Untitled Sermon

James chapter 1.

It's always amazing how the Lord directs to a book that he wants us to go through. It's really, I'm always amazed, and yet I always know that he'll do that. I prayed and thought we might be going into the Old Testament, but I think we'll do that on Wednesday night as we finish Colossians. But for the time being, at least, we're still in the New Testament, and the Lord has taken us to the book of James.

If you've noticed, especially this past week, that pressures, stress, trials have been more intense this week than in the past, you're not alone. Two reasons for that. One is the one that you have heard and will continue to hear from here. We're in the last day. That's inevitable. It's part of it. Paul told Timothy that these things would happen, that things would continue to spiral downward,

that things would get worse and worse. Jesus told us in Matthew's Gospel that these things would happen. Things would get worse and worse. It has to do that because we're in the New Testament. We're in the last day. But secondly, and more importantly, and more exciting, is because God is moving in a powerful way. Here. He's doing it all over, but we're experiencing it.

I don't know what you ever anticipated a move of God's hand would be like. Maybe healings and miracles and signs and wonders and people getting saved. That's definitely what happens when God moves, when His hand moves. But initially, as God begins to move, He's breaking up fallow ground, the fallow ground of hearts that have been at odds with Him, at enmity with Him, in disobedience.

He's moving into the areas of darkness where Satan's hands is people bound in his clutches. He has lives bound. And God's breath begins to move. His hand begins to move across these things and it troubles the waters. It stirs them up. And then comes the mighty results that you see. But initially, you see, is the stirring up. And as God moves, as God begins to initially stir,

the enemy responds. Darkness does not like to be set aside. It doesn't like to be stirred. And so it attacks. It moves back and attacks. And so what you're sensing and seeing, I believe, are the results of not only the last days, which is a natural kind of downward thing, but also the beginning move and stirring of God's hand in the midst of the darkness. Now, there have been several things,

several events, if you will, that have happened of major proportion in the past week in ministry in this area. Tremendous moves. We've had a couple of funerals this week, which has been amazing. But the funeral Thursday night, this place was full of darkness, of unbelievers, full of people who did not know the Lord. And God moved in a mighty way. And we're still hearing reports from people that were here.

As God began to move, there were people that were here that had never been in a fellowship, in a church setting before, and never heard the gospel presented the way it was presented Thursday night. God's stirring hearts. God's moving. He's moving in the lives of people. And that upsets the darkness. And you begin to see backlash as darkness is stirred. Last night, we've been talking about the crusade

that's coming, and just that initial move towards preparing for the crusade by the pastors of the community upsets the enemy. God wants his church to realize its oneness. I mean, we have unity and diversity in the church, and that's great. I don't think it's necessary that we have one big facility that all of us gather in, and worship all the same way. We're all different parts of the body.

We worship different ways. We function different ways, because we're different parts of the body. But we should still be able to function together. We shouldn't be at odds with one another. And so when God begins to bring his body together in an area, and it begins to function together, the enemy doesn't like it. He likes division. He likes diversity with division.

He likes contention. He likes competition. He doesn't like focusing together for a purpose of the churches. And last night, we had 14 churches that are coming together. And there's others coming on board. But 14 specifically represented last night at the launch-out banquet, moving towards this crusade that's coming in April. And the body of Christ worshiped together last night.

And we saw God's hand move last night over that body of believers, 230 or 40 of us, in an exciting way. And I mean, it's exciting to see what's coming. And the enemy doesn't want that. I mean, there's a good chance that out of a town of 12,000 people, no joke, we could see 10% of this town saved. 1,200 people, no joke, come to the Lord during this crusade. The enemy doesn't want that.

And so there's a backlash. You see, there's an intensity that comes against, tries to come against a move of God. When Jesus was here in the flesh, you read the gospels, you've seen the intensity with which Satan came against him, tempting him both overtly, outwardly, and yet then covertly through the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers and all. So there was a move against the Lord when he was here.

So why should we think it's any different when the church becomes the church? When the church stands up and begins to move? Now, the church in America, and we've talked about this before too, is we're in the period of Laodicea in the church age. We're in the period of the apathetic church. We have the most resources available of any time in the history of the church.

We have more translations of scripture available to us in this country. I would venture to say that each of our households has probably at least three or four Bibles. When there are Christians in other parts of the world that would literally give a limb for just one, and we have Bible study tapes, we have Christian radio, we have Christian TV, we have Christian CDs, we have Christian comic books. I mean, we have everything that you could want.

