Life is complicated. James wants to help. Join us for a 5-week study on the book of James that is sure to provide you with a guide for life you’ll never want to forget!
Pathways Church
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>> Hey there, I'm Adam Demonstration, the lead pastor at Pathways Church in Appleton, Wisconsin. And this is our podcast. I hope this message inspires you, feeds your faith, and ultimately leads you into a growing relationship with Jesus. The promotion of products is serious business. Each of us are exposed to roughly 2 million advertisements per year. And did you know that the average cost of a paid commercial and national television is roughly $100,000? Now you probably did know that in 2023 advertisers paid, on average, $7 million to air a 30-second TV commercial during the Super Bowl, $7 million. Promotion of products is serious business, friends. And then there are some of those more interesting commercials, known as infomercials. Maybe you'll remember a couple of these products. Take a look. >> It's amazing. 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The fast and easy spackle spray that instantly repairs holes and cracks and drywall in seconds without the mess. >> Do you love to bake a delicious homemade cake, mix the batter, grease the pan, all that pouring, what a pain, what a mess. >> I don't even remember any of those products, oxy-clean, shamaw, yeah, okay. Yeah. Well, today we're beginning a new series entitled Faith Works, and by saying Faith Works, I'm saying two things as related to Faith Works. First, I'm saying that living by faith in Jesus works. It is as good, actually friends, it is better than advertised because faith in Jesus works. Faith works, for example, consider pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kind, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. That perseverance finished its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. When trials come and they will come in life, what does James say? Faith works, dropping down to verse 13. When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone." But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. And after desire has been conceived, it gives birth to sin and the sin when it is full-grown gives birth to death. When you and I face temptation and all of us, all of us face temptation, faith in Jesus works. Faith works. Which, by the way, week three of this series, we'll talk about temptation. But here's the second thing, the second meaning when we say that faith works. Not only does it work in relationship to things like trials and temptations, but faith works when it comes to working through us. Listen to what James says beginning in chapter 2 starting in verse 14. He writes, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds, can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, 'You go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs.' What good is your faith in the same way? Faith by itself is not, if not, if it is not accompanied by action, it is dead." What James is telling us here is that faith goes to work. See, faith works in your life, and as a result, faith works through your life. So as we begin this series together in this study in the book of James, I want to issue a challenge. I want to give you a challenge that if you want to have a kind of faith, you want to construct a faith that is so good for your daily life, that it works in you, your faith works in you when you have challenges and trials and you're going through life. If you want that kind of faith and you want to faith that enables you to be a difference maker through your life, in daily life, then I want to challenge you to come and participate and make it a priority to sit under the teaching of God's Word each and every week. Now, I know it's a holiday weekend. Many of you are part of our online church family or at a college, a cabin, you were friends or in another state, and that's fine. But I want to make, I want to challenge you and I want you to make a commitment to be here in person starting next week. All right. Deal. Deal. All right. Verse one. That's where we're going to begin. James 1-1. James, a servant of God and of Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. Greetings. Now, many books in the New Testament, especially the letters written by the Apostle Paul, they all begin with a similar kind of greeting and it's constructed with three components. First of all, it names the author, then it tells us who the recipients are and then finally gives a standard greeting. Typically, we skip over this intro and we get right into the content of the book. However, in this case, I don't want to do that. I believe there is something very significant that can be gained in this greeting. See, what you have in this greeting is a context that I believe we need to understand in order to enjoy the maximum benefits of faith works. First off, the name James was a very popular name in the first century and we find several men in the gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, individuals with the name of James. In fact, there are two that are very distinguished in nature. Those two are part of the original apostles. One was a set of brothers, James and John. You might remember their nickname. James and John were the sons of thunder. Yeah, like all the rain we've been getting and thunder and fireworks, right? They were the sons of thunder. Now, there was another James, James the son of Alpheus, another original apostle whom we know very little about in terms of his life. Now it is believed really by all the scholars that I've read and researched that James, the brother of John, one of the sons of thunder, could not have been the author of this book because he was martyred. You can read about it in Acts 12 in AD 44 and the earliest dating and writing of the letter that we're studying is in 45 AD. So it leads us to this