Active Faith (Part One): Dear Diaspora

Transcript

JRNT 1
09/25/2022
Active Faith (Part One): Dear Diaspora
James 1:1
Jesse Randolph


Well, today is an exciting day. We're through the summer, the temperatures are dropping, the humidity is leaving, the bugs are dying, the campus is buzzing and all of our ministries are now up and running. I have to say, when I first came out here to candidate back in February, some of you have heard this story, there were two moments where I felt really, really overwhelmed and nervous, sitting on the front row to preach in this pulpit. The first pang of nervousness I felt was when I realized, oh, my goodness, I chose to preach Leviticus this morning. That was the first pang of nervousness. The second pang actually was hearing the orchestra and the choir. I am not used to that in California, we're used to rock bands and bright lights and all that stuff, even in a church setting. So to sit and worship in that way with those instruments and those talented, gifted singers is such a joy to be a part of. So all that to say I am personally very excited to have the choir back, the orchestra back, and just to be able to worship in that way with the people of God.

But we are excited also this morning, I hope, because we are about to embark on two new sermon series. So we have one starting this morning through the book of James but then in the evening service we're starting another new series through the book of Hosea. Our focus here, of course, each Sunday morning over the next several months (I don't think like Aaron said it will be years) is going to be on the book of James. Eventually we'll make our way through all 108 verses of this book of James which are scattered through five chapters of this book. But this morning we're actually going to be camped out on a single verse, the opening verse, James 1:1. Now before we get into it, and you're welcome to turn in your Bibles to James 1:1, this is going to be a big time survey sort of message as we get ready to embark on this longer study.

But before we get into it, it does need to be recognized that there have been countless debates over and arguments about and statements made about the book of James over the course of church history. Martin Luther, the German reformer, famously referred to James as an epistle of straw, meaning it is easily burned fodder like wood or hay and ultimately it will not last. Luther also accused James of “mangl[ing] the Scriptures and thereby oppos[ing] Paul and all Scripture.” Luther also made this backhanded remark about James. He said, “I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him. Well, danke schoen for that, Martin, appreciate the insights.

The Genevan reformer, John Calvin, was less acerbic in his evaluation of James but he was nevertheless critical. Calvin said of James, it “seems more sparing in proclaiming the grace of Christ than it behooved an Apostle to be.” And then there was Erasmus, the Dutch humanist, the Greek scholar, who raised doubts about this letter's apostolic origin, questioning whether and how a brother of Jesus, a mere Galilean lay person could have written and composed in such polished and advanced Koine Greek such a letter. And then there was Martin Dibelius, a German theologian from the 20th century, and whenever anybody says a German theologian from the 20th century, the hair on the back of your neck should stand up, who remarked quite baldly that “James has no theology.” In other words, summarizing what we have just looked through, the book of James has received its fair share of criticism from a wide range of perspectives and centuries and even national origins.

Well, thank the Lord that our hope is not in Luther and our hope is not in Calvin and our hope is not in Erasmus and our hope is not in Dibelius or any other dead German theologian or any skeptic or scholar. Ultimately our hope is in the Lord who has revealed to us perfectly and timelessly all that He wants us to know in His excellent Word. Amen? And James is in the canon of Scripture, it is in the library of books that the Lord has loaned us for our earthly pilgrimages for a reason. Like each of the other 65 books. James is like each of the other 65 books, it's been inspired of God, 2 Timothy 3:16, and therefore it is “profitable for teaching and reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.” I'm very much looking forward to preaching this book and I'm very excited to see the ways in which the Lord works through this book here in His church as it is preached.

Well, now that we have cut through some of that brush of the attacks that have been leveled against the book of James over the centuries, our next task before us is to extract and lay out the main idea of James. Now what is the theme of James? What point is he really driving at? What is he trying to say? What should our key takeaway be from the book of James? Well, I'm going to make the case to you this morning prayerfully, throughout this series, too, that the major theme of James, the big idea you could say, is that the Christian faith is an active faith. Hence the series title, “Active Faith.” To be sure our faith is a gift of God, our faith originates with God. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But the faith that saves is not a faith ultimately that is alone. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is what Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-10, the Scripture reading for this morning. Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and not that of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

But then what does Paul tell us in the very next verse, Ephesians 2:10? “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” As we are going to see in this series, James, though he is not an apostle or a writer who deemphasizes faith, he is an author who stresses the Ephesians 2:10 side, you could say, of that coin. He is not at all disagreeing with what Paul says about where faith comes from, but what James really does emphasize is what faith produces. And what James is going to show us is that saving faith is an active faith. A Christian once saved is not a sideline sitter. A Christian once saved is not passive in their pursuit of Christ. True saving faith will produce real, lasting fruit. James 2:17, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead.” True saving faith is applied faith, it is expressed faith. It doesn't let moss grow under its feet. It is active faith.