And yet the church is apathetic. The church in this country is apathetic. And I think we're seeing the beginnings of God's hand moving with promise keepers, moving with these different times of crusades or tours, as this is called, the Impact World Tour. And so as we move closer to this, we're gonna have 24-hour prayer chains going across the city. You'll see the church come together,

the body of Christ come together in this community to prepare for this that's gonna activate the Spirit of God moving in such a way that the people around the community are gonna see something happening and be drawn to it. And the enemy doesn't like that. So you can expect, anticipate, an intense attack. Anticipate an intense attack. Number one, again, because of the days in which we live,

it's inevitable. But number two, because God's hand is moving, you can anticipate it. Now, the question is, how do we live in the midst of that? How do we live in the midst of that attack? Oh, lest I forget. You'll see things in the heavens and in the skies. And last night was a weird, weird night. We finished up with the banquet, and we were gonna go with some friends

and just spend some time at McDonald's. And we'd get up to Kansas and Summit, and the whole west side of the block, lights are out, right side's on. All the lights are out on the left side. And then you get up to where Wendy's is, and it's shot across the street. And Wendy's was out, and McDonald's was out. The street light was out, and everything north was out.

So we thought, okay, well, let's come back to the church, and we'll just spend some time here until the lights come back on. We came back to the church, and we got a call from our girls at the house. And we put it on the speakerphone, because there was a number of us here. And my daughter said, you're gonna think I'm nuts. But she said, all of a sudden, the light started kind of blinking.

And it wasn't just a blinking, it was like there was power surging. And she said, outside, it was, you could see through the blinds like lightning. It looked like lightning. And so we pulled the blinds to look outside, and she said it was an awesome display, only the light, that was flashing was turquoise, beautiful turquoise. It wasn't like lightning, and there wasn't thunder.

But there was a pulsating, like a turquoise light, and the lights in the house would surge and dim, and there'd be a hum, you'd just hear a hum. And then she said there were some other little strange lights, and there was like a search light that was above the turquoise flashes that was like scanning the skies. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out, the lights in the skies went out, and the power went out. And she kept saying, you're gonna think I'm nuts, but this is what we saw, this is what was going on.

You know, with the people reporting, seeing these lights and stuff that had been seen around the area. Well, when we finally left, we didn't leave here until around one o'clock this morning, and we got out to Kansas and Country Club Road, and as Ann and I were turning onto that, we saw just a flash of turquoise light in the sky. The sky lit up out east, and it was turquoise. I'd never seen that before.

Something's going on. I mean, KJ and Neil say it's a power surge, and it was some kind of lightning. I don't care, that's fine. There's an activity that's about the electricity of God, if you will. God's hand is moving. And with that move of God's spirit comes the intensity and the pressure of the enemy to seek to disable it. Now, he can't, we know he can't,

but that doesn't mean he won't try, just like he tried with Jesus. So what do we do? Well, that's where we come to the book of James, because James is a book that says, in essence, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It didn't originate with the army or the Marines. It originated with James. And this is gonna be an exciting study. It's gonna be an equipping study.

It's gonna see, it's gonna be a study where we'll see God equip us as he's, it's like a natural continuation of Philippians. In Philippians, we've been learning how to rejoice in the Lord. Okay, we've been learning how to do that, and now James is gonna say, well, just do it then, you know? I mean, you've learned how to do it, now just do it. James is like the Romaine of the disciples.

I mean, Peter said a lot, and he said a lot of things that he shouldn't have said at times that he shouldn't have said. I mean, he was kind of brash and everything else, but James is the Romaine, Chuck Smith's assistant pastor in California, and Romaine is the Romaine. If you've never met Romaine, he loves you, but you wouldn't know it. Because you come to Romaine, and you say, Romaine, I've been going through a tough time.

And he says, so what? World's going through a tough time. Yeah, but I'm really having a problem, you know, at work. Well, fine, Chuck's just been teaching on that. Get Chuck's tape, listen to Chuck's tape. What are you whining at me for? You know, and you feel at first like, well, where's your sensitivity, you know? And you realize that Romaine's just going,

hey, snap out of it, quit looking at yourself. Get on the Lord, you know, with the Lord, you can do all things, you know that stuff. Just snap out of it, that's what James is. James is not gonna be noted as Mr. Compassion. So as we go through this book, don't anticipate a, aw, anticipate a, come on, snap out of it, you know? What'd you think you were here for?

What do you think happened to Jesus? You any better? Anticipate a spurring on, a just do it kind of an attitude as James speaks to us in our study. Now we're gonna just look at verse one today as we get into this study. So look at verse one for just a second. We're gonna go several places in scripture this morning. The reason I'm sniffing and all, that is our power was out.

When our power went out, it was out from about 10 o'clock last night till five o'clock this morning. So we were freezing. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Now, when you start into a book, when you start into studying any section of scripture, you need to know several things. You need to know who the author is

and you need to know something about the background of the book. What's the setting of the book? What's the date that it was written? Who is it being written to? Because these are letters. An epistle is simply a letter. These are letters that were written. James did not sit down and say, well, my publisher's called and they want a book, so I gotta get a book written by.

