James 1:9-18
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
When I was in rehab we did an exercise called I Feel About Because
We would have to work for the first time in my life to take the abstract mess we felt and make it manageable
I feel…and we would literally have a feeling wheel with a range of emotions
Identify how we felt
Then say About…what it was that we felt that way toward
And then because and find what it was about the circumstance making us feel this way
It has stuck with me
It is hard work taking the impossible grey abstract of what we feel in suffering and making it identifiable
Like a boxer who isn’t swinging at air anymore but has something to swing at
Ok I can do this
James today is that kind of internal work
Its hard work and confronts us all
To take suffering from an impossible enemy and give us some tools to make it something we can actually swing at
We are going to see three things today
2 Kinds of Trouble, The War on 2 Fronts, and Knowing God
2 Kinds of Trouble
2 Kinds of Trouble
Let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his exaltation, but let the rich boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. For the sun rises and, together with the scorching wind, dries up the grass; its flower falls off, and its beautiful appearance perishes. In the same way, the rich person will wither away while pursuing his activities.
When you go to seminary like me saved later in life you use google alot
Alot of the time it is like sitting in a conversation and the person assumes you know what they are talking about and you know you have no clue but you nod along like you are tracking
At seminary you hear alot of words that end in ology
I had to google all of them acting like i knew what people were talking about
One of the words is eschatology
What it means is the study of the end
What is coming for those who follow Jesus
I wish i knew what it all meant when i was younger because i need the hope it gives
It is the study of how everything sad will come untrue
How one day we won’t even remember the names of the things that have wounded us
How the curse of funerals and heart disease and cancer are going to be no more because of the Gospel
And as I learned it i had a pastor tell me your sermons need more eschatology
Our lives need a lens with more hope of what is coming
And James knows it so he is writing to remind us all to lift up our eyes in suffering to the hope that heaven is coming very soon for all of us
how are we going to look at our life circumstances and interpet them with wisdom to see the gospel hope we have no matter who we are in the moment
How do we as real people consider the lens we are interpreting life through and get to verse 12
He gives a case study in how to answer
Let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his exaltation,
This is a christian and the language in the greek doesn’t mean money poor it is the wording of “low,” “humble,” “unimportant” in the social sense it even means crushed in the old testament
In the context of suffering doesn’t this now make sense ….consider how your feeling crushed is making you cling to the gospel to get you to the place where everything sad will come untrue
James didn’t grow up with money and social power
His mom and dad when they had Jesus couldn’t even afford the rich offering for having Jesus and had to give 2 doves instead in Luke 2
You think his life went how he dreamt it would
Do you know what having Jesus who was crucufied in the most humiliting way imaginable would do to your family name
So what hope do we have when our dreams are long gone
When suffering takes how we thought life was going to be
How can believers shamed all over the world have hope when we are those of low position when trials and suffering is crushing us
James says your suffering needs more eschatology
Play the tape out to the end and realize you are loved so much by God that He died to get you back
Not only that but his death took the keys from cancer and funerals
It is a cosmic reversal
I tell often how the words of Psalm 23 were repeated to me by my grandma when i would cry scared to be away from home at night at her house
They stuck with me and always will
James had this happening too
He can hear the words of his mom no doubt in his ears longing to see them go deep into the hearts of us
And Mary said:
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
because he has looked with favor
on the humble condition of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations
will call me blessed,
because the Mighty One
has done great things for me,
and his name is holy.
His mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear him.
He has done a mighty deed with his arm;
he has scattered the proud
because of the thoughts of their hearts;
he has toppled the mighty from their thrones
and exalted the lowly.