Now one of the ways that James brings out this concept of active faith is through the grammar and the syntax of his letter. You have to consider this, that James, though it only has 108 verses, he uses 54 imperatives in those 108 verses. That means, when you average it out, and this is not exact science, there is a command in approximately every other verse of the book of James. We think of the Gospel of Mark as being a fast moving Gospel through Mark's use of that word “immediately.” Immediately, immediately, immediately. Well, the book of James is marked out by the activity he is calling for by his use of imperatives—do, do, do. In fact with today's sermon being a survey, more of a survey of the book of James, I want to actually take a little time to survey this imperatival force by which he writes this book.

I'm going to run through these quickly, you're welcome to scan your eyes over the page as I do this. I'm not going to read all 54 imperatives, but I'm going to read many of them just to get a feel for the movement and the theme of this book. James 1:2, “Consider it all joy.” James 1:5, “Let him ask of God.” James 1:6, “Ask in faith.” 1:13, “Let no one say.” 1:16, “Do not be deceived.” 1:21, “Receive the Word implanted.” 1:22, “Prove yourselves doers of the Word.” 2:1, “Do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.” 2:5, “Listen, my beloved brethren.” 2:12, “So speak and so act.” 2:18, “Show me your faith.” 3:1, “Let not many of you become teachers.” 3:13, “Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.” 4:7, “Submit, therefore, to God.” 4:7, “Resist the devil.” 4:8, “Draw near to God.” 4:8, “Cleanse your hands.” 4:8, “Purify your hearts.” 4:9, “Be miserable and mourn and weep.” 4:10, “Humble yourselves.” 4:13, “Come now.” 5:1, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl.” 5:7, “Be patient.” 5:8, “Be patient.” 5:9, “Do not complain.” 5:12, “Do not swear.” 5:13, “Pray.” 5:13, “Sing praises.” 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another.” 5:16, “Pray for one another.” That's just half of them and I'm out of breath. James is full of clear, direct commands like this. He directs, he commands, he chastises, he exhorts, he challenges, he makes his point and then he moves on.

Now his writing style is very different than Paul's. Paul will surface an issue, he'll explore it from every single angle, from under, from over, from around, from inside, from outside. He'll plunge his readers to the deepest depths, reasoning comprehensibly with his audience about every aspect of that particular point of doctrine, anticipating and refuting any errors and arguments that may be leveled against him. Not James. James has a more narrow focus, a more direct focus, a more conviction-oriented focus. If Paul is like a floodlight, James is like a laser.

Now James' writing style can tend to frustrate some, especially those commentaries I've been reading all week, as they are trying to figure out the major themes of this book and what is it that he's really trying to say. I'd actually argue, though, that in our day and age with our admittedly reduced attention spans and our fast-paced, distracted lifestyle (does anyone want to admit to that) that James' writing style for us in our day actually is a virtue. He tells it like it is and he does so with conciseness and with clarity. There is very little doubt when you read James as to what it is he is communicating. He doesn't allow his audience, whether his original audience or his modern audience, to wriggle off the hook.

Not only is James' writing clear and concise and punchy, it is also highly illustrative and often metaphorical, both of which, for any of you who are teachers understand, can actually be very helpful teaching devices. In James we encounter the billowing sea, we encounter the withered flower, the image of the face in the mirror, the bit in the horse's mouth, the rudder of the ship, the destructive forest fire, the pure spring of water, the arrogant businessman, the corroded metal, the moth-eaten clothes. These are understandable word pictures, these are relatable word pictures and these are helpful word pictures.

Now some have taken James' very concise and direct form of writing to mean that he is uninterested with theology or doctrine. They'll say things like he is more about practice than he is about substance. Paul is the theology guy, James is the practice guy. There is a lot of fault in that logic. Number 1, it suggests that Paul isn't practical, and if you've ever read the second half of any of Paul's epistles you know he is very practical. And 2, it wrongly presumes that James is not theological. It also wrongly infers that theology and practice are somehow disconnected. I couldn't disagree more. I absolutely reject the premise that theology and practice are disconnected. Our theology drives our practice. Sound doctrine is the taproot of holy living. Not only that, while it is true that James is in fact very practical in its orientation, the book also is quite theological. In fact, I had the joy this week in studying James and studying for this sermon, studying it through the lens of systematic theology. In other words, could we develop a systematic theology by reading James alone? I'll let you answer that question after I go through some of these passages.