This was just a letter that James wrote, just like Paul wrote letters. He didn't write a book, he wrote a letter. And so we need to know why he wrote. We need to discern who he's writing to, when he wrote it. What was his thought process? What was he trying to communicate? What was he trying to convey? So we need to know about the author. So let's think about the author for a minute.

Who's the author of this book? Well, it says James. Well, there's four or five Jameses listed in Scripture. Mark 1, verse 19, there's James, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of John. You remember James and John? Jesus called them the sons of thunder. Now there's one you'd think, well, now this is the one that had to write the book, because we're talking about a guy

who's not Mr. Compassion. That's James, the son of Zebedee. You remember when they came to a town and the town wouldn't receive them, and James and John said to Jesus, shall we call fire down on them and let them, you know, smote them, Lord? You know, just a little incendiary device, it'd be great. Napalm the community and serve them right. Sons of thunder.

But it couldn't be that James, because as soon as Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and Pentecost happened, and there was a sudden tremendous surge of the power of God in the community of Jerusalem, Herod wanted to try and squelch that as soon as he could. So James, this James was put to death almost immediately and wouldn't have had time to write this epistle. The church had not yet been spread out, had not yet been scattered, and he's writing to the 12 tribes here, scattered among the nations. The church, and we'll talk about that in just a minute.

So it probably wasn't James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John. Now in Mark chapter three, verse 18, it also mentions a James who was the son of Alphaeus. And that's all we know about him. He was mentioned James, the son of Alphaeus. There was nothing else mentioned about him or known about him in scripture. And so it's doubtful that it was this James,

the son of Alphaeus. Now, Roman Catholicism claims that that's who this is, because in Galatians, Paul refers to James as the brother of the Lord. And we'll talk about that in a minute. And in Catholicism, Catholicism embraces the idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin. Mary remained a virgin throughout her life and more focuses on Mary actually than Jesus. Mary becomes the intermediary, not Jesus in Catholicism.

And so Mary was the immaculate conception rather than Jesus being the immaculate conception. And so Mary had the son of God through the Holy Spirit and remained a virgin. According to Roman Catholicism. So they see this James as being the son of Alphaeus, who was probably the son of Mary's cousin. And this would make him Jesus' cousin, really. But they just use the term brother

like we would use the term, you know, well, brother Mark or brother James or something. A couple of problems with that, according to scripture. In Matthew 1, verse 25, after Joseph receives his vision from Gabriel that he is to take Mary to Bethlehem, to be his wife because that which has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. In verse 25 of chapter one of Matthew, it says, but he, Joseph, had no union with her, with Mary, until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus.

That word union means sexual intercourse. Joseph then had no sexual union with Mary until in the word, until there in the Greek is the word haos, which means until the point in time when she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus. And the implication there is that at that point in time after that they came together as husband and wife and had celebrated, consummated that in the physical sexual union. That's according to the language of the text.

Now again, in Matthew chapter 13, 55, you look there and this is when Jesus has come back to Nazareth and word has preceded him that he's coming and that this is the son of God, indeed the Messiah that they've been waiting for. But Nazareth was skeptical of that. And so Jesus said not a whole lot of miracles were done there because of their unbelief. And in Matthew 13, verse 15, they are ridiculing him.

They're saying, well, isn't this Mary's son, Joseph's son? And in verse 55, it says, and aren't these his brothers? And then it names James and Simon and Judas and Joseph. And then in verse 56, it says, and aren't all his sisters with us? So Mary had other kids after Jesus was born. Lots of kids, at least four other sons. And we don't know how many daughters Mary had.

So the idea that this James is the son of Alphaeus, or the son of Cleopas, really doesn't hold water. And so this probably isn't that James. Then in Luke chapter six, verse 16, we have a James mentioned who is the father of Judas, not Iscariot. Now there were two disciples named Judas. There was Judas, also called Iscariot. And there was Judas, the son of James, not Iscariot.

And it's always distinguishable in the gospels as you read that Judas, he's the son of James and he's not the Judas Iscariot. But that's all we know of him in scripture as well. Nothing else is mentioned about him in the early church as well. So it's very doubtful that that is this James that we read in the New Testament. I mentioned Galatians chapter one, verse 19, a minute ago,

where Paul refers to James as the brother, and that is a literal blood relationship brother, not a how you doing friendly kind of relationship, but a literal blood relationship of our Lord. And that makes this more probable that this is the James that's writing this epistle, who was the half brother of our Lord. It's also supported, not only by that assumption in Galatians 1, verse 19, but also by that assumption in Galatians 1, verse 19, but also by that assumption in Galatians 1, verse 19, but also by that assumption in Galatians 1, verse 19, but also by a letter that the church wrote that James dictated back in the book of Acts. Hold your finger here in James and go back with me to Acts chapter 15.

