Let's take our Bibles and turn
to the book of James. James chapter 1. Several lessons here in chapter
1. I hope in time to be able to cover all of them. The lesson
this morning will be taken from verses 9 through 12. And my subject from verse 12,
a blessed man. Let's read these verses together.
James chapter 1 verse 9. Let the brother of low degree
rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he was made
low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen
with a burning heat but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof
falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So also
shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man
that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive
the crown of life. which the Lord hath promised
to them that love it." Now what does James tell us about
this blessed man? God be thanked, there are some
of mankind that are blessed of God. And James tells us a few
things. Let me give you three things
concerning this man blessed of God. Let's begin with a question. Who is James addressing? Who
is he talking to? Well, according to verse 9, he's
talking to a brother. Now, this is important. This
being blessed of God is not something he's just spitting out in the
air and letting it fall wherever it falls. He's addressing himself
to somebody in particular. And it's a brother. What is a
brother? And what's the significance of
being one concerning the subject of these verses? Temptation. Exaltation. Bringing love. All of these things that he talks
about. Well, a brother is another name for a believer. Believers
have all kinds of names in the Scriptures. Sometimes they're
called God's elect, sometimes they're addressed as his bride,
sometimes his church, his body, and sometimes as believers. In
Matthew chapter 23 and verse 8, our Lord said to his disciples,
you don't need to turn there because this is a very well-known
verse of Scripture, He said, be ye not called rabbi. For one is your master, even
Christ. A preacher, regardless of how
much schooling he's had, he will not wear that name master of
theology. You remember our Lord addressed
Nicodemus, and he said, art thou a master? in Israel and understandest
not these things. You're wearing that name, you're
being addressed as a master theologian, and you don't know the basic
things about a new birth. Call no man rabbi, for one is
your master, even Christ, and all of ye are called brethren. You're called brethren. And call
no man father upon the earth. Oh, that really makes my skin
crawl when I see people address somebody with a backward collar
on and call him father. That just grates me. Now he's not talking here about
your biological father, but your spiritual father. And we're not
to call religious teachers father, master, or rabbi. In Galatians
chapter 3 verse 26 it said, For ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus. And then in Ephesians 1 and verse
3, Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. Now watch this. having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. We're children. Children of God. Brethren. We have a spiritual
relationship. We're all of the family of God.
And everything that took place in election in covenant provision
came to pass, having predestinated us to the adoption of children.
It's our inheritance, is what he goes on to say. You're heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. We're brethren. To the saints at Rome, Paul said,
for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the
sons of God. They're the sons of God. He leads
you. The goodness of God leadeth thee
to repentance. We're led. Led of the Spirit. Drawn by the Father to hear and
learn and call upon His Son. Led to repentance. Led to the
assembly of God. He doesn't leave His people stranded
in the wilderness. We're led to the assembly of
God. We're led to worship and prayer. And he says this, you have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs, heirs of God, join heirs with Christ, if so be that
we suffer with him. that we may be also glorified
together. So who's he talking to? He's
talking to brethren. Brethren, don't let that word
become a byword with you. It has a lot of meaning behind
it. It has a huge sacrifice behind
it. It has the entire purpose of
God behind it. And we just, boy, I go shopping
and these people You know, call me brother. I don't know if I
am or not. But believers are. Those led
by the Spirit are. And nobody except God's children
are blessed of God. I don't care how rich they are.
I don't care how poor they are. I don't care how good they are
or how bad they are. Nobody except God's children
are blessed of God. And their being children of God
is what ties them to the text and gives them their part in
this trial of faith. I've heard relatives of mine
who never donned the door of the church, and if they did,
it was at a funeral or something. And yet they'll talk about trials. This is a trial. I'm going through
a trial. Well, he's addressing brethren here. He's addressing
people who've made a profession of faith. And he's addressing
people that he had good reason to believe were believers. And then, I want you to think
about this. Here's the second thing I see
in this. This man that he's addressing has endured the trying of his
faith. He endured the trial. He's not a man talking about,
I'm going to endure. This is a man who's been tried
and has endured. God gave him faith, tried his
faith, and proved his faith. And everything God does in the
salvation of sinners glorifies himself. He glorified in your
preservation. And your perseverance is owing
to his preservation. Everything God does in the salvation
of sinners glorifies God, and the certainty of salvation rests
in the glory of his name, not in the value of the sinner. God's going to save me because
I've been good. No, he won't. You're going to
have to find another reason. It rests in the glory of His
name, and believers have nothing to fear in trials. Trials only
purge the dross. They cannot melt away the gold
of faith. They're not designed to do that.