James, does he address the topic of theology proper, the topic we studied on Sunday evenings over the summer, the doctrine of God? Well, James uses the term God, “theos,” 17 times in the book that bears his name. He knows that there is one God, James 2:19. He refers to God as Father, James 3:9. He refers to God as a giver in James 4:2, and he knows that God is merciful in James 4:8. He acknowledges that God is Creator and the source of righteousness and the right object of worship and our guide in pursuing true wisdom. He knows that God is the sovereign One and that God is the enemy of sin and the judge of all. That sounds like theology proper to me.

How about bibliology, the doctrine of Scripture? Well, James uses the phrase in James 4:5, the Scripture speaks. He directly quotes the Old Testament in James 4:6. He cites as authoritative, various historical accounts given in the Old Testament Scriptures, including the accounts of Abraham in James 2:23, Rahab in James 2:25. He refers to the prophets in James 5:10. He refers to Job in James 5:11. And he refers to Elijah in James 5:17-18. And not only that, James pulls in parallels to the Proverbs throughout this letter. That's why many have referred to James, I think fairly, as the Proverbs of the New Testament. In fact, I would encourage you in your time in the Word this week, we don't have time to do it this morning, to go dig up the following proverbs and see if you can find a parallel in the book of James. Proverbs 11:28, 14:29, 15:18, 18:5 and 10:19. That's bibliology.

How about Christology? Does James have anything to say about the doctrine of Christ, the person, the work of Christ? Well, he uses the word, “kurios,” Lord, 11 times. Jesus is clearly Lord to James, as we're going to get into in a bit. He calls Jesus the Lord Jesus Christ in James 1:1. He calls Jesus our glorious Lord Jesus Christ in James 2:1. He also demonstrates a complete mastery of the truths proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount, which demonstrates his mastery of understanding the heart of Christ. James speaks to… and as I read these off see if you can think of a parallel to the Sermon on the Mount. James speaks of love of neighbor, James 2:8; self-exaltation leading to humiliation in James 4:6-10; not judging, James 4:11-12; the perils of taking oaths in James 5:11-12; moth and rust destroying riches in James 5:2; and the Lord's imminent appearing in James 5:8-9. That sounds a lot like Christology to me.

James also gives us ecclesiology, some doctrine related to the church, albeit in a somewhat primitive form. He uses the term “beloved” to speak of others in this community of belief. He mentions this community being a fellowship of both rich and poor. He refers to this mutual ministry that we have of praying for one another, and he calls on the elders of the church in James 5, as many of you know, to lay hands on the sick.

Then there is eschatology. James does have eschatology in view when he speaks this way in James 5:8-9, “For the coming of the Lord is near… behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.” And of course eschatology leads to practical, holy living, it ought to lead to that as we are awaiting and anticipating the appearing of our Lord.

All this to say, James, contra the critics, is very much a theological book.

All right, I told you this is going to be a survey. We've laid out some of the preliminaries. We've set some of the background. Now we'll ease our way into the text again, by studying this one verse this morning. Just think of it this way, after today there are only 107 verses to go. Okay? James 1:1, “James,” God's Word reads, “a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.” From this single verse we are going to hang this morning's sermon on four points. We're going to look at the source. We're going to look at the status, We're going to look at the scattering. And we're going to look at the salutation. The source, the status, the scattering and the salutation.

Let's begin with the source. Now the book of James is one of the New Testament epistles like 1 and 2 Peter, like 1, 2 and 3 John, and like Jude, which have been classified as general epistles. They are general in the sense that they are not addressed to a specific church or a specific individual like Galatia or Titus. But the general epistles do bear a name, the name of the author of the letter—Peter, John, James, Jude—not the individuals to whom they are addressed.

And the book of James begins in the same manner that all Greco-Roman letters of this time would have begun. He begins with the identity of the sender, James. The source of this book, verse 1 tells us very clearly, is James. So when we have a book like this that is designated not by its audience, like Laodicea and Sardis and all the letters we looked at over the summer, but rather by its author, the next question we need to work through is who is he? Who is its author? Who is this James? In the New Testament we know several James, men by the name of James. Now interestingly in the Greek text the name that we see on the page is actually “Iakobos” (I won't try to spell that). And that's a transliteration, it's the Greek form of the Old Testament Hebrew name Jacob. So James is actually Jacob. I am going to try not to go too far down that rabbit hole. But basically somewhere in the course of the Bible being translated from Greek into Latin in the days of Jerome, the Latin church father, when he created the Latin Vulgate around the year 400 A.D., somehow Iakobos, Jacob, became “Iacomus” which when the Bible was later translated into the English became James. So what started out as Jacob became James. Now this name (we're going to go with James), this was common in New Testament times just as it is today.