Acts chapter 15. And you know this story too, if you've read the word very long. Church is born and almost immediately, the entire world begins to respond to the gospel and Peter is summoned by Cornelius to come and preach the gospel. Cornelius is a Gentile, his household is a Gentile household and yet they believe Peter's testimony about Christ and the Holy Spirit falls upon them and they speak with other tongues just as the disciples did at Pentecost.

And then Paul comes and he and Barnabas bring stories of Gentiles in Cilicia, in Syria, who are coming to Christ in droves and the Spirit of God is falling upon them just like it did at Pentecost. And so remember the church was Jewish to begin with. The church was born Jewish. At Pentecost, it was Jews in Jerusalem upon whom the Holy Spirit fell. Now this thing's getting out of hand.

You know, now Gentiles are coming in. Gentiles are receiving the same Holy Spirit. And so the Jerusalem church, the council of the apostles get together and Paul and Barnabas are there and Peter's there with his testimony about Cornelius and the main reason they're gathering is what do we do? How do we keep order? How do we keep the thing from just going crazy

and all kinds of cults start forming. And they meet together and there's some disputing that goes on. And then in verse 13, verse 12, the whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous. Signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. And when they finished, James spoke up. Brothers, listen to me.

Simon or Peter has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this as it is written. After this, I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild and I will restore it that the remnant of the men may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who bear my name says the Lord who does these things that have been known for ages.

James says, it's my judgment, or I decree, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them telling them to do these three things. Number one, to abstain from food polluted by idols. Number two, to abstain from sexual immorality. Number three, to abstain from the meat of strangled animals

and from blood, don't eat blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. That's interesting. There's something there that he says that. These are the things. Here's a Gentile becoming a part of the church, a part of a Judaic church, a church steeped in the history and the traditions of Judaism,

in the sacrifices, in the keeping of the feasts and all. What do we have them do? How do we keep this thing uniform? And they said just those three things. Tell them not to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Tell them to abstain from sexual immorality and to not eat food that's strangled or don't eat blood, don't drink blood. Stay away from those things. It wasn't necessary

for the church to be circumcised. It wasn't necessary for the church to keep the Sabbath. It wasn't necessary for the church to keep the feast days. See, this was a time they could have said, if you're gonna be part of the church, these are the things that you have to do. They didn't, those were the three things, that was it. James goes on to say, verse 22,

then the apostles and the elders with their whole church decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. And they chose Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, two men who were the leaders among the brothers. And with them, they sent the following letter. The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.

Greetings, and then he goes on to stress the letter. This is a letter dictated by James, what James had just said in these previous verses. Now, that word greetings there in verse 23 is an interesting word. You look back in James chapter one again. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nation. Greetings, the word greetings in the Greek

is only used two places in the New Testament. Acts chapter 15, verse 23, and James chapter one, verse one. So it's another stroke or the probability that James, the Lord's brother, the half brother of Jesus is the author of this epistle. And that's important. And we'll get to that in just a minute. It's important for realizing the feeling and the purpose with which this letter is passed.

So kind of tuck that back in your mind. We'll get to it in just a minute. Now, when was this letter written? When was the letter written? Well, if you have a study Bible of some kind and it has it at the beginning, you have a little outline and author and date and all that stuff. Or if you have a Thompson study Bible or a Dakes annotated, it'll give you a date.

And like this one says sometime before 50 AD. Well, most of the scholars believe that it was probably between 45 and 48 AD that this letter came out. This was probably the very first letter of the New Testament. This is probably the first book of the New Testament that came out, James letter between 45 and 48 AD. Well, so what's the big deal there? Well, if you read scripture and you begin to look at,

you read commentaries and you begin to look at the arguments within the church. And as you begin to read scripture, if you read James and then go back and read Romans, you have a little difficulty at first. Because it seems like all James is saying is works, works, works, do it, do it, do it. You go back to Romans and Paul's saying, grace, grace, grace, I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it.

And so there appears to be a conflict. There was such a conflict when this first began to be circulated and it didn't really show up until the 4th or 5th century as being quoted by the early church fathers because of that. Martin Luther, when he came along at the time of the Protestant Reformation, he didn't want to have it as a part of the canon of scripture. Martin Luther got saved, by the way, by reading Romans and realized that he was a Roman Catholic priest and realized that it wasn't by the elements of the church that he was saved, it was by grace through faith and the atoning work of Christ on the cross.