And trials are designed to shut us up to Christ, not to drive
us away from Him. The blessed man is a brother,
a sister, a child of God, and he's proven to be so by God himself. I'm going to prove this man to
be my son. And so he tried. Satan said,
well, yeah, you got a hedge built about old Joe. That's why he
sticks out. And he said, well, you do whatever
you want to do to him, but don't take his life. He said, I'll
smote him with disease. He'll curse the day here. No,
he won't. No, he won't. He's a son. He's a son. And it's one thing
to talk about faith. It's quite another to have it
and walk in it and endure the trial of it. Anybody can say,
I'm a believer. That's so easy to say. I've said
it in my past and didn't know God. I walked the aisles, I knelt
at the bench, I made professions, I went to the pool, I did everything
religious men told me to do, and didn't know God. And then there's this. The Bible
teaches us that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word of the Lord. That's how we receive it, and
that's how it's sustained. But that's not how it's tried. It's tried by circumstance. It's
tried by situations. And faith is tried
at times by tragedy, sometimes by
sickness. And sometimes, probably even
more so than all the others, it's tried by wealth and gang. I'll never forget saying to this
church, we were at the old building, and I told you, I said, one of
these days, you're going to go into the doctor, and he's going
to leave you sitting there in the room, and he's going to come
back shaking his head. I went in Tuesday and my wife
was diagnosed with cancer. That doctor come back shaking
his head. It's a reality. It's a reality. And then here's
something else. I want to say this. I'm going
to leave my notes for just a second. When we're tried of God, it's
not like you say, oh, here's the trial. So let me think about
this a minute. Now, here's how I need to act. Here's what I need to do. That's
not a trial. Trial is your reaction. How you react. Here's Job. Satan smote him with bulls from
the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He's sitting out
here. Everybody's forsaken him. And
his wife is saying, why don't you just curse God and die? All
these things are coming down on him all at once. He's lost
his children. He's lost his wealth. He's lost
his reputation. And he's out here in the ashes
scraping his bulls with an old piece of glass. And Job looks up at his wife
and he said, you talk like some foolish woman. Shouldn't I receive this child
of his? Shouldn't I receive this sickness?
I received his wealth. I received his grace. I received
the message of his son. I received everything else. But
now I'm sick and I'm supposed to somehow not receive that? his immediate reaction. I think
it'll tell where your heart is. That's what it's going to do.
It's going to tell you exactly where your heart is. It's tried with circumstance
and tried with situation and faith is tried at times with
tragedy and sickness and even gain. And James gives us two
examples of God's elect rejoicing, being tried, and enduring the
trial. He begins in verse 9 talking
about a brother of low degree being exalted by God. Now remember, James is writing
to the dispersed Jews. Jews scattered all over by Roman
authority. And I imagine that this relocation
and whatever society they were moved into resulted in this poverty
and suffering. They may have had a little something
when they left Jerusalem, but now they're over here in Galatia,
now they're up here in Antioch or wherever they were at. Whole
new environment. Whole new environment. But in this new location, and
even as bad as things were, there were a few churches. And in this poverty of money
and reputation, they began to realize their real worth and
reputation with God. The Lord had exalted them. Huh? Oh, my soul. God don't just try everybody
on earth. He tries his children. He tries
that man to whom he'd given faith. And in that trial, he begins
to realize the value of his salvation. He's rich. I'm poor in this world,
but I'm rich beyond anybody's imagination. I remember Brother
Charlie Payne, he was riding on a train. He had a small company
up in Huntington, West Virginia. And anyway, on a business trip,
he's riding on a train. They were coming through Texas.