And we're going to highlight at least three Jameses that we do see mentioned in the New Testament. We know that there was James, the son of Zebedee, that would have been the brother of John the Apostle, the former son of thunder. James, the son of Zebedee became an apostle in his own right just like his brother, and in fact, was part of Christ's inner circle during His earthly ministry. That would be one option for the book of James. Then there is James, the son of Alphaeus. Very little is said of that James in Scripture but church history and tradition have given him the names James, the Younger, James, the Lesser and Little James. I'm sure he appreciated those titles. Then there was James, the son of Joseph and Mary, the Lord's brother, and more specifically, the Lord's half-brother.

So which of these Jameses wrote the book of James? Well, from the very beginning of the Christian tradition it has been understood that the James who wrote the book of James is James the brother of Jesus Christ. And there really is no reason internally or externally to believe that this letter was written by a James other than the brother of our Lord. In fact, there are internal and external evidences to indicate that this is none other than James the Lord's half-brother.

One of these, by the way, one of these evidences is that this James is simply and singularly referred to by his single name, James, not only here but elsewhere in the New Testament. You could jot down Matthew 13:55, we're going to be there later today, Acts 15:13, we'll be there later today also, where we see James the Lord's half-brother mentioned only as James, just as we do here in James 1:1. By contrast, the other Jameses of the New Testament have some additional designation that attaches to their name whenever they are mentioned. Matthew 4:21, James, the son of Zebedee, is called just that, James, the son of Zebedee. Matthew 10:3, James, the son of Alphaeus. Or Acts 12:2 refers to James, the brother of John. James, the brother of Jesus, didn't need more of a designation. Just calling him James was sufficient. There are certain people that their name is so common that that first name is all you need, you don't need further identification. Like Augustine or Prince or Gil. Right? These are one-name kind of men. (I had to Gil, I'm sorry.) But the strongest and most sensible option for the authorship of the book of James is that it is James, the half-brother of Jesus.

And there is special significance to be ascribed to the fact that when we are looking at the book of James we are looking at the brother of our Lord. In fact, let's take a little jet tour through some of the Gospel accounts to draw out this significance. Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 13 and we're going to parachute right into this scene where the Jews are frustrated as they are seeking to understand Jesus' teaching and His mighty works. Things they are witnessing but they're not understanding. And when we get to Matthew 13 let's look at verse 53, Matthew 13:53. It says, “When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?” I read it quite quickly but did you see it there in verse 55? It refers to His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.

Now I just have to go there without apology. Our planet is populated by 1.3 billion Roman Catholics who for centuries now have been fed the lie by the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus had no brothers. And they promote that lie to promote their unbiblical doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. And the way that they'll do that, friends, is they'll take passages like Matthew 13 here and they'll claim that that reference to brothers, which is plain as day on the page right in front of you, is actually a reference to His cousins. Well, there is absolutely zero exegetical basis for taking the Greek term here, “adelphoi” -- I'm sure you know what that is referring to, Philadelphia, brotherly love -- we know what that means, plain as day. Adelphoi means brother or brothers. But they render it cousins.

Well, there is also no claim or evidence in the New Testament itself that Mary remained a virgin after the conception of the Lord. In fact, the opposite is stated in Scripture. In Matthew 1:25 it says quite clearly that Joseph “kept her a virgin,” kept Mary a virgin “until she gave birth to a Son.” That's a very key word, “until.” It doesn't say “after” or “following” he kept her a virgin. No, he kept her a virgin until the birth of the Son. All that to say, the Roman Catholic idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one of that church's many false doctrines. Surely Mary was a virgin when the Lord was conceived in her womb but she did not remain a virgin. Jesus had siblings, one of whom is the man we are studying today, the man who wrote the book of James.