So for him to read James and see James saying, do it, do it, do it, do it, it turned his stomach and he literally didn't want it. He didn't want to read James. He didn't want it as a part of scriptural canon. So it's had a tough time being accepted because people look at it as almost an affront or an answer to Paul's epistles on grace and it's not. And because if we look at it being written between 45

and 48 AD, it couldn't have been because Paul's epistles weren't written until the late 50s. So it's at least 10 to 15 years before Paul's writings come out that James is writing. And when you really get a handle on grace and you get a handle on who this James is and why he's writing, you realize it's not grace against works. You realize they go together. You realize they complete each other.

You see, James is not stressing works for salvation. He is stressing works manifested as a result of salvation. He is not against Paul at all. Paul teaches that salvation is by faith alone, in grace alone, of God alone that affects salvation. And that's absolutely correct. And James does not refute that at all. He simply says, if indeed salvation has occurred

by faith alone, through grace alone, in God alone, then of necessity these works will result. If you see a car going down the street or diesel or electricity, there is fuel in that car. There has to be because it's moving. It's going along at a pace. Now, you know, if it's on a straightway, yeah. You can give me all these arguments. What if it's on a hill or, you know, something like dropping

off a cliff? No, I'm talking about just simply if a car is moving down the road consistently, continually, you know that it has fuel. That's all James is saying. If you are saved, then these works will result. Absolutely. And if they don't, you're not saved, period. And that's, I mean, that's why he's the romaine of the disciples. I mean, I don't care whether you like it or not.

This is the way it is. Live with it, you know? And so he may seem a little harsh at first, but he's not intended to be harsh. He's intended, his epistle is intending to be a warning because of the times, because we can't play church anymore, because there's enough of that going on and there's things that God wants to do. And if you're saved, this will result.

If this isn't happening, then check your heart. Make sure you've really made the commitment. You see, living faith is not new. A faith that lives, a faith that manifests itself by works is not new. It's not new to James. It's not new to the New Testament. You go back to Joshua, and after Moses had handed the mantle of leadership to Joshua in Joshua chapter 3,

we see Joshua with the nation of Israel ready to cross the Jordan into Canaan and possess the land. And God tells Joshua how that's going to happen. He says, I want you to take the Levites, the tribe of the Kohathites within the Levite tribe, the clan of the Kohathites, who carry the articles of the tabernacle, and I want you to take the Kohathites that carry the ark. And I want you to take them and have them come down to the river's edge and step into the river with the ark.

And when they do that, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop up the waters of the Jordan. It's going to back up for this kind of a distance. And he told Joshua to have the people lined up across behind the ark of the covenant. And these Levites that are carrying the ark and stretched out for a goodly distance. And God said, when they step into the Jordan,

I'm going to back up the waters. Now, this is a river, so he didn't have to part anything. If it's a sea or a lake, he parts it. That's cool. But if it's a river, you just stop it up, and this half goes on downstream. So God told him that's what he's going to do. Now, that's cool. I mean, he's already done the Red Sea. And this shouldn't be any big deal. It's just a river.

And if you go over to Israel and see the Jordan, I mean, you're amazed when you see the Jordan. It's like a little rivulet. In some places, it kind of widens out a little bit. But you go, it's almost like this is the Jordan. So what's the trouble? What's the cross? And you go, there we are. But during this particular season, the rains came. The monsoon-type weather came.

And the river flooded. It was swollen, it says in Joshua, and exceeded its banks. That was a common thing. God had caused them to wander up to it at just that appropriate time. He could have caused them to wander up to it when they could have stepped over it. But he caused them to wander up to it at this particular point in time with it swollen to demonstrate.

Living faith. Faith with feet. You believe in me? Okay. Step out and prove that faith. Put that faith to the test. And so the Levites are lined up at the river's edge. The priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Now, the Ark of the Covenant was heavy. I mean, this is no challenge, right? No big challenge. Unless you're the Levite in front. You're the guy.

You've moved furniture, right? You've moved heavy. You've moved a piano. You know what it's like when you carry an upright piano to the stairs. You step down. It's the first air to go down. You step down. It's the first air to go down. You step down. It's the first air to go down. You step down. It's the first air to go down. It's the first air to go down. You step down.

It's the first air to that guy in front. You know. You know. I mean, all that weight's coming at you, right? And you've got to try and balance it. Okay. They're standing at the river's edge. I don't know what's under there. It's a swollen river. It might step off into that and drop up to my neck. And then here comes this Ark at me. You know? And I'm going to get squashed under water by the Ark of God.

I mean, these guys. That's got to be going through their minds. But at the appropriate time it says the Levite stepped into the water, and as soon as their feet touched the water. But at the appropriate time, it says the Levites stepped into the water, and as soon as their feet touched the water, God stopped up the waters as far back as he said he was going to, and they went out and stood in the middle of the riverbed, and the people crossed over on dry ground, just as God said.