And this guy told him, he said, he said, I know the guy that
owns this little strip of land out here that they were passing
through. He said he owns 1,000 acres. Charlie said, we've been
on, we've been, I know a man, and we've been on this train
on his property for the last four hours. And we ain't seen the end of
it yet. He said, it's my fault. They were down there disputing
in Corinth over who was preaching when they got saved. And Paul said, what are you doing?
He said, don't you know that Apollos is yours, and Paul's
yours, and the world? I may look poor, but I own a
portion of this world. I'm co-owner of this whole world. In their poverty, both outward
and inward, they would shut up to Christ and begin to realize
how rich they really were, and that nothing could touch their
treasure. He said, you lay your treasure
up in heaven. Moth and rust can't touch it
there. It will here. And neither could their present
state of poverty compare with their real poverty of heart and
soul in Adam. Untried faith is always questionable,
but tried faith. Where faith is revealed without
the dross, tried faith is of great value. And then James gives
us a second example, and this time he goes to the opposite
extreme. He talks about that brother of low degree, whether
it was by reputation or money or location or whatever. He's talking about this brother
of low degree. God has exalted him, given him
faith, showed him that he's an heir of God. And now he goes
to the second example in verse 10. But the rich. The rich what? Brother. You mean there's rich
folks in the kingdom of God? Oh yeah. Yeah. One of them came and begged the
body of Christ. Buried him in his own tomb. Nicodemus
wasn't poor. He was a very wealthy man. Many
of these men in the church were wealthy. but the rich in that
he's made low. He's not rejoicing in his treasures. He's rejoicing in the fact that
God Almighty intervened in his life and took that false hope
of those treasures away from him and brought him low. Showed him that he was no better
than that brother of low degree. Brought him down. He made low. Because, he said, The flower
of the grass, as the flower of the grass, he's going to pass
away. Treasures, whatever you gain
in this world, it's only good in this world. You're going to die. And I'm
going to tell you something, man. I know this from experience.
It's going to be soon. Way sooner than what you think.
It's just like that steam on a tea kettle. You see it for
a second and it's gone. He's gone. John wrote about this over in
Revelation chapter 3, as the Spirit spoke to the church of
Laodicea. He said, Thou sayest, Thou sayest,
I am rich. That place where they lived,
there was gold in the streams. You could walk in the streams
and pick it up. It was a rich area, very rich. And he said,
thou sayest that I am rich, and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, living
in the mansion. driving their roads, had no idea of their real estate. Now watch this, he said, I counsel
thee to buy me, oh I love this, I never saw this before, gold
tried in the fire. What'd that be worth? I ain't
talking about no rock that has some gold in it, I'm just talking
about pure gold. How this gold been tried in the
fire. Oh, my soul, that thou mayest be rich. Oh, how rich we are in Christ,
spiritually wealthy. All that God has given us in
Christ, Ephesians 2, 7, He's given that in the ages to come
He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. And then listen to what He says
next. We're still talking about that rich man. For the sun is
no sooner risen with a burning heat But it withereth the grass,
and the flower falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So also shall the rich man fade
away in his ways. Now both here and in 1 Peter
1.24 and in Isaiah 40 verses 6 and 7, The glory of man, his achievements,
his mark on society is likened to the flower of the grass. The
Lord's telling us something. Here's the rich man. All humanity
is the grass. But every so often in the grass
there's a flower. There's a flower. You look out
there, you can't help but see it. There it is. It's different.
It stands out. It stands out. All flesh is as grass, pretty
much the same. Hard to distinguish one blade
from another, can you? But here and there appears a
flower, something different, something special, something
that stands out and for a while it attracts attention. But then
like the grass, it withers and falls away, it disappears. You come out the next day looking
for it and it's gone, ain't it? Like a dandelion, you know, it's
all up there and it's beautiful. All of a sudden, there ain't
nothing but these little white things, and wind blows, and now there
ain't nothing but a stem. It's gone. Not special anymore. And rich believers rejoice when
God's trials put them into place and reveal to them their true
standing in Christ, and reveal to them that they're like every
other believer, a sinner being saved by grace. James adds something to his quote
that I find most unusual and enlightening. He says, concerning
the believer's experience of grace in this trial, that the
grace of the fashion of it perishes. So also shall the rich man fade
away in his ways. In his ways. That concept of
riches that he had, that confidence in his treasure that he had,
That's going to fade away. He thought that was the blessing.