Back to the main idea here. As we move forward in our chronology we get to the Gospel of John. In fact, if you'll turn with me to the Gospel of John. Look over at John 7 and in the scene here as there is another crowd gathering around the Lord. But the idea here is that not all are believing what He is doing. The miracles are impressing certain people but not everybody. Let's look at John 7:1. It says, “After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee,” John 7:1, “for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. Therefore His brothers said to Him, ‘Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.’ ” And then look at verse 5, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” That's a comprehensive statement. It is saying that not one of His brothers believed in Him. Not a single family member, not a brother believed in Him. Not only did His brothers not believe in Him, though they were concerned for Him. Flip with me over to Mark 3, we see now there are not only those who disbelieve Him in His family, or don't believe Him, but there are those who are trying to stop Him.

Look at Mark 3:20, it says, “And He came home and the crowd gathered again, and to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.” Then it says in verse 21, “When His own people,” and other translations have that rendered “When His family heard of this,” “they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘He has lost His senses.’ ” In other words, this revolutionary message of Jesus had so scandalized the family of Christ that they sought to do what families tend to do when other family members are being scandalous -- to take them away, to hide them away, to cover His mouth, to explain His message away. In Jesus' family's case they say, “He has lost His senses,” which could be rendered, He has lost His mind. I wonder if there is anybody in the room this morning who has a testimony like that, who when you went to your parents or your family members as soon as the Lord grabbed ahold of you and turned your heart to Him, they said something similar. Oh, that's good for you, oh, you are cleaning up your life. But you get serious about your faith and what do they start saying? He's a little nuts, he has lost his mind. This is a very relatable scene here.

And there are many other points that we could extract from what we see in each of these narratives that we've just briefly looked at, but one of them is this. That Jesus clearly, as He does elsewhere, ascribed deity to Himself, that is He claimed to be God. And of course, liberal scholars over the centuries have tried to argue that it was somehow the church's reinterpretation of the Scripture, that leads to people like me and lemmings like you, to think that Christ really didn't claim to be divine. That we're all just believing a big, massive lie that was invented by the church many centuries later. Well, what do the Scriptures testify to? That Jesus clearly claimed to be divine, even in the context of His family here. When John 7 says that His brothers didn't believe in Him, what is it that they didn't believe in? His claims concerning Himself which would have included that He is the God/Man. In Mark 3 when His family was scandalized by what He said, what is in view? What made them think that He was out of His mind? Well, that He was claiming to be God. That would be a pretty crazy thing to say in the Jewish context of the day.

But then, this is all James' biography, by the way, if you are tracking with me still. You have this remarkable transformation. Set against John 7, disbelief in His family, and Mark 3, opposition in His family, is this incredible statement in 1 Corinthians 15. Turn with me if you would to 1 Corinthians 15. Such a great statement about the power of the gospel and the reality of the resurrection of our Lord. 1 Corinthians 15, I'm going to start in verse 1. 1 Corinthians 15:1 says, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. After that,” this is Paul speaking, “He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.”

Look at verse 7, “then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” That reference in verse 7 is to James, the brother of our Lord, James, the half-brother of Jesus, the one who along with his other brothers at first did not believe in Jesus, the one who along with his family would have believed Jesus to be insane and out of His mind. But by the time you get to 1 Corinthians 15:7 we're told that Christ appeared to him, and this is the central event in the transformation of James. Now because of this event, James went from one who thought his half-brother was insane to being one who would later be a pillar of the church. And at the heart of this transformation was his knowledge of the resurrected Christ. And that just highlights the reality for us this morning, That the resurrection really does change everything. It did for James, it did for me, it did for you. The resurrection changes everything.

We have another reference to this James, continuing in our jet tour through the New Testament this morning to Galatians. Look at Galatians 1, we'll see James yet again in 1:15. Paul here is speaking to his conversion and his early days as a follower and where he went. Galatians 1:15, “But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother.” There he is again. Now don't be confused, by the way, by this language here into believing that James was one of the twelve apostles, one of the twelve surrounding Jesus. He wasn't. James, the son of Zebedee, the brother of John, was one of the twelve. But James, the son of Mary, the brother of our Lord, was not. Even when we get to Acts 1 and they are looking to replace Judas with a new apostle, it was not James, the brother of Jesus, who was presented as a potential replacement. James was not an apostle, he was not a sent one. But he certainly was a key figure in the church, a pillar, as Galatians 2:9 puts it.

Now this James, though not an apostle as I just mentioned, did play a very important role in the early church. Once he was called, once he was placed in his role, we see him again in the book of Acts. In fact, turn with me over to Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council. He surfaces in other places in the book of Acts but this is the one to really focus in on where we see James playing the central role. Now what is happening at the Jerusalem Council is the early church here is figuring out how to incorporate, what to do with these Gentiles, who are now coming into the church as the Gospel goes out to them and reaches them. Were the Gentiles required to become Jews in order to become followers of Christ? These are the questions they were wrestling with and, of course, the answer reached at this Council was, no.