But that was an example of living faith. They had to put feet to their faith. They had to step out and do the works that demonstrated the faith that they have. Did they have faith that God could do that? Absolutely. That was demonstrated by a living faith, by the activity, the actions of their faith. Go back to the book of Habakkuk. Oh God, where's Habakkuk?

He's one of the minor prophets, one of the twelve minor prophets. You can look in your index, or you can simply go to Matthew and go backwards a little ways, and you'll run into him. He's only three chapters long or so, so kind of go slow. You get to Zephaniah, he's the next book to your left. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and then Matthew, so just a few books in.

Habakkuk. Habakkuk's name means to embrace, or to hold on to, or to wrestle with. And so Habakkuk here is a prophet who's wrestling with God. He's a prophet who has been sent by God during the time of Isaiah's preaching. He's contemporary also with Jeremiah. So Isaiah and Jeremiah have been prophesying concerning God, God's moving on the nation of Israel. And here comes this.

This is Habakkuk. And it says, chapter 1, verse 1, Sounds like America. Habakkuk's crying out to God, How long are you going to let this go on? Look at this place. Look at these people. They don't care about you. I mean, justice is perverted. There is no law. There's no justice here. God, how long are you going to let that happen? When are you going to do something about that?

And at times, we feel that way. God, how long? How long is this place going to be perverted? How long are murderers going to go free? How long are little children going to get abused? How long is this sexual promiscuity and venereal disease and AIDS going to be allowed and tolerated? How long? And God says to Habakkuk in verse 5, Look at the nation. And watch.

And be utterly amazed. For I'm going to do something in your days that will blow your mind. You would not believe it even if you were told. I'm raising up the Babylonians. He says, you wouldn't believe it even if I told you. But I'm going to tell you anyhow. I'm raising up the Babylonians. He said, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth

to seize dwelling places not their own. They're a feared and dreaded people. They're a lot of themselves. They promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping to devour. They all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.

They deride kings. They scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities. They build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on. Guilty men whose own strength is their God. In other words, these guys are coming. I'm raising them up. They're coming through. They're like Hercules. They're going to come through. They're just going to devour this land.

They're going to beat everything. And nothing's going to keep them out. No wall is impervious to their strength. They honor their own strength. They're so strong and they're so awful and so violent when they come through. They're just going to destroy the land. And the back of it goes, no, wait a minute. We've gone from crying out to justice, Lord, to overkill.

Now, Lord, wait a minute. Verse 12. Aren't you not from everlasting, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. He's appealing to the covenant, Lord. Remember. Lord, you've appointed Babylon to execute judgment. O rock, you've ordained Babylon to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You can't tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous Babylon?

Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? I mean, even as bad as we are, God, I mean, these guys are rotten. How can you tolerate that? I mean, I'm crying out for justice and you're going to bring these guys in. Now, wait a minute. You've made men like fish in the sea and sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked, the foe, pulls all of them with hooks and on and on and on.

And he's just appealing to God as far as Babylon is concerned. Then in chapter 2, verse 1, he says, I'm going to go stand on the watch. I'm going to go stand on the wall and see what God's going to say to me. I'm going to see. I've appealed to you, Lord. Now, what are you going to say to me? Then verse 2, the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it. So it's going to be proclaimed. For the revelation awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. See, Babylon is popped up. His desires are not upright. But the righteous will live by his faith. The just shall live by their faith.

The righteous will have a living faith. You trust me, Habakkuk? Do you have faith in me, Habakkuk, that I know what I'm doing, bringing the Babylonians in? Just live in that. Walk by that faith. Day by day, step out into the Jordan with that kind of faith, with that kind of trust. Because I'm doing what I'm doing. And if I told you, it would blow your mind.

And I've already told you just a little bit. And you're freaking at this. So just trust me. Just trust me. And if you trust me and if you have faith in me, then your faith is going to be living. And you just step out and trust me day by day. It's going to be a living faith. Habakkuk declares that. Now, you come to the New Testament. Jesus says, I am that. I am that.

I am he whom you have waited for. So if you love me, then, he tells him in John chapter 8, then you will obey my command. The righteous will live by their faith. The just shall live. Their living faith will be their daily lifestyle. If anyone comes after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. There will be active, living faith. Jesus exemplifies what Habakkuk said.

Then Paul comes along and Paul stresses that. In his defense of the gospel in Romans chapter 1, verse 17, and again in Galatians chapter 3, verse 11, he quotes Habakkuk chapter 2, 4. For the just shall live by their faith. He says in Romans 1, 16, For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation. In verse 17, For the just, the righteous, shall live by their faith.