He has satisfied the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy
You can almost see James remembering her praying this wisdom over him when he was little and he never let go of her words
He can take up her words now
From now on I am considered blessed because I have repented and believed in Jesus
And his big brother said them too
In Luke His big brother Jesus made it come home to him
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
You have something in brokenness those who never struggle have
You have a God you are learning about
You have a heart being exposed and learning about so you can be the real you
A whole person in the midst of feeling unwhole
His mom said the Lord satisfies the hungry with good things
His brother said blessed are you who are hungry now for you will be filled
They aren’t talking about your stomach
They are talking about the ache of the heart to be whole
And they are telling James growing up it is only through knowing you are busted up that you will ask for saving
The word his mom and brother use for blessed is the language of longings fullfilled. happy in the soul complete
That is only possible if we have more eschatology in our suffering
It is the rich James says that are the sick that don’t think they need a doctor
but let the rich boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. For the sun rises and, together with the scorching wind, dries up the grass; its flower falls off, and its beautiful appearance perishes. In the same way, the rich person will wither away while pursuing his activities.
he is saying let the rich who knows this boast in knowing they are broken spiritually too and need a savior like the crushed
If not the warning is clear for all of us at the end of verse 11
Escahtology happens to us all
The question is does your life pursuit lead you to the place where the curse is no more or a forever with no hope
if we pursue our own saving we will wither away
Sam Alberry says Without him we are bankrupt, even with all the money in the world. The rich are not only to know that, but also to boast in that—to make it their badge of honour
But blessed are the hungry for the ache to be made whole
Blessed are those who weep now because we know we are busted up and need the gospel everyday
Those are the people who get and long for the hope of what is coming
But its a war we fight on 2 fronts
The War on 2 Fronts
The War on 2 Fronts
Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
Verse 12 is what the first 11 chapters have been building too
How can we know happiness and wholeness in the face of life that isn’t how its supposed to be?
he does not say the one who keeps that frown upside down through suffering
He says endure stood at the end
The one who was hungry knows it acknowledges it and gets to the end with Him and has everything sad come untrue
The one who he sees standing believing Psalm 1 (where he gets this stock language loaded verse)
How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
But to get there takes a war
The battle for our minds to consider how we are interpreting our suffering which he laid out last week
and
The battle for our hearts to long rightly in the face of suffering
James begins by encouraging us to take a look at ourselves: When- not if we suffer or go through trials of any kind
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone” (v 13).
Alberry says - We are to expect temptation. James says: “When tempted …” He does not say: Now, if you happen to be tempted … or: If you’re one of those particularly weak Christians who experiences temptation … James expects temptation to be a normal feature in the Christian life
We have to understand trials and temptation not pretend it doesn’t exist
We might find ourselves thinking: God is the one who made me like this. He’s the one who gave me this weakness. He’s the one who put me in this situation.
But James counters this by reminding us of what God is like: “God cannot be tempted by evil” (v 13).
He is un-tempt-able. Sin holds no attraction to him, as it does to us.
Because of this, we can be sure that he is not trying to trip us up, looking for ever more inventive ways to tempt us into sin.
God is not to blame for our temptation: we are. And notice this is the case for every single one of us: “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed” (v 14).
The uncomfortable truth is this: the evil desire tugging away at us is our own
My circumstances may be the occasion for my sin, but they are not the cause of it.
So where does it come from
IT is the war within us
In the Old Testament God never talks about sin as breaking rules first
It is always an issue of the heart
That is what James is bringing forward into the Gospel
Verse 14 says it comes when some translations say we lust after soemthing or this one says we are dragged away or enticed
The translations miss the word it means in the greek to overdesire
sin is overdesire - thats is what the language of enticed means
Sin is not wanting bad things
It is wanting good things too much
I want affection and love too much so I compromise myself and give myself to an unhealthy relationship
I want to feel whole in social situations so I used to use drugs to feel safe
Love and wholeness and safety and affection aren’t bad things are they?