But when we work through Acts 15, what we see, as we look at what happened at this Council, is the prominent place that James held. Look at Acts 15:12, this is the assembly falling silent, they are hearing Barnabas and Paul speak, giving a report on their ministry to the Gentiles. And after Barnabas and Paul finished there in Acts 15:12, look at what verse 13 says. “After they had stopped speaking, James answered and said, ‘Brethren, listen to me.’ ” Then he goes on with this speech that I don't have time to read right now. But it culminates in what he says in verses 19-21. He gives his opinion here in verses 14-18. But look at verse 19 where he says, “Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” Now the conclusion that the Jerusalem Council reached is of central importance to the history of the advancement of the Gospel in the early Christian church and how we understand the Christian Gospel and how we understand the proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles in those days.

But for our purposes here this morning as we're just sketching out this narrative, this biographical narrative of James, is to consider those words at the beginning of verse 19. What he says is, after he says, “Brethren, listen to me” and then he gives his opinion, in verse 19 he says, “Therefore it is my judgment.” That is saying something significant about his stature in the early church, especially in the Jerusalem church and among the apostles. His stature was so significant that when he said, “it is my judgment that,” the other representatives at the Council listened and they acted. In fact, in verse 22 we see that after James spoke, the members of the Council sent out their findings to the various churches in the form of a letter, and that letter encapsulated the wisdom that James had given them here at this Council.

Now side note, and I probably could have addressed this earlier, is the dating of the book of James. When was it written? How old is this book? I take the position that this book is actually one of the first New Testament books written, if not the first New Testament book written. And a major reason I do so is the complete absence in James to this Jerusalem Council. Considering how significant the events of the Jerusalem Council were and considering that, as we're going to see later, James' audience was the scattering or dispersion of Jewish believers, if James was written after the Jerusalem Council it is highly likely that we would have seen a reference to that Jerusalem Council because of its bearing on his very audience. The fact that we don't see the Jerusalem Council mentioned in James points to it being written before the Council. And we know that the Council took place in 49 A.D. which would have placed James' writing somewhere around 44-49 A.D.

So we see James' prominence here in the early church in Acts 15. And all of this is really to show that he was a man of influence and significance in this early church. Scripturally speaking we can make that case. But church history confirms it as well. Clement of Alexandria identified James as the first bishop of Jerusalem. He was also a man of great personal piety. A historian named Hegesippus, writing in the 2nd century noted that James was a devoted man of prayer, so much so that his knees had become calloused like the knees of a camel. James was a man of great commitment and conviction. That same historian, Hegesippus, elaborated on the details surrounding James' death and said that James stood before the high priest of the Sadducees, a man named Ananus, and he was asked to give his understanding of Jesus. He answered that Jesus was the Son of Man and that He was seated at the right hand of God. He refused to recant that testimony and so he was thrown down from the temple, stoned and killed with a club. So his life came to an end as a martyr for the Lord Jesus Christ, His own half-brother, the very Lord whom he initially denied.

So if I can take all of that material and summarize it super briefly, what do we know about James. Again, we're in the book of James today if we've lost track of that. We know that he is the brother of Christ, specifically the half-brother. We know that he along with his siblings did not initially believe in Jesus. But we know that after Christ's resurrection from the dead that Christ appeared to James. And James not only then believed in Him but became His devoted disciple. We know that James became an influential leader in the early church. In fact, he became a pillar of the early church there in Jerusalem. And so much so that when the Jerusalem Council was held, this monumental event, when James said, “It is my judgment that,” his judgment then became the judgment of the early church.

So that's the source, we're through point one of a four-point message.

Here is our second major heading, the status. So we have the source, next is the status. Going back to James 1, he says, “James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Note, he doesn't identify himself as the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't identify himself as James, head of the Jerusalem church. He doesn't identify himself as the Reverend Holy Doctor James. No. It's just James, a bond-servant, a slave, a “doulos.” He's not pulling rank. He refuses to exalt himself. He's not linking himself to his earthly human relationship with Jesus. He's not even saying something that is sort of mildly theological and mildly James-centric. Like a humble brag where he is like James who saw with his own eyes the resurrected Christ who happened to be my half-brother. He doesn't do any of that. He just says a bond-servant. Paul in Galatians 1 calls James the brother of Jesus, but at this point in James' life he is referring to himself as Jesus' bond-servant, His doulos, His slave. The most important thing James would say about himself at this point in his life is not whose brother he is but whose slave he is. Now in the Greek text it's really fascinating, it actually reads James of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, a slave. And what is really neat about that is that in James' own language, when it was written in Greek, his emphasis is actually on God and the Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom he happens to be a slave. It is humility dialed to 10.

