James chapter 1. Before we get to the Scripture,
I want to give you what James is declaring to us
here in this first chapter. There is but one constant, immovable
anchor. of the believer's soul. And that
one is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. He's entered into the
veil. He's entered into God's presence. And he shall, he has, and he
shall, Christ the person shall deliver those that he's given
faith to trust him. The Hebrew writer said, which
hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
which enters into that within the veil, whether the forerunner
is for us entered Jesus, even Jesus made in high priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. Now, James points out the difference
between the one in whom God's grace is active. active, alive,
active, and the man who is looking to his own way. He says there
in verse 2, my brethren, and this is who he's addressing,
brethren, Believers, count it all joy when you fall into different
temptations, different trials, knowing this, that the triangle
of your faith worketh patience. What does that mean, worketh
patience? In every believer, God works
steadfast dependence upon him. He does it by proving His faithfulness
to us over and over through every trial. We're more and more persuaded
that God alone is able to raise up even from the dead. That is the meaning of this patient
endurance. The object of patient endurance
is We behold God, our Savior, in the person of Christ Jesus
the Lord, and we are persuaded that He is able to raise up,
even from the dead. He is able. This person. Now I want you to understand
this. This is not a theory. It's not merely a doctrine. No
sinner can arrive at this any other way than by God working
it within the heart that He has created. We don't merely hear
this as a fact, hear this as a doctrine, and learn it, and
add it to a list of doctrines that we believe, and check it
off, and say, well, now I believe that, and have life thereby. That's not how we have life.
We don't have this patient endurance that way. This is the effectual
work that God performs in every believer through the Holy Spirit,
wherein he, he, effectually produces, he makes
his children willing to trust the person of Christ Jesus the
Lord. Salvation is not trusting in
what you know. It's not trusting in what we
know. Those who trust in what they
know, by and by, will prove that they don't know Christ. Salvation
is trusting a person. Doctrinal facts are not the believer's
wisdom. Christ is our wisdom. Doctrinal
facts are not the believer's strength. Christ is the power
of God. Unto them which are truly called,
whether they're Jew or Gentile, Christ is the power of God. And
Christ is the wisdom of God. That's what Paul tells us in
1 Corinthians chapter 1. And through these trials, Christ
Jesus actively grows the believer to look away from all else and
to rely solely upon Him. He uses whatever He's pleased
to use. He'll use Satan. He'll use unbelievers. He'll use His workings of all
things in providence. And Christ always, always, always
succeeds in working this grace in those that He's redeemed.
Always. And God receives all the glory
and man receives absolutely none. Throughout this letter, James
is declaring that God's grace really does bring forth the fruit
of steadfastness in believers. The believer's faith will be
justified. It will be manifest to be true
God-given faith because believers will patiently endure because
they believe God's able to raise up. He's able to save. The believer
will ask God. Instead of asking himself, depending
upon others' wisdom, he will rely upon God's salvation, upon
God who is salvation. He'll ask God. He'll beseech
God. He'll seek God. And God will
give in abundance. God makes the believer to behold
Christ Jesus. is our shield and our defender.
He's our buckler. He's our anchor. He is salvation. The believer is crucified unto
the world and the world's crucified unto the believer. That's the
difference between believing in the fact that God's grace
is sovereign and having God's sovereign grace actually working
in us. You let the fire get hot enough.
Let the glory be taken away from man. So much so, that that man
who merely has this intellectual understanding of God's grace,
that man's going to look to his own strength, he's going to look
to his own wisdom, he's going to rebel against God, his messenger,
and his people, because he's unstable as water. Verse 6 here,
James says, Let him ask in faith nothing wavering." That word,
nothing wavering. Wavering is the opposite of patient
endurance. It's the opposite of faith. Nothing
wavering. I looked this word up today.
It means not contending. Not contending with God, not
contending with men. It means not making ourselves
to be the difference, not doubting God's Word, not condemning, not
being partial in ourselves. Asking in faith is asking in
utter importunity, utter helplessness, convinced that only God, only
Christ Jesus our Lord is able. to raise up. Now, verses six
through nine here, Paul, James says, He that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not
that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother
of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in
that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he
shall pass away." Look over to Luke 18 with me. Luke 18. James over and over seems to
directly paraphrase or take from what our Lord taught when He
walked this earth. In Luke chapter 18, verse 11,
our Lord gives the parable of Pharisee and the publican. In
Luke 18, verse 11, he says, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus
with himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men are,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast
twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. You could just as well put in
there. I'm thankful that I know the
five points of Calvinism. I'm thankful that I know the
doctrine of election. I'm thankful I know the doctrine
of predestination. I'm thankful that I know whatever
doctrine. They're good doctrines. They're
true doctrines. But here's the difference. The
publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as
his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. Now notice how
the Lord sums it up here. For everyone that exalteth himself
shall be amazed. And he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted. Now look back over there at James
1, and look how James ends up after he's quoted that about
the unstable man, the wavering man, the double-minded man. Verse
9, he says, Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he's
exalted, but the rich in that he's made low. Isn't that what
our Lord just said? The brother of low degree is
the man who knows his dire need for Christ. He knows his dire
need of the man Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord of glory. He needs him so bad, he needs
Christ to take up his cause. He needs Christ to to plead His
case, to be His representative, to be His righteousness, to be
His holiness, to be His acceptance with God, and to sustain Him,
to keep Him believing, to grow Him in grace, to grow Him in
faith, to grow Him in understanding, to grow Him in knowledge, to
keep Him every hour. And this man will be carried
in the bosom of his Savior. He'll be cared for by Christ
Jesus. The rich man is a self-exalting
man. And he'll be abased. If God's
brought you low, if He's brought you from trusting the rich man
of the flesh, rejoice. Rejoice. Because as the flower
of the grass, the rich man of the flesh is going to pass away.
