructive negatives which hurt us and others.� How can you prevent this?� The answer is found in the total context in which James deals with anger.� All of your problems come from within.� They are not from God. The battle is with your own self‑image.� Anger is aroused by anything we feel is a blow to our prestige.� Dr. Dolby, Professor of Psychology at Baylor University said, if you say his knowledge of Spanish is poor, he is not the least upset, for he does not think of himself as a student of Spanish.� But if you question his knowledge of psychology, his anger begins to rise rapidly.� The person who feels he is being attacked or belittled will be angry.

�� The best defense against anger is your confidence in your status before God.� If you have assurance of God's approval and acceptance, you will not fear the puny pin pricks of peoples perverted tongues.� All you do when you get angry is reveal your own lack of self‑respect.� The man who does not easily get offended can let criticism role off him like water off a duck's back.� He is secure in his relationship to Christ, and because he knows who he is, and what his worth is to his Lord, he does not have to defend his ego with anger.

Christian maturity involves a total acceptance of ones value.� This includes the ability to accept failures as part of the process of growth, without any need to blame God, self, or others.� If you are like a pile of gun powder ready to flare up every time a spark of personal offense is produced, your problem is a poor self‑image.� You lack an adequate supply of the water of life that can keep you cool.�

�� As followers of Christ we need to let the Spirit of Christ be the controlling influence that enables us to experience the positive power of anger, and escape the perilous power of anger.�

We mutter and sputter,

We fume and we snort.

We mumble and grumble,

Our feelings are hurt.

We can't understand things,

Our vision grows dim.

When all that we need is,

A moment with Him.

�� Author Unknown

11.� HOW TO BE A BIBLICAL BELIEVER� James 1:19‑25

�� Can a Christian be non‑biblical?� Can he defend teachings and practices that are contrary to Scripture?� Can he reject those who are taught in God's Word?� The Bible itself and history answer, yes.� Yes it is possible to be a Christian who is more in love with his own opinions than with the revelation of God.� It is just this possibility that has been the cause of so much poor Christianity.� Why has the Christian world so often been split by bitter controversy that has hindered the progress of the kingdom of God?� It is because Christians, and not just superficial Christians, but born again Christians,� who can ignore God's Word in favor of their own ideas.��

�� We thank God for Martin Luther, for he gave the Bible back to the people in their own language, and without the mixture of many foolish traditions.� But we see even in the life of a great man like this the danger of becoming non‑biblical.� He preached justification by faith as the central theme of his theology, and in so doing he was thoroughly biblical, but the Catholic opponents who argued with him kept quoting the book of James against him.� They kept quoting, "Faith without works is dead."� Rather than examining closely the teachings of Paul and James to see that they did not contradict each other, he was ready to throw the book of James into the river.� He called it a right strawy epistle.� He was ready to reject this part of God's Word when it seemed to conflict with what he thought it should say.� We usually associate this kind of practice with liberalism, but only the blind can fail to see that fundamentalists and evangelicals are also guilty.� It was a problem in the early church as well.

�� James is writing to born again Jewish Christians who are apparently caught up in religious controversy in which there is more heat than light.� James has to call their attention several times to the dangers of a hasty and uninformed tongue that can cause so much trouble.� James stresses the place of God's Word in their lives, and he urges them to make it the basis of all their attitudes and actions.� The dangers of being controlled by our own pride and opinions are still with us today, and so we can all profit from this lesson of James on how to be a biblical believer.� It is a very simple lesson to learn, but not as simple to practice, and according to James, if it is not practiced it really is not learned either.� There are two basic requirements to being biblical.

I. WE MUST BE RECEPTIVE TO THE WORD.� vv. 19‑21.

�� Since it is by the word of truth that God brought us into the kingdom, it is by the Word that we are to be guided.� It is not only the source of our salvation, but the source of our sanctification.� The most important qualification for effective Christian growth is an eagerness and willingness to hear the Word of truth.� In our day we should add, "Be swift to read."� When James wrote people did not have access to the Word of God like we do today.� Most of what they learned came through the hearing of the Word as it was read.� That is why the Bible says very little about reading, but a great deal about hearing.� Jesus in concluding the Sermon On The Mount said, "He who hears my words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock."