Huh? I don't know how many times. Boy, the Lord blessed him, he
won the lottery. Huh? Oh, that's how they look
at it. The grace of the fashion of it.
Now here's what he's saying there. Our Lord mentions that same platter.
And this time, he's going to show you his grace in it, the
way it should be looked at. He said, consider the lily of
the field. It doesn't talk. It doesn't spin. It doesn't work. It contributes
nothing to itself. It just grows up, and he said
Solomon and all of his glory couldn't be compared to that
lily. Huh? That's the grace of the passion
of it. It appears to be blessed of God,
and then it falls. Now he gets a true vision of
the grace and passion of it. It's all in Christ. It's in what
God's done in you. That's what this thing does to
the rich. The trial of the rich man is
to bring him down, to make him low, to show him God's hand and
his riches, and that as the flower of the grass, it neither tolls
nor spins, but it has a beauty. And that beauty is from the Lord.
It's all from Him. And when he sees it, he'll rejoice
in the trial. All right, let's look at the
third thing in our text. how this blessed man appears
having endured the trial. Verse 12. When he is tried, when he is tried, not before, not even during, but after. When he is tried, he shall receive
the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them that love
him. What is this crown he talked about? It's the crown of satisfaction. Paul said, I've learned whatever
state I'm in, be satisfied. Satisfied. Satisfied with Christ. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. You're complete in Him. I'm satisfied
with whatever state we're in. I'm satisfied with God having
the glory of it. I'm satisfied with the trial
itself and the knowledge He's given to pass through the trial. I'm satisfied. That's the crown. I'm satisfied in God's evidence
of the believer, not mine. And it's also called here in
James the crown of life because only those raised up by the Spirit
of Christ from the dead will receive it. And eternal life
being the saving knowledge of God is evidence of the same thing. And God gives it through these
trials. It's a royal headpiece for those
who are made kings and priests by God. It identifies you. as God's sons. What's this crown about and this
trial? The best picture I can give you
is the prophet David. David was about, some writers
say about 15 years old and he was out tending the sheep. And
a 15 year old boy, he's not an adult and he's not a kid, he's
just a big clumsy old for a little while. He just ain't what he's
going to be. He's just struggling to get there.
And here's David. And the prophet comes down to
anoint the king. The king of Israel. And he comes
down to Jesse's house. And David wasn't even considered. He brought in all the rest of
his boys. Trimmed up their beards, combed their hair, got them washed
and cleaned, put a little perfume on them. They come in before
the prophet and he looked at them and he said, that ain't
him. No, that ain't him. They all passed before him. He said, is this it? Well, no,
but I got one more. It's a little ruddy boy. He's
out here tending the sheep. He said, get him. He come in, he said, that's him.
That's him. I'm going to tell you something.
God anointed that man to be king. He was as much king right then
as he's ever going to be. But he didn't have a crown. And
that boy passed through trial, after trial, after trial. And at the end of the trial,
God exalted him Brought him up before the people, not in the
privacy of some little room in the palace, but right out in
the open and by the will of all of Israel. And put the crown on his head.
Now he knew what God was talking about back there when he anointed
him with that oil. And it was manifested, that's
my point. God manifests, we're kings and
priests, just like David. Kings and priests. But it's gonna be a little while
until you try it. And when you try it, then he's
gonna put the headpiece on. Huh? Oh, my soul. Like the prodigal, we're all
satisfied to live in the bunkhouse and work in the field, ain't
we? Father's got a different gig. He's gonna get the seal. He's
gonna get the ring. He's gonna put it on his finger.
He's gonna put the best robe on him. He's gonna fetch that
fatty calf. They've been dressing this thing
for a feast. For who knows how long? He said, this is my son. He was
lost. Isn't that nice, man? This is
my son. This is my son. That's what this
trial is all about. Oh, may the Lord in our trials,
whatever they are, may He manifest true faith. Gold, tried in the
fire, that there must be rich. All right, thank you.