question. What James are we talking about? Well, there is a third James that is written about in the New Testament and that James happens to be the brother of Jesus, actually the half brother because he had the same mother, but not the same father. We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus had for brothers. He had James and Joseph, Simon and Judas and he also had two sisters names which are unknown and unrevealed to us in the gospel accounts. It's this James who scholars believed wrote this letter and James writes a very basic description of who he is. Check it out again in verse one, he says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me just stop here for a moment. He describes himself as a servant of Jesus. If James were handing out a business card to you, the words underneath his name, James, what would they say? They would say, servant, James servant, question, what was the last time you heard somebody refer to themselves as a servant? You probably haven't heard that like ever. We use titles like manager, coach, digital or content creator, investor, CEO, COO, doctor, pastor, futurist, whatever that means. Titles that kind of describe us and the skills that we bring, but servant, that just seems so underwhelming. It's unimpressive because we want to send, when we have a title, we want to send a message about who we are. But James says, servant, who does he serve? Jesus. Now that doesn't seem very significant unless you remember that James is the brother of Jesus. Let me put it to you this way. Would you ever describe yourself as a servant of one of your siblings? Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. Furthermore, this title is compelling because for many years, check this out, James did not believe that his brother, Jesus, was God's son. He didn't believe this. His story is like many of our stories. See, James had a story, he had a story in relationship to his faith. His faith first had to work for him before it worked through him. And for many of us, you might come here today and you're like, yeah, I don't believe that Jesus saying, you know, somebody invited me or I had a little extra time and I decided I heard about pathways or, you know, I'm just scrolling and I'm clicking. And so here it is. And you're like, yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm not sure. Well, you know what, you're in good company because the writer of the book that we're going to study for the next several weeks, he wasn't sure either. In fact, he had a story that he was quite skeptical of his brother. He didn't believe in Jesus. How do we know this? Well, look with me on the screens at John chapter seven. There's one of the festivals that were taking place. There's the setting and when the Jewish festival of tabernacles was near, there were three festivals that all Jews, good Jews would come back to Jerusalem. Jesus's brothers said to him, why don't you leave Galilee and go to Judea so that your disciples there may see the works that you do. In other words, they were saying this verse four, no one who wants to become a public figure. You want to be a big name? You never act in secret. Come on, Jesus. And since you were doing these things, show yourself to the world. Now, here's the verse, for even his own brothers did not believe in him. James didn't believe that Jesus was God's son, but then something happened. And I imagine for many of you, something happened in your life. It was crisis. It was a pain moment. It was a realization. It was a warming of the heart. It was some intellectual gap that was crossed, a barrier that was broken and you began to realize that, you know what, this Jesus, he's God's son. I believe I do have trust of my heart, not just mental ascent. See, life is complicated and that's why James writes to us because he wants to say, I have a story too when it comes to this Jesus. And that change moment for James was when he saw his brother come back to life. Paul writes these words in 1 Corinthians 15, for what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried and then he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And then he appeared, now, this is what Paul says, he appears to a lot of different people, to Cephas, also known as Peter, and then to the 12. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, of whom are still living, those some had fallen asleep. And then verse 7, then he appeared to, say the next word with me, the name of, then he appeared to James. Why does Paul lift out James? Well, because he wants us to know that James, the brother of Jesus, is now a believer in Jesus and then he appeared to all the apostles. James believed after he saw Jesus come back to life. And you, I mean, you think about it, if your brother predicted his own death and resurrection and then pulled it off, wouldn't you believe and do whatever he says? Yeah, I would. Like, okay, you are God's son, you are different. I get it. Well, this is exactly what James did, and we can read about that later, because if you look at Acts chapter 1, James was part of the 120 who waited for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was poured out when Acts chapter 2. When the very first church just started and grew, God did a miracle there and guess who became the pastor of the very first church, James. James was the lead pastor of the church in Jerusalem, the very first church. Now you might be saying, okay, Adam, that's a nice historical lesson, but like, why are you mentioning all of this? Like, we're only on verse 1. All right, well, because James could have put in his greeting, James, brother of Jesus, ever heard the term name dropping? That's like the ultimate name drop, friends. Yeah, James, brother of Jesus. Yeah, I grew up with him. I knew him. We ate PB and J's together. I taught him to ride a donkey. Yeah, I'm his, I know I've watched his dirty laundry. Okay, they probably didn't have PB and J's, but we made