�� The idea is that we must be receptive to the Word if we expect our lives to be guided by it.� There is no greater mistake than thinking all is well when we have gotten someone to make a decision for Christ.� God's goal is that men might be conformed to the image of His Son, and this is not accomplished by a decision.� It is accomplished by a life of receptivity to the Word of God.� You would think Christians would recognize this, and realize they can never know enough of God's Word.� The greatest of biblical scholars are always students who are constantly learning more.� No one has ever exhausted the teachings of God's Word, even though some find it hard to admit they don't have all the answers.

�� This seems to have been the problem with the Christians James wrote to.� They were authorities from birth.� They had the answers, and they knew how things ought to go, and they were eager to get on with things according to their expert advice.� They were swift to speak and slow to hear, and, of course, with this attitude you immediately run into trouble, for experts of this nature seldom agree, and so soon there is controversy.� Since both sides of the issue are more eager to defend their opinion of the matter than they are in searching the Word of God, the result is not just a friendly discussion, but an angry argument in which tempers explode, and the fires of hell are kindled within the very church of God.�

�� We see then that James is dealing with a serious matter which could have saved the Christian church much heartache if they would have given heed to his teaching.� A biblical believer is one who is more concerned about extending the kingdom of God and His righteousness than of defending his own pride.� He is characterized by an attitude of meekness, which is every ready to receive more light from God's Word.� Few things have caused so many problems as the unwillingness to hear God's voice on matters of controversy.� If we could only be like Augustine who said in his controversy with a false cult of his day.� His opponent cried out, "Hear me, hear me!"� Augustine responded, "Neither let me hear thee, nor do thou hear me, but let us both hear the Apostle."� That is an example of being swift to hear and slow to speak.�

�� It is never right, wise, nor Christian to judge a matter without hearing the other side, and that is what James means by being slow to speak.� Prov. 18:13 says, "He who answers before listening‑that is his folly and his shame."� Some people form an opinion and start tongue lashing a fellow Christian before they even his defense.� We had a psychology professor in college who tried an experiment.� A crippled girl on campus came to class late, and he began to scold her.� She raised her hand to tell why she was late, but he would not let her speak.� He just warned her and went on teaching.� The class was clearly disturbed, and so to avoid any outburst it was arranged that one of the most likely men in class to cause trouble was to raise his hand as if he wanted to say something about this unjust treatment of the girl.� The professor said, "Any discussion on the matter would be taken up after class."� Before the class ended he announced that we were to write about our feelings of anger toward him.� It was all arranged as a test.� It revealed how angry we all got because he was not willing to hear her side.� He was swift to speak and slow to hear, and it made us all mad.�

�� There is such a thing as legitimate anger, for we are exhorted to be angry and sin not.� The sin of anger comes because of lack of self‑control.� It can be right to be angry, but� not to fly off the handle and add another evil to what you think is evil.� If a man could learn to be quiet when he is angry, he would soon cool off for lack of fuel.� Words become fuel for anger.� As someone has said, "Hitting the ceiling is the wrong way to get up in the world."� James is not saying we should not speak at all, but that we should be slow to speak.� Take time to think and make sure you represent the will of God when� you do speak.

�� Joseph Parker, the great English preacher said, "Let us keep ourselves out of those little fuming controversies in which bigots almost fizzle themselves to death, thinking that if they get angry the universe will be kept from tilting over."� If we really are seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness we will not be characterized by a puffed up pride that speaks out on all matters with dogmatic authority.� The biblical believer will be one with a spirit of meekness, and a spirit of receptivity that is open to all that the Bible has to say.� The fact is, almost all heresies and cults tend to stress some aspect of biblical truth that has been neglected by orthodox Christianity, and it is wise to even listen to them to try and discover something biblical that we have ignored.� In order to be a biblical believer we see a second point that James stresses.

II. WE MUST BE RESPONSIVE TO THE WORD.� vv. 22‑25.

�� There is a balance that is to characterize our beliefs.� The Bible never leaves us stranded on an island of half truth.� James has just emphasized how important it is to be receptive to the Word, but now he goes on to show that hearing is not an end in itself.� We hear in order to heed.� We must receive the Word to even begin, but then we must respond to obedience if we are going to claim to be biblical believers.�

�� I can just imagine some who heard the first part of the message of James, who were people who never get involved in controversy, and who never get angry over any difference in doctrine, and they are congratulating themselves on being so much superior to other Christians.� They are swift to hear and slow to speak, but then James goes on in verse 22 with a but.� But wait a minute, you who have learned the first requirement.� Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back until you hear the conclusion of the matter.� Ignorance of the Word certainly does not work the righteousness of God, but knowledge that does nothing is just as useless, and so do not be deceived.� Even if you do listen to the Word, and learn its truths, if they do not change your character and your conduct, you are better informed, but still non‑biblical.� There are two ways to be non‑biblical.� One is to be unknowing, and the other is to know and not be obedient to it.