Now as a Jewish convert James would have very much understood that there is only one God. He would have understood Deuteronomy 6:4, the “shema”, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” In fact in James 2:19 he says something very similar where he says, “You believe that God is one. You do well.” But at the same time by this point James had come to realize that his own brother, Jesus, was God incarnate. He had come to understand what his brother meant in John 10:30 when He said, “I and the Father are one.” James had come to understand what Jesus had expressed to Philip in John 14:9 when He said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” And while Jesus did teach in the Sermon on the Mount that no man can serve two masters, James understood, as we even see from the language here of verse 1, that actually he did serve two masters, God and the Lord Jesus Christ. But unlike earthly masters, which is really the reference for Jesus' statement in the Sermon on the Mount, James was serving two persons of the single, simple, and unified Godhead.

So he says first he is a bond-servant of God. That's pretty straightforward, he's referring to God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. But he also says he is the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and he is bringing three titles for the Savior together there. First he calls Him the Lord. James here is referring to Jesus not only being his brother but his master. That implies total obedience to the One who is Lord, in Jesus' case who is Lord of all. That Lord is entitled to total obedience from His subjects. He also calls Him Jesus, the name that would have been given to the Lord at His birth. The name that James would have known as they were all running around as kids playing together. And that name Jesus is actually the Hellenized and shortened form of Joshua, which means “Yahweh is salvation.” That name Jesus then, ties into the fact that He is Savior. And then James calls Him Christ, the Messiah, literally the Anointed One. The One who had been predicted in the Old Testament. The One who had been predicted, but was rejected by His own people when He arrived. And put these titles together, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what James here is saying about His own half-brother is that He is the Lord, the Savior, and Israel's promised Messiah, and I am His slave. And that's how we are to think about the Lord, too. As Christians we are bond-servants, slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are slaves of righteousness, Romans 6:18. Yes, we're more than that, we're called His friends in John 15:14-15, we're called His brothers in Hebrews 2:11, we're called His children in Hebrews 2:14, we're called His co-heirs in Romans 8:17. But we're never less than that, never less than identification of being His slaves. And as His slaves the only way that we are going to grow in the way that the book of James is calling us to grow is that if we are fully and truly submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

So we have the source, we have the status, next we're going to look at the scattering. That's our third point as we look at the second part of verse 1. It says, “to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad.” Now I mentioned earlier that James, this is a general epistle, meaning he is not writing to a specific town or church or person. But what this language tells us is that he is still writing to a group, he's writing to a scattering of individuals, a scattering that is known as the diaspora. This diaspora is brought into the language here. They are the ones who were dispersed abroad. Now James here says, “to the twelve tribes.” That's a common title for the Jews in the New Testament. You could jot down Matthew 19:28, Acts 26:7, even Revelation 7:4-8. These are references to the twelve tribes being Jews. But notice that James here uses qualifying language as he talks about these twelve tribes. He refers to these twelve tribes as being the ones “who are dispersed abroad,” which means he is writing to those Jews who have been scattered outside of the Holy Land. James, as the head of the church there in Jerusalem, is writing to Jews who have been dispersed, scattered away from Jerusalem.

Now when did this scattering take place? There are several points. If you trace the history of the Israelites, later the Jews, you see them being scattered really in different points and pockets of their history. The first major scattering that I would cite would be the one when the northern tribes were taken into Assyria in 722 B.C. when the Assyrians plundered the ten tribes and took them into captivity. The second major scattering started in 586 B.C. when the southern tribes were taken into captivity by Babylon. There is a third major scattering around the 60s B.C. when Pompeii conquered the Jews and took many of them to Rome. And then there is this fourth scattering which took place as a result of what we see in Acts 7-8. Acts 7 you know is the scene where Stephen is martyre. And Paul, who was then Saul, is breathing threats and murder against these earliest Jewish believers which led to many of those Jewish Christians now scattering. Acts 8:1 says, “And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” Those events took place around 35-37 A.D., about a decade before James wrote the letter that we know as the book of James. And it is that group, those early scattered Jewish Christians to whom James is addressing this book. Now note I said scattered Jewish Christians. We have to remember that while James was of Jewish origin, of course, by this point he had become a Christian. He calls himself, we've already looked at it, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, as we have seen, he was a prominent leader in the early church in Jerusalem. And that church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus, just as James had, and so what James is now doing is he is writing this letter to these Jewish believers who once had been associated with that church in his city but had now been scattered about.