unleavened bread. We ate figs together. I don't know. Okay? I'm his brother. Or he could have written James, lead pastor, first church, like first church ever, James. Okay? Now, you got to admit that that's pretty impressive, right, friends? When you kind of read this book from the beginning and say, wow, this guy, he's the brother of Jesus, he's the first lead pastor of the very first church that was ever established by the God of the universe, whoa, man, I better lean in this book to J's. He's got some heat that he's going to be bringing. I need to know what this guy's writing about, but that's not how he introduces himself. Rather, what does he say? He says, James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, before we move on, let me ask you a question. How would you describe yourself? Because all of us, we have business cards or we have a title, an email signature at the bottom of all the correspondence, the communication that we send out. What does it read? Now, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with having on your business card or your signature that describes what you do and the value that you bring through your competency and your skill sets. There's nothing wrong with that. But friends, hear me. If you're a follower of Jesus on a much deeper level, first and foremost, you are a servant. Do you know what you are? You are a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. And seeing ourselves as this has the power to change, it makes a huge difference in terms of our perspective, the way we see things, the angle, the take in life, in friendship, in work, when we see ourselves as a servant of Jesus Christ in our relationships. It has a huge opportunity to change our attitudes, the way we relate to people in terms of humility versus pride, or in terms of service versus selfishness. And you think about it in the context of your workplace, if you see yourself as a servant of Jesus Christ, then you adhere to what Paul writes in Philippians 2, 3, listen, I'm not going to do anything out of selfish ambition. I want to serve others. I want to put on the attitude of Christ. I want to be a humble servant. He's my model. He is the one, he is, as Joe said earlier, the author and the perfecter of my faith. Faith worked for him and it works for me. You can have a kingdom outpost of God's love, you say, Adam, how do you do that? I was talking to a guy just this past week, we were having a cup of coffee together and he was responsible, he was talking about his work and he's responsible, a younger individual responsible for 12 other workers in his department. He said, you know, Adam, I've been having this sense that I want to do something outside of work with these individuals. I feel like that would be a great way to get to know them and I wonder what your thought on that is. And I said, man, I got to tell you, I think there's something deeper that's happening inside of you. I think what God is leading you to do is to relate to these individuals in such a way that God's love in his grace because how many of you have co-workers and you know nothing outside of what you know about them just at work? You haven't taken the time to drill down and to get to know them as human beings, not just as human doings. And I said to this individual, hey, why don't you go do that? Take that step of faith because my experience is this, that most people, they need to know that they belong before they ever believe in the God that you say you love and serve. He's like, yeah, okay. Maybe I'll take that step. Well, this is the step that James takes for you and me in humility, he says, I'm a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes on and he tells us the second part of this greeting. He names the recipients, look at the first, the second part of verse one. He says to the 12 tribes scattered among the nation's greetings, 12 tribes, who is he referring to? Well, the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel, James is writing primarily to a Jewish audience, a Jewish group's believers. Now, I don't have time to go into all the particulars, but here's what's taking place. The Jews at the time of the writing of this book, James is the lead pastor, remember in the church of Jerusalem, and the believers there in Jerusalem, they are scattered from Jerusalem to all the surrounding nations. So for example, it'd be like, it'd be like if all of you were scattered to all the different states, maybe some of you went to a different country, went to Canada, that borders are north, or you went to Michigan, or you went over to, you know, Indiana or Ohio, wherever, and you were scattered, James would be writing these individuals. James would be writing these individuals, and he'd be talking to them because they were scattered. Why were they scattered? They didn't go because, you know, they, you know, bought some property in Michigan or whatever. They went because they were persecuted. In fact, you can read about that. From the church history in Acts, chapter 7, with the stoning of Stephen or the subsequent chapters of Paul's conversion in Acts 8 and 9. But let me just lift out one verse that talks, that speaks about this persecution. Acts 8 1 says this, "On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in where in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria." So let me ask you a question. Do you think that James's audience, as they were reading this letter, were they in a good spot? No. Do you think they were coming off like a long-winning streak as related to life and all the circumstantial stuff going on? No. Is it any wonder why James opens up his letter with what he says in verse 2? Look at the text with me. James says, "Consider pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. His audience wants to know. They have to know. James does a faith in Jesus' work when trials come. James, we have to know. And James writes and he addresses right off the bat, loudly and clearly about faith. He says, "I want you to know that faith works when trials come." James says, "I want you to know that you can be overcome when life hits you hard and trials come your way. Faith works. How does it work?" Well, read on with me in verses 3 and 4. Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may mature and complete not lacking anything. I heard someone say recently, "Orange barrels stress me out. I get so frustrated when I see them." Now, if you're not a part of, from Wisconsin, you're not from here, you're a part of our online church family and you watch from another state, now listen, let me just educate you for a moment. In your state, you have four seasons, you have winter, spring, fall, and summer and fall. But here in Wisconsin, we actually have a bonus season. We have five seasons. I think we have a little screenshot of what our fifth season, construction season. See, we have winter, spring, construction season, and then fall. Construction season is accompanied by orange barrels here in Wisconsin. And they're everywhere. And you know what? No one sends you a text message when they're going to pop up. You just stumble upon these little guys and some are knocked down and some are misplaced and some are just frustrating and disturbing. And then when you're driving along and you're on time, you're not under time, you're not over time, you're on time and you're just making your way to wherever you need to make your way to, then all of a sudden you see these barrels and a lane and everybody has to shift over and you have to negotiate that. And then if you're really lucky, you'll see one of those dreaded signs that reads detour. Oh, you've seen those. And then you feel like you're being persecuted and you think all kinds of simple things. And so if you're watching from another saying, it gets really ugly because Christians are on the curb and they're repenting because they've been around barrels and it gets really ugly and detour signs and it's nuts and we just start saying, consider pure joy and people are like, this person's a whack job and it's just this. So be glad that you don't have construction season and for the rest of us, this is one of our trials, amen? Now, while we can chuckle and relate to orange barrels, James says this to all the orange barrels in our lives. Whenever you're in pure joy, okay, whenever you face trials, do you find that the trials in your life come announced? Do you find that a week or two in advance you get a text trial coming on its way? Get ready? No, doesn't work that way. James says in verse two, whenever, because you're in pure joy, whenever he goes on to say in the same verse, that these trials are of what of many kinds? Say that with me. Many kinds. Have you experienced not only do they come unannounced or unannounced, but they're of many kinds. Have you ever noticed that trials stack upon trials? Have you ever said, man, can I just catch a break? Have you ever said, man, when it rains it, it just doesn't come in one and twos. It's like, man, threes the charm, right? It's trials, financial trials. You have emotional trials, you have family trials, you have relationship, you have financial trials, you have trials that you battle internally. There are trials, all kinds of trials. Trials that are really sparked by somebody else's dumb decisions. And if we're honest, trials that happen because of our dumb decisions, what James is saying is that there are all kinds of trials that come into our lives, which leads us to this logical question. What's the source of trials? Now hear me. If you're new to faith, I want to reinforce something to you if you're a longtime believer. But if you're new to faith, this might be, or if you're just checking out faith, or if you have questions about God, this is perhaps the most important line in my message. God is never the cause of our trials. We serve a loving and a kind, integrations God. God did not bring your trials upon you. Trials basically come from three sources. If you're taking notes, jot these down. The first is the world. I don't know if you haven't noticed, but this world is hard. It's fallen. It's broken. For example, the word cancer, you have a couple in our church who lives next door to a young family and this young family has a five-year-old child and they recently found out that this child, this five-year-old girl, has cancer in her legs, her spine, and her hips. Trial? I think so. That's a health crisis. Source, we live in a broken world where cancer ravages people. The second source is the enemy. Satan uses schemes to deceive and to try to destroy us. He creates chaos. He causes chaos and he creates trials for us in our lives. For example, before there was tap pay at your local gas station, you remember how you had to get a debit card or your credit card and you would stick it in the little swiper deal and then somebody would actually go back and find your credit card number and then they would steal money from your account. Has that ever happened to you? Yeah. And then you have to call and they have to, "Oh, the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." That's a trial? Trial. Yes. Why did that trial happen? Well, because the enemy planted a seed of deception in the mind of the person who stole your credit card number and they thought to themselves, "It's much easier for me to steal than rather work and make my own money." Did it cause you a trial? You betcha. The last words of our trials is our decisions. Trials are caused by our actions. We make decisions and those decisions have consequences and we look back and we say, "Oh, why did I do that? Why did I say that? I should have just kept my mouth shut." Sometimes we bring trials upon ourselves because of how we function, you and I function in life. What does James say that we should do when these trials come? Well, James says that we should consider pure joy. Really James? Pure