The voice said, cry. What shall I cry? What am I to
preach, Lord? All flesh is grass. All flesh
is grass. But the Word of our God, the
Word of our God shall stand forever. That's why He says, ask in faith. Are you importunate? Is there anybody who sees the
dire situation that you're in, that you're in? It's a dire situation. You know, the, the word importunate,
the Lord explains this to us. He gives us an illustration of
that. We need illustrations. He said, which of you shall have
a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say, Friend,
lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey is come
to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And you go there,
and you knock on the door. It's at midnight. It's late.
And that friend who's in there says, I've put my children to
bed. It's late. I'm not answering that door.
I'm not answering the door. Do you just say, well, I can
take or leave that bread. I don't necessarily have to have
it. Do you say, well, you know, I got some coming. They're coming
to have bread. They're coming to sit down at
my table in my house to eat bread. I don't necessarily have to give
them bread. No, you keep knocking. Friend,
I need that bread. You don't understand my situation.
I am bankrupt. I have nothing to buy bread with. I have nothing to purchase bread
with. I have no wisdom to earn bread. I have no strength to
earn bread. I have no ability in myself to provide bread. And
I've got people depending on the bread. The Lord said, though he will
not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because
of his importunity, because that friend in the house sees how
desperately, what dire need you're in of that bread, that friend
will wake up and come and say, here's the bread. And the Lord
said, I say unto you, ask and it shall be given. Seek and you
shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone
that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened. And he said, God will give. And
he'll give the Holy Spirit. He'll give in abundance. He'll
give. But he's not going to give if
you don't really want it. Do you want Christ the bread?
Do you have to have the gospel of the bread of life? If you desperately, desperately
need Christ the bread, you desperately need one to give you this bread,
come to God in opportunity. Come to God in that dire need
and he'll give it. But that double-minded man, he'll
ask. He'll go through the motions
of prayer. He'll let everybody see him asking. He'll go through
his religious routine. And he'll seem sometimes like
he's really importunate, like he really needs it. God looks
on the heart. God knows the heart. He looks
on the heart. What James says here, back in
James chapter 1, he said, happy is the man that endureth temptation. You see, when we're in these
trials, the man that is importunate, the man who is truly longing
for Christ the bread, hungry for Christ the bread, hungry
for the righteousness of God, hungry and thirsty after God's
righteousness, seeking God's kingdom, seeking the welfare
of his brethren, seeking the welfare of those for whom Christ
laid down His life. That man is going to seek God.
He is going to ask God. He is going to patiently endure
the trial, asking, beseeching, laying all his care on God, trusting
God alone. And James says, and that man
is going to be a happy man. He is going to be a happy man.
For when he's tried, when he's brought to the end of this trial,
he shall receive the crown of life. Life is the crown. Rejoicing in Christ our life. That's the crown. That's what
God's going to give. Rejoicing in Christ our life. The end of every lesser trial
we face in this life. Let me give you one for example.
I'm gonna, this is what you call, you know, when the preacher gives
you an illustration, but then he really applies it to you.
People say, when I preach, you went to meddling now. Let me
give you, I'm gonna meddle right here. This is every lesser trial.
Tell me if it's not true, Cyril. When you wake up in the morning,
and you see the weather report, and it says it's gonna be pouring
down raining tonight, and you hear that there's not gonna be
many gonna show up, There's not going to be many that's interested
in coming. That's just as much a trial of
your faith as that big, giant, monumental trial that you face.
That's just as much a trial. But at the end of that trial,
when you seek God's face and you depend upon God and you look
away from yourself and you depend upon Him, you're going to be
rejoicing before it's over. When you come to the end, you'll
be rejoicing. I've never come to the Lord's house. I struggle
in my flesh every single time. Every day that is the day to
go to the Lord's house. As much as I delight to hear
the gospel, as much as I long to hear the message of God's
free and sovereign grace, that old flesh is with me. That old flesh is trying to turn
me aside. It's trying to turn me away.