It's a living faith. Habakkuk stated it. Jesus said, I am it. Paul emphasized it and stressed it. And James illustrates it. James says, This is what that is. This is what justification by faith is like. It calls for visible proof of that faith in our spiritual life, in our daily walk. For the just shall live by their faith. James argues for faith, not against it.

As we look at James, you're going to realize that James is not written like Paul's epistles. It's different. Paul wrote like an attorney preparing for an argument in court. He wrote with the idea, he stressed his argument, and he laid out all the points of it, and he either proved it. Or disproved what he was arguing. He was very meticulous in that, very consistent.

James is not like that. James writes more in the style of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus talks about some specific things, and he hits some points. It not necessarily goes right together one after another, but he stresses the Beatitudes in chapter 5. Now, he stresses not an anxiousness in chapter 6, but a trust in him. In chapter 7, he stresses the narrow gate, the ways narrow.

Different things, they go together, but not like Paul's particular argument. Some beautiful emphasis here. One writer has called the book of James, his style was like a string of pearls on a necklace. Each point is beautiful and yet distinct. It goes, it looks great with the rest of them, but it's distinct and separate in and of itself. So, it's going to be different as we read.

So, anticipate that. And the tone of James is authoritative. I've already mentioned that. He's like a Romaine, but not autocratic. He's not saying, you know, like, you've got to do this for me. He's just saying. He's just saying, this is the way it is. I don't care whether you like it or not, it's just the way it is. There's 108 verses in James, and 54 of them are imperative.

In other words, every other verse, James is stressing an action that we must do.

Let's look at this quickly. We're almost done. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to note how he identifies himself here. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't say, James. Be a brother.

He's James, a servant of God. Now, here's what I want you to realize. If, indeed, this is the James who is the brother of Jesus, and I believe it is. Now, I want you to put yourself into James' mindset. I want you to think for a minute with me about some of the things that made James who he is. What must it have been like to have Jesus as a brother? Jesus, verse 4.

Older brother. And just for story's sake, I'm going to say James is second. He's the firstborn of Joseph of America. That's it. I'm not, you know. Just for fun. You that are younger brothers or sisters, what's one thing you heard over and over growing up?

Why can't you be more like your older brother? Why can't you be more like your older sister? Why can't you do things, you know, why can't you be as neat as your older brother? You know, Jesus. Joseph was a carpenter, so that the kids learned the carpenter trade. I can see Jesus there, he's compliant, he's obedient. Joseph's making chairs, Jesus is making chairs.

James is over here cutting out sailboats, you know. And Joseph is going, why can't you be like him, you know. I mean, he's, he's human. Not, not Joseph, you know, the statue in the church that's holy and never committed sin. It's not Mary. You know, Mary was just a servant of God, and God's just a regular old lady, you know. And I can see her as a mother. She's a mother.

She's flesh and blood. She's flesh and blood. You know, I can't even be more like the brother Jesus, I mean, he keeps the rules clean, you know. He never, he's always neat, he never talks about, why can't you be, and I can see James with this, slowly building a boil against Jesus. He's saying he's going to want my room. Then at twelve, Jesus is twelve, James is at eleven maybe, nine.

All the people in Jerusalem, in the temple area, are gathered around him. They think he's hot stuff. Oh, he's hot stuff. Oh, he's Jesus. Oh, he's talking to Jesus. Oh, that's amazing. All the people in Jerusalem, in the temple area, are gathered around him. They think he's hot stuff. Oh, he's hot stuff. Oh, he's Jesus. Oh, he's talking to Jesus. Oh, that's amazing.

I don't know if he wants to play football. He never asked me if I want to. Then they grow up. Now you're out of here with this man. He's the Son of God. Yeah, right. I lived with him. I stayed with him. Son of God. And you can see James, you see James as you look at him, as you look at the content of what he writes, it's written to the Jewish mind. It's written to the Jewish mind.

It's written to the Jewish mind. It's written in terms of arguing the law on a positive note with faith, not keeping the law for salvation, but the law was meant for good, to bring it to Christ. He's very, very wise, very knowledgeable about the law. And I can see James as a kid growing up, and they're a poor family. I mean, he's not going to be a rabbi or anything.

He's not going to get to go to rabbinical school. But because he's building up these jealousies against his brother, James is going to prove that he's not the Son of God. And he's into the law. And he's just, he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law.

And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law.

And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. And he's into the law. John's, over and over in the Gospel of John, is the statement that Jesus says, my time has not yet come. For my time has not yet come. And there's a time in there where it says,

his brothers, and you can read over that, and Jesus just says to them, my time has not yet come, and they went on, and then he came later, and it says, and when the time was right, Jesus went to Jerusalem. Now you can just read over that. But see, knowing this, you can see James at work. Why don't you go on down to Jerusalem now, you see? And Jesus says, no, my time has not yet come.