�� The receptive hearer must be a responsive doer.� If he is not, he may not be causing all the trouble that the quick tempered Christians causes, but he is deceiving himself, for he will get to thinking that knowledge is life, and that the more he knows, the better he will be.� Most of us need to beware of this deception.� We almost unconsciously feel that if we can get people to memorize so many verses, and so many facts, like how many books of the Bible, and who killed Able, and who built the Ark, and how many times did the cock crow when Peter denied Christ, that then they will be better Christians, but this is not necessarily so.� It is not what we know of the Word, but what we obey that makes us better Christians.�

�� This is the very thing that makes a growing Christian vulnerable.� He is learning much truth from the Word, and he begins to feel superior and self‑sufficient.� He feels he is strong in the Lord because he knows so much of the Word.� Then Satan lets loose with his fiery darts, and he discovers that he does not have on the whole armor of God, and he falls wounded in the battle against sin.� If you ever wonder why it is that people who know so much of the Word can fall, it is because of the very thing that James warns against.� They are deceived into thinking that hearing without doing is sufficient.

�� Strangely enough, this is even a danger for the non‑Christian.� I mean by this the non‑Christian who is a professing Christian.� There are many who hear the Gospel over and over, and they know it so well that they are convinced they must be Christians.� I remember talking to a man who was so proud of the fact that he heard the great evangelist Billy Sunday.� He never indicated that he received Christ as Savior, he just seemed to think that hearing him gave some kind of advantage before God.� I do not doubt that there are many who listen to Billy Graham with the same deception.� They think that just hearing the Gospel is good in itself, even if they do not respond to the Christ who is proclaimed.� Hearing the Gospel no more makes a Christian than hearing the rules of baseball makes you a professional player.� Hearing a recipe does not make you a cook.� Faith comes by hearing, but what James is trying to make clear is that a faith that does nothing but hear is not real faith. Someone put it this way:

"The Word of God by faith received‑Imparts regeneration,

And he who hath in Christ believed‑Lives out a new creation,

But if we hear and do it not, ‑We hear for condemnation,

For doers of the Word, we are taught‑Are heirs of Christ's salvation."

�� We all need to recognize that the Bible is to be lived, and not just learned.� It is to be a guide to our daily conduct, and not just a text book of facts to cram into our cranium.� A mechanic is one who does mechanical work.� A carpenter is one who does carpentry.� And electrician is one who does electrical work.� The Christian is one who does the works of Christ, and carries out the will of Christ as he is taught in the Word.� If he only hears and does not do, he is like a mechanic who never uses a wrench, or a carpenter who never uses a hammer, and an electrician who never uses wiring.� He is, says James, like a man who looks into the mirror, sees that his face is dirty, and then goes off to work without washing.

�� James is showing us how ridiculous it is to think that mere hearing of the Word is enough.� Nobody is so ignorant that they think just knowing about their dirty face will make any difference.� They know that when they see the mess they are in, they have to act on the message of the mirror if it is to be of any value.� There is no point in even looking to see your face if you do not act on the information it gives you.� Looking in the mirror is receiving the message, but if you do not respond to the message and clean off the dirt it is of no value to have received it.� So it is when you look into the Word of� God, or hear it.� If you do not do anything about what it reveals to you, it is as worthless for your soul as the mirror is for your face when no action is taken.� Only those who respond to what the Word reveals can claim to be biblical believers.

�� In verse 25 James sums up the two requirements for being a truly biblical believer.� Be receptive and be responsive.� You start with a positive attitude and follow through with practical action.� Maud Frazer Jackson captures the essence of what James is saying in her poem.

What if I say‑

"The Bible is God's holy Word,

Complete, inspired, without a flaw"‑

But let its pages stay

Unread from day to day,

And fail to learn therefrom God's law;

What if I go not there to seek,

The truth of which I glibly speak,

For guidance on this earthly way,‑

Does it matter what I say?

What if I say‑

That Jesus Christ is Lord divine,

Yet fellow‑pilgrims can behold

Naught of the Master's love in me,

No grace of kindly sympathy?

If I am of the Shepherd's fold,

Then shall I know the Shepherd's voice

And gladly make His way my choice.

We are saved by faith, yet faith is one

With life, like daylight and the sun.