joy. Now, what James is not saying is that we should be giddy and happy about all the trials in our lives. This is not what James is saying. Yes, another trial come to daddy, come to papa. Big trial. I can't wait to give you a hug. It's not what he is saying. He's not writing us to act like we're hyper-spiritual and fanatical and semi-crazy. What James is saying to us is that we need to have a deeper level of awareness in the presence of the Holy Spirit so that we can have joy in the midst of a trial coming our way. What is joy? I would tell you that joy is a combination of peace and hope. Peace and hope that digs deeper than circumstantial or temporal things around us. You might not make sense to you. You might not understand. You might not know. You can't figure it out in your own will, your own capacity. But you know what? You know a couple of things about God. You understand that God is wise, that God is good, and that God is all powerful. And you have a joy, a peace and confidence that goes beyond that leads you to a place of saying, I'm going to have joy in the midst of this because I know that God has a purpose. What's that purpose? Look at verses three and four. James says, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish this work so that you may be sure, complete, not lacking anything. What James is saying, friends, is that in all of our trials, the trials of many kinds, no matter what forms and shapes and sizes, they come in, we didn't even matter the source. James is saying, God has a purpose to accomplish. God has a purpose in your life to accomplish. What's that purpose? Listen, his purpose, he's using those trials to mature you so that you can look more like Jesus Christ, so that you can have the likeness and the attitudes and the words of Jesus Christ. And the way that we view and respond to trials has the potential to mature us. Before you prayed away and wished it away and braced it and say, God, you want to use this trial not to destroy me, but to mature me. Trials mature us. So what do we know? Here's what we know, that not only does God have a purpose in our trials, regardless of the source, God is so wise and so good, regardless of who caused the trial or what caused the trial, the world, the enemy, your own dumb decisions. God has the ability and I don't even know how he does it, but I've seen it in my life. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm trusting God in it for my life right now. I'm trusting that he's going to use the trials in my life. He has a purpose. And I believe it is for my good and for his glory, because what do we know? We know this. Romans 8, 28 says, and we know, not we feel, not we think, not that we believe there is a confidence. We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and call according to his purpose. Amen? Yeah, you can clap for that. I'll clap with you. We know, we know, if you have faith in Jesus, then God has you. He has all your arms, barrels. He knows them. He sees them. God has a purpose and he gives you a promise that he is working for the good. He is working it for your good for his glory. And if you know that and if you've experienced that, or maybe this is the first time, or again, you're going to experience that, you can have joy when you face another trial. And guess what? You know what's going to happen over time? Over time, trials will create. I think the third part of what true joy is. It's not just peace and hope, but it's confidence. There's a level of confidence that comes after you're gone through some trials in life. You just have a maturing kind of faith that says, been there. I've seen that in other people's lives. I've seen how they've weathered that trial. And I'm ready. Trial. I'm ready. God's got this. I have joy. I have pure joy in this. So as we close today, I want to ask you a couple of questions. If you would bow your heads and your hearts with me, if you're taking notes, you might want to jot these down or if you have your phone, you can pull out your phone and just take a quick note on these. First question is a very important and personal question. What would it look like for your faith to work in your trial? What would it look like for your faith? Faith works. What about your faith to work in your trial? That's a question that you could ponder this week. Probably spirit wants to speak to you on that one. Have you considered that God has a purpose? This is a really personal one. How is your trial going to mature you? Well, you at the end of your trial, be able to sing it as well with my soul, it is well. We sang it earlier, but we sing it later. Let's become the formative song of our faith journey because we know faith works. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, you see, you know, you understand all things. You are good and wise and all powerful. God, you know my brothers and sisters here today, those who are watching online, we're facing trials, things are lives that we don't fully understand, but we know the one who understands all. And so we commit our lives to you. God as we reflect on these questions, maybe here and now you're dropping words. You're speaking, giving impressions in our hearts. Maybe you're inviting us this week to do some more work, whether it's in a circle, a small group or just personally, to sit with some of these questions, read James. God, we thank you for this letter. Not only written at 12 tribes, but written to us today, this church, Pathways Church, your church. God, now I pray that you would speak and that you would have your way. God as we start out this series, we do this on your great grace and your love and your care for our lives. We pray this in the name of Jesus, the strong Son of God and everyone who agreed this prayer said, Amen.
Life is complicated. James wants to help. Join us for a 5-week study on the book of James that is sure to provide you with a guide for life you’ll never want to forget!