And you can just sense his animosity building in James. I'm going to expose him. I'm going to show that he's not the Son of God. Then you come to 1 Corinthians 15, verse 7, and Paul lists there the resurrection of Christ, and he's verifying the resurrection, and he says, Jesus appeared to many. He appeared to the eleven, and then he appeared to Peter, and then verse 7, and he appeared to James.

Why did he do that? See, I believe that James, at the point where he said, I'm going to crucify you, and no matter how he felt about Jesus, to see him on a cross, to know his heart, and to see him die the way that he died, he was like Peter. I love you, I thank you. And I delight in it, I envy you, and I believe you can do it for James, especially for you, to confirm and affirm James, and say, to this you have been called.

You know the word, and you have an aggressiveness. It's not sinful for any reason. And in Acts, we read where James was the head of the Jerusalem church. When Paul comes on the scene, it says in the book of Acts, he came to see James, and Peter, and John, and the other disciples. James was the head of the church. James had been restored by the great. James understood great.

He wasn't writing against great. He in no way was trying to say that works are necessary. James is saying, what's the same word that Paul uses for bond slave? He says, I'm a bond slave to God. Now it's interesting, since James wrote first, and Paul came to Jerusalem to see James, I like to think that Paul got the idea. So when Paul writes in Philippians, that he'd be a bond slave of Jesus Christ,

it's because he saw the one that was closest to Jesus, the Lord God. He saw the one that was closest to Jesus, not exalting his position, but humbling himself to the lowest level, and he was a slave to God. And he was born holy. because he realized God's grace was in saving me as a bond slave of God. And then he says, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that is the whole complete title of Jesus.

He didn't just say and of Jesus. He was the Messiah, because that's just a fulfillment of the prophecy concerning Messiah. The Jews today don't believe Messiah is the son of God. They believe Messiah is just coming, and he's gonna be the one to let them build the temple. But James says, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. and in saying that james affirms he is he is the son of god like he said he is james a servant of

god and of the lord jesus christ of the twelve tribes scattered among the nation's greetings now the word scattered is the word diaspora in the greek it means the dispersed the scattered ones specifically it refers to the jews that initially were dispersed when the babylonians came through and uprooted them and sent them or took them to different countries and dropped them and then the greeks came through and the medo persians medo persians first and then the greeks and then the romans came through and they did the same thing they uprooted them took them to the areas around europe and rome and all those areas they were dispersed they were scattered but then see

the same diaspora happened during the time after pentecost when persecution hit jerusalem and the church scattered the and they were jewish they scattered they were dispersed to the regions of the world to the other regions of the world and so james is writing to the jewish mind who knows about messiah and he's writing to them to encourage them because they've been scattered and they may feel wayward and they may be they may feel disjointed i mean the church was there in jerusalem and now it's scattered our hopes were there and now we're scattered we're dispersed and at times it's easy to become lax and laodicean and james is writing to them to encourage them and so you see this letter applies to us today just as

well because we can feel scattered actions going on maybe somewhere else and i'm over here and i long to see the hand of god move in my life and it just seems like he's not and i may feel abandoned i may feel distant i may feel alone i may feel lax and lukewarm as i look at my life so james says to you this morning greetings greeting has a familiar ring to it doesn't it back during world war ii a lot of people got a note in the mail the greetings from uncle sam we need you to fight for freedom to stand against tyranny, to stand against the evil that's coming against our society. We have the equipment, we have the power, we have the resources. We want you to come and join us and we'll send you into the

battle. This is greeting from Uncle James. We need you to stand for freedom. We need you to stand against the tyranny and the evil that's coming upon the world. We have the equipment, we have the resources. We want to send you into battle. Let me show you the workings of faith. You feel displaced, you feel distant, you feel alienated. I know where you're at, James says. I've been there.

I lived with God and denied him and his grace reached down and redeemed me and he has equipped me and he's sent me for it. I want to tell you that. Greet them, Uncle James. Father, thank you for this epistle that we're about to go into. There is a battle. You are stirring the area. You're stirring the world right now. We're just a part of it, but we're seeing your hand and the pressure's intense

and it's going to increase and at times we may... feel distant and wayward and in the midst of it, lax and hopeless and apathetic even. Right now, you're sending us a greetings from Uncle James. I've called you to come and join the fight against evil, the fight for freedom, the fight to release those who have been bound. We have the resources, we have the equipment. We will equip you and send you, not just do. Father, help us. This is

preparation for what we're in the midst of and what's yet to come. Help us to take it to heart in Jesus' name. Let's stand together.