Unless they flower in our deeds,

Dead, empty husks are all the creeds.

To call Christ Lord, but strive not to obey,

Belies the homage that with words I pay.

12.� HOW TO TEST THE REALITY OF YOUR RELIGION 1:26-7

�� An anthropologist once visited a Bantu village in South Africa to study the customs of the very primitive people who lived there.� When he returned to the U.S. he sent back a sun dial to those people to express his thanks for their cooperation.� The natives were delighted with their gift, and they were concerned that nothing happen to it, and so they immediately built a thatched roof over it to protect it.� In so doing, however, they made it of no practical value.� The foolishness of this is obvious to us all, but James says the foolishness is not always obvious to Christian people when they do the same thing with their religion.� They take it home after church on Sunday, and they hang it in the closet with their Sunday clothes, and there is stays until the next week.� It is as worthless as a sun dial under a roof.�

�� James warns us that if our Christianity is not practical, and we only hear and do not do, then we are deceiving ourselves.� A Christianity that is not practical is not a real Christianity.� If it does not control your conduct, and change your character, and make you more sensitive to the will of God and the world's need, then you better stop and ask some questions about the reality of your religion.� In these last two verses of chapter 1 James has a lesson for us on how to test the reality of our religion.� If your religion does not change you, you had better change your religion.� James implies that there are three questions that we must be able to answer with a definite yes if we are to be confident that our religion is not vain, but of real value to God, to the world, and to ourselves.� The first question that grows out of what James says is‑

I. AM I PRUDENT IN MY SPEECH? 26.

�� James is saying in a different way what Jesus said when He made the statement, "It is not what goes into a man but what comes out of him that defiles him."� Jesus was referring to the tongue just as James is.� The Bible makes it quite clear that one of the greatest responsibilities that men have is the wise use of their tongue.� Jesus said, "By your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned."� A real Christian is one who does not say, "I have freedom of speech, and so I can use my tongue as I please."� He is one who presents his body a living sacrifice unto God, and that includes his tongue.� He is one who is truthful with his tongue, and wise with his words.�

�� A man who can go to church on Sunday and then curse, and tell dirty stories at the office or plant on Monday is only deceiving himself, "for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." I that is what comes out of his mouth, we know his heart is filled with the language of the world and not that of the Word of God.� James is saying that the man's religion is vain, and it has no real value to anyone. He is a double minded man who will receive nothing from the Lord.

�� It is amazing how many people are deceived at this point. Out of the same mouth comes both sweet and bitter. I have known men who could talk about their church work, and of how they help the church in so many ways, and then a few minutes later hear them using filthy language, and do so with no respect for others in their presence.� He thinks he is very religious, but James would say that because he cannot bridle his tongue he fails the test of real religion. A foul and filthy tongue characterized the ancient world, and the Christians who were won out from this type of society had a difficult time in keeping their tongues committed to the glory of Christ. The same problem exists today, where foul language is even very common in the public schools; in modern movies, as well as the workplace.� It is easy for the Christian to get caught up in the common expressions of the world and thereby cease to be different from the world. This can totally ruin your witness and make your religious commitment of no value.

�� Paul was concerned about this problem also, and he wrote to the Colossians and said in 3:8‑10, "But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:� Anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips.� Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on a new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."This brings us to the basic idea that James is getting at.� It has to do with the use of our tongue in relationship to other Christians.� When Paul says we are to put away anger , wrath, malice, and lie not to one another, he is saying what James means when he says we must bridle our tongue.� William Penn put it this way: "Men who fight about religion have no religion to fight about."�

�� We mentioned before that the Christians to whom James is writing were caught up in a great deal of religious controversy.� And unbridle tongue could cause much damage.� A tongue not under the control of reason and the Holy Spirit will race wildly across the field of a man's character, kicking, bucking, and trampling it without pity, and the result will be a victory for Satan.� Most all great men of God suffer much sorrow because of the severe criticism they receive from Christians.� The speed with which Christians are ready to blast out at other Christians is the speed by which they make themselves useless to God, the world, and themselves.� All the good a person may do vanishes� rapidly when the tongue is filled with malice and contempt for a brother or sister in Christ.