So that dispersion would have been made up not merely of Jews, but Jewish Christians, Jewish people who had bowed the knee to Jesus Christ. And that is picked up really in James' usage throughout this book of one of his favorite terms, brethren or brother. I've lost count of how many times he says it but here are just a few. “Consider it all joy, my brethren,” James 1:2. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren,” James 1:16. “Listen, my beloved brethren,” James 2:5. “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren,” James 3:1. “Do not speak against one another, brethren,” James 4:11. “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of our Lord,” James 5:7. “Do not complain, brethren, against one another,” James 5:9. Yes, James' audience was Jewish, but these were now brothers in the Lord, brethren, co-heirs in the faith. They were, like James, slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. And while James' original audience were these scattered Jews, they had been bonded with James through their faith in this same Lord. And it is that same faith in the same Lord Jesus Christ which now bonds us to James and bonds us to that same scattered group of early Jewish believers. And it compels us, now, to read and listen to and obey the words of this book. This is absolutely a very Jewish book in certain ways, and I'll try to bring that out as we go through it verse by verse, but it is in the Christian canon of Scripture for a reason.

All right, we've looked at the source, we've looked at the status, we've looked at the scattering, the dispersion, next and last and quickly we see the salutation. That's our fourth heading, the salutation. Thankfully it is just one word, “Greetings.” James concludes the first part of this letter at the end of verse 1 with that word, “charein,” greetings. We see Paul use a similar word. This word appears three times in the New Testament. Here; in Paul's letter to Claudius in Acts 23; and then the third place interestingly is in Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council, where James himself presides over that Council and following that Council sends out a letter and it has the same word as here, charein, greetings, which I would say is yet further evidence that this book is authored by the same James from Acts 15, James the brother of our Lord. And the last thing to say about this word greetings or charein is that it has the meaning of to rejoice or to be glad. So what James is doing here by using this word is he is actually opening the door to develop the first main topic of his letter, the topic that we'll look at next week, that of rejoicing in trials.

Well, we've covered one verse this morning, James 1:1. We've seen the source, we've seen the status, we've seen the scattering, we've seen the salutation, and now we're equipped and ready, I hope, to engage with the substance of this letter in the weeks ahead. What one commentator called a handful of pearls dropped one by one into the hearers' minds. Now some have taken those pearls as they read and study and teach James and they have tried to assemble them in a certain order to highlight the major divisions of James. Some see 25 divisions, some see 12 divisions, some see 4 divisions, some see 2 divisions. Some in their teaching of James have tried to take those pearls and with that sort of systematize the major themes of James, you know trials and temptations, favoritism, faith and works, teachers and their tongues, worldliness, and strife and the corrupting effect of riches. And all of those can be helpful exercises. What I believe, though, needs to be stressed, as I mentioned earlier, is that James is very much a “do this” kind of book. 108 verses, 54 imperatives. Preachers often debate how often we should bring application into our preaching. In this series I think we can put that debate on the shelf because the reality is the book of James, in this book application is throughout. So as we go through this study may we, to borrow some language from James, be quick to hear, may we be quick to grow, and may we be quick to put into practice what we learn so that the One with whom James identified and the One with whom we identify, the Lord Jesus Christ, receives great praise, honor and glory.

Let's pray. God, we give You thanks for this morning and the privilege that we have to open up Your Word, to study Your Word, to sit under Your Word, to teach Your Word and to be transformed by Your Word. God, we thank You for James, we thank You for what You did in his life in bringing him to faith, faith in his own half-brother, the Lord of glory, faith in the One who we have faith in, the One whose death, burial and resurrection is our hope. I pray that we would, as we continue through this book, be humbled, that we would be ready to put it into practice, that we would bring great glory to Your name as we seek to live out our faith, an active faith. But God also I know that there are people who come to church and they think that they know You or maybe they are open that they don't know You and they'll hear a series like this or a message like this and they'll think I need to do something. I pray that You would help them to hear that they don't need to do anything but put their faith in Jesus Christ. If someone here today is not a believer, if they have not trusted in Christ for salvation, help them to see that what they need is faith, they need to repent of their sins, put their trust in Christ and follow Him every day of their life. And for us, God, in the meantime, help us to live faithfully for your glory. We thank You for this day. In Jesus' name, amen.