But when we overdesire them we give ourselves to whatever we can to get them
That is the heart of what James is saying
It is rooted in our heart not our head
I graduated from DARE in gradeschool in knew drugs were bad
But I overdesired good things that I was willing to go to extremes I never would have thought to feel whole
I do disagree with one part of dare
They always said there are gateway drugs and i think that is off
I think our heart is the problem
I believe there are gateway choices and so does James
So do the Psalms
How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
See the progression
We go from listening to bad advice on how to interpret the trial we are in
Then we live the mistruths out as we choose a faulty lens to interpret suffering through
Then we sit in the company of mockers
We give in to overdesire and seek out people and voices and things that affirm our bad interpretations of life
James is saying it is a war for your heart
WIll you ask your own heart what is you long for and how you may be going about fullfilling those longings in self defeating ways
How can you take the things you long for and look to how the Gospel fullfills them
Will you consider what you are truly longing for in your suffering and see how the gospel actually says you already have it
Jesus does this with us
The very first words he is recorded saying to those who would follow him in John 1:37 are this very question
He asked them…what do you want? What do you long for? What do you long for me to be not just someone to put a bandaide on a broken world but something more
And he then asks them once he makes the consider there deepest longings ….will you come and see that in me you already have them because I came to be what you desperately need not just a useful King
Thats what God longs to do for us
It is who he is and thats why James ends this the way he does
Knowing God
Knowing God
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
James has laid out our need to consider our owns hearts because as the old hymn says our hearts are prone to wander
We need to examine our longings in suffering
But if we forget our heart we also can be deceived to forget how good God is toward us
In times of trial especially
We can be deceived about who god is and if he is even good and for us
James doesn’t want us to lose sight of the one who made the way for us to conquer the suffering we will face
he doesn’t want us to be deceived that the God who sent his son to die for us will ever stop moving all of history to get us home
Verse 17. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
All who God is is wrapped up in the title Father of lights
He is the one in control no matter how things looks- Genesis 1:14-18 He created everything and is in contol of where we are going …to the place where there is no more death or sadness or tears
Just as the sun comes up so does His unfailing love prove faithful Psalm 136:7
He made the great lights:
His faithful love endures forever.
He is the one waging a war to take back what darkness steals. He is the one who has conquered what breaks us when our world goes black Jeremiah 4:23
Because the promise of Revelation is for us when we make it through our suffering to be with Him
Revelation 2:28 to the one who overcomes I will give the morning star…the light of all lights because it is His to give
Because he went into complete darkness to win you back
Because he went into complete darkness to kill the dragon and get the girl
That is what James wants us to see in the face of our suffering
The God from whom all good things come has secured the end we long for
C.S. Lewis said in the Weight of Glory - all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so
The weight of what is coming outweighs what we suffer now
But who is this for?
By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
It is for those who have been born again through repentance and faith in Christ
Like we saw in Mark
Jesus has prepared the perfect table
But you have to take what he has done
This shows us another part of who God is in the face of suffering
God is full of Grace toward us
Remember in verse 15 we saw the birth of what crushes us when we overdesire
The only way to conquer death is new birth into life
See how he ties this all together ?
This new cycle of life defines those who have taken what Christ has done
Look at what we see about God and the new birth we need more then anything
Sam Alberry highlights 3 things • Its origin: It has been given to us. It comes as a gracious gift from God. It is not something we have somehow earned; he “chose” to give it to us.
• Its means: This new birth has come by the “word of truth”. The births of sin and death came as a result of our listening to our overdesires; this has come through our coming under the word of God. So powerful is the message of Jesus that it can penetrate us, grip us, and make us into new people.
• Its result: The effect of this birth is that we become like firstfruits of God’s creation. Our earlier cycle of birth had brought about death; this now brings life. The firstfruits are the initial batch of a farmer’s crop that proves and guarantees the rest of the harvest is now on its way. Our new life is just the beginning of what God is up to, a plan that incorporates the whole of creation as renewal finally comes to all things.
Like Lewis said all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so
James is part of that
Its leaves are rustling with the rumor that things will not be broken forever
Lets Pray