�� A critical and malicious tongue is a sign of self‑righteousness.� When a Christian becomes satisfied with his own attainment he tends to become critical of others.� He feels that if only others could be as wonderful as he is the church could get somewhere.� So he builds a fence around his religion to protect it.�� He becomes narrow and bigoted, and he sets out to straighten the world according to his standard.� The end result is that he does more harm than good, and his religion is as worthless as a sun dial without the sun.� He is trying to be a Christian without the spirit of Christ.�

�� There are many more areas where the unbridle tongue is a curse, but we will come to that subject again in our study of James.� It is clear what James is getting at, and we must be able to say that we are aware of the power of the tongue, and that we will strive to use its power according to the will of God.� If we cannot say that, we had better ask God to forgive us and help us to gain the victory in this area, or our life will count for nothing in the kingdom of God.� We may still be saved by faith in Christ, but it will be sad that all of our works will consumed by fire, for they will not stand the test.� The second question is‑

II. AM I PRACTICAL IN MY SERVICE?� v. 27

�� Before we can answer this question we must understand what James means by religion.� This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible.� Many have used it to deny the basic truths of Christianity itself.� They say that religion is good works, and so we can start an orphans home, or do social work for the needy and widows, and we will get to heaven according to the Bible.� But though this seems to be logically based on this verse, we know it contradicts the rest of the Bible, and the rest of the letter of James itself.�

�� There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ.� James knows that, and in 2:1 he speaks of the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.� In 1:1 he is the servant, and all through the chapter he stresses prayer and the Word of God which is able to save souls.� Why is all this left out when he tells us what pure religion is?� We would expect him to include all these fundamental truths.� The problem is not with James, but with our language.� The word that James used meant "The external service of God, and not ones inner state before God.� James is referring to the result of our faith in Christ, prayer, and fellowship with Christ.� He is saying that if these things are real, we will be able to know it because it will show itself in practical service. True religion is not seen in ritual observance, but is practical obedience to the Word of God.

�� What James is saying can be illustrated by saying the same thing about a mother's love.� If I said, "Pure motherly love and undefiled before God is to wash and feed her child."� I would not mean by this that love is merely a matter of keeping a child clean and fed.� I would mean that if the love of a mother is real it would show itself in a practical way in her care for her child's basic need.� This is not the whole of love, but it is the practical result that proves the love is real.� So to have a sympathetic concern for human need is not the whole of being a Christian, but it is the practical result that must be seen to know that the vital factor of faith in Christ is real.� In other words, being good will show itself in doing good.� As John said, if you can see a brother in need and have no compassion, how does the love of God dwell in you?��

�� The world was filled with impractical religion then, and it always has been. Christianity is the only pure and undefiled religion, for if God's Word is obeyed and put into practice it will lead to the compassion of God, which, in turn, leads to vital service that makes a difference in this world of endless needs.� People can come to a temple offer sacrifices, burn incense, bow and pray, and lay in submission before God, or go through any number of practices of ritualistic religion, but if they do not go out and serve God in a practical manner, all of this is vain and worthless.� Masses of people think they are religious because of their ritual before God, but they never show the compassion of God in the world.� James says that if there is no practical service that grows out of one's religion, it is not the Christian religion, but a cheap imitation.�

�� The particular examples that James used to illustrate Christian service are the two that are used all through the Bible.� In the ancient world the orphans and widows were the subjects of great injustice.� There were no orphan homes, and no social security to help widows.� They were often at the mercy of any who sought to do them harm, or take their property.� Jesus rebuked the Pharisees who thought of themselves as the most religious of persons.� He said, "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!� For you devour widows houses, and for a pretense make long prayers."� (Matt. 23:14).� This was a long time practice, and they were blind to how inconsistent it was with the nature of God.

�� It is amazing how often people in the Old Testament had to be commanded not to oppress the widows and the fatherless.� They were constant victims of an ungodly world.� One of the characteristics that God proclaims of Himself over and over is His concern for the orphans and widows.� In Deut. 10:17‑18, "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.� He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow...."� Keep in mind that James was the brother of Jesus, and his mother Mary was a widow.� Joseph died leaving her to raise her family as a single parent.�

�� James was using the most common examples of human need in the world of his day.� He does not limit Christian compassion to these examples, but he uses them to illustrate that a religion that does nothing to help the needs of those who are in need of help is not a religion but can be called Christian.� Real Christians have been the greatest source of compassion in history.� Orphanages are the product of Christian compassion.� The first hospital for the insane was started by a Christian.� Hospitals, prison reform, and servants of the poor such as the Salvation Army are all the products of Christian compassion.� These are not works that earn salvation, but they are works that reveal the reality of salvation.� Practical service the fruit of true personal salvation.

�� It was a very practical matter to see that widows were supplied with their needs.� This need led to the election of the first deacons in the early church.� Tertullian, the famous leader of the church in North Africa in the second century describes the practice of the church in his day.� "Each man deposits a small amount on a certain day of the month or whenever he wishes, and only on condition that he is willing and able to do so.� No one is forced.� Each man makes his contribution voluntarily.� These are, so to speak, the deposits of piety.� The money therefrom is spent not for banquets or drinking parties or good for nothing eating houses, but for the support and burial of the poor, for children who are without their parents and means of subsistence, for aged men who are confined to the house, likewise for shipwrecked sailors, and for any in the mines, or islands, or in prisons."� They took seriously what Jesus said when He taught that what we do unto the least of his brothers, we do to Him.��

�� Tertullian went on to say, "The practice of such a special love brands us in the eyes of some.� 'See,' they say, 'how they love one another....'� This is the response that real religion should bring forth from the real world.� It is true that men can be deceived, and think that all that is necessary is the social gospel, and forget the basic need of salvation from sin and new life in Christ, but that danger is no excuse for Christians to refrain from being practical in their service in meeting social needs.� If we keep our Christianity a matter of theology, feelings, and ideas, and never get practical, we are not spiritual from God's point of view.� We have looked at two test questions:� Are we prudent in our speech, and are we practical in our service.� If we can say yes to the first, but not to the second, our religion is not realistic enough to please God.� And if we can say yes to both, but not to the third, we are still falling short of the glory of God, and the third is this‑

III. AM I PURE IN MYSELF?� v. 27.

�� To make our religion practical we have to get out into the world to meet its needs, but James wants to make it clear that we must be in the world but not of it.� In other words, don't become contaminated by the world as you seek to lift it.� This means we need a constant reliance upon God.� The sacrifices of the Old Testament were to be without spot, and so in the New Testament we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.� The only way we can keep from being spotted by the world is by a careful walk and constant confession.�

�� It is possible to become a world spotted Christian, and to be more influenced by the world's standards than God's.� Hugh Macmillan tells of how in the British Museum there is a splendid hall in which the Elgin Marbles are shown.� They are statues and figures craved by the greatest sculptors that have ever lived.� They have been the admiration of the artistic world for over 2000 years.� They are kept with the greatest care to preserve them without spot.� Night and day the air is warmed to keep it dry and free from all dampness.� Plate glass is over delicate areas, and larger areas are gently cleaned every morning by a pair of bellows which blow away any particle of dust.� Every� 2 or 3 years they are gone over with a fine sponge in lukewarm water, and then wiped with a dry sponge.� Only skilled men working inch by inch over a period of days are allowed to do this.� Macmillan says, "No crown jewels in the world are treated with such care."� Why?� It is because they cannot be replaced.

�� How much more ought a Christian to take care of the greatest work of the divine sculptor?� It is his own body in which resides his eternal soul.� The Christian who is careless about the purity of his life has not quite understood the price that was paid to redeem him from the present evil world.� There is a lack of realism in his religion, and it does not ring true.� The only one who can ever lift the world is the one who is above it.� This does not mean to shut self off from the world, but, like Christ, to be so busy doing good there is no time to get involved with the world on its level of corruption.� As Phillips Brooks said, "The life of Christ was like an open stream that keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea."� What a picture of what the Christian life should be‑a stream of practical activity flowing into the ocean of the world's need with none of the ocean getting into the stream.

�� True purity is gained by being positive, and not by doing nothing so as to avoid doing wrong.� He who stays pure by doing nothing is evil, nonetheless, for he is a hearer and not a doer, and only deceives himself if he thinks he pleases God.� God demands a positive and practical purity.�

�� We have asked three questions:� Am I prudent in my speech?� Am I practical in my service?� Am I pure in myself?� These questions test the reality of our religion.� If we pass this test it means we represent the only religion that is from above.� God does not lower his standard to fit man.� He promises His grace and power to help them grow to His standard if they hunger and thirst after His righteousness.� We could never fully reach that standard.� Christ was the only perfect Christian.� Paul never attained it, but he kept pressing on.� All of us are imperfect Christians, but if our life is a constant striving to be able to say yes to the three questions we have looked at, we are real Christians, and our religion is pleasing to our Lord.�

�� What does this word religion mean?� Words change with time and become richer or poorer.� Religion is a word that was once rich, but then became poor. But it is beginning to come back and at least be respectable.� When I was in college it was a sign of advanced thinking to declare that Christianity is not a religion.