I've never yet gone to the Lord's house that I didn't come away
saying, Lord, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for blessing
me in spite of me. Thank you. And in every single
trial, that's the case. That's the case. Seek him. And
he says that man will be happy for he'll receive the crown of
life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. The believer
is given the love of Christ in our heart. We didn't have it.
We hated God. Scripture says the natural man
is an enmity with God. That means we hated God. Some
folks will tell you, well, I never hated God. I've always loved
God. Well, you've loved Him too long
then because Scripture says the natural man hates God. The natural
man don't want to have anything to do. A God of his imagination,
but not the God. God has to impart love into the
heart of his people, into the heart he's made new. And you
know how he does that? When God creates within us a
new heart, He speaks His Word, His enduring Word. He speaks
His Word into the heart like He did Jeremiah. Jeremiah said,
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, in loving kindness,
I've thrown you. I wouldn't take no for an answer.
When you was hating me and shaking your fist in my face and saying
no God and exalting yourself and your wisdom and your fleshly
knowledge, looking to everything in religion except for Christ. He said I wouldn't take no for
an answer. I drew you. If I had to strip you of your
preacher, of your brethren, of your place, of your theology,
of everything, if I had to strip you of everything you thought
you knew and make you an utter ignoramus in your own mind, in
your own eyes, I did it because I everlastingly loved you and
I drew you to myself. How did you come to Christ? How
did you come to Christ? Did you come to Christ by your
own doing, by your own strength, by your own wisdom? Sinners are
saved because God has everlastingly, freely loved his vessels of mercy
because he chose whom he would and he drew them to himself. And God drew them in loving kindness. And everything He did, it may
have been hard, it may have been bitter, it may have been a...
And it goes against everything about our flesh. But it's loving
kindness when God draws us. Well then, if that's how you
got to Christ, if that's how you first came to Christ, now
when you're in this trial, when you face this trial, And you're
in the midst of this trial. How are you going to be saved? The same way. Those he's everlastingly
loved, he draws them to himself. That's why he sends the trial.
He first creates this love in a sinner by speaking his enduring
word of redemption into our soul. He comes to you and He reveals
in the heart of a believer that Christ Jesus, He says, I loved
you from everlasting and I came to where you are. And I walked
honorably before God's law. I fulfilled His law perfectly
because you can't do it. I went to the cross and I took
your sin. upon myself, and I was made sin
by the Father, willingly endured the travail of my soul. I don't even know what that,
I can't even enter into that. I endured the travail of my soul
to satisfy eternal justice that you, if you had been left to
yourself and cast into hell, could have never satisfied yourself. You would have suffered everlasting
damnation because you can't even satisfy justice. And I, whatever
this travail of soul is, it's something He satisfied eternally
Himself. And He says, now then, who is
it that's going to condemn you? Who is it that's going to find
any fault in you? If God Almighty says, I'll remember
your sins no more, they are forgiven, who then is going to find fault
with you? Who's going to condemn you? Who's
going to separate you from the love of God, from the love of
Christ Jesus? Christ died for you, He rose
again, He's seated at God's right hand, and right now, this moment,
He ever liveth to intercede for you. He comes and He makes Himself
known in your heart. He makes Himself known in the
center. And He says, there's nothing
that's going to separate you from My love. Nothing. You're
going to face tribulation? You must face tribulation. In
this world, you shall face tribulation. And He tells us that. He speaks
those words to us and says, you shall. And you must. We must. How else are we going to be brought
to see that nothing's going to separate us from His love? And
that through this tribulation, through this trial, He teaches
us not to look anywhere else but to Him. And He says, not
tribulation, not distress, no matter how distressing the situation
may be to you, not persecution, not famine,
not nakedness, not peril, not sword, in all these things, we're
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Now, knowing
that, knowing that's how this love began in the heart, Did
you do something to justify yourself? When He comes and gives faith,
He makes it known, I justified you. I already justified you. You've been justified before
God. When He gives faith, it's to
make you believe Him that He's justified you. You didn't do
anything to justify you. Did you make yourself holy to
be accepted of God? Do you know how holy you have
to be to be accepted of God? You've got to be as holy as God
is. He's only that in Christ. Has
your fleshly wisdom and power ever delivered you from anything?
Has your flesh ever kept you separate from this world? Ever?
Well then, how then do you expect to be saved in the midst of this
trial? But when the Lord speaks His
Word, When He speaks His Word into the heart, He's made new,
then we believe it's the Word of the Lord that endures forever. What He says, because His name's
attached to it, because His glory's attached to it, because the person
is attached to His Word, and if He's spoken His Word into
your heart, you know that Word is an enduring Word, it's a sure
Word, because God's glory is at stake if he doesn't fulfill
his promise. And that's why faith believes
that the Lord won't ever leave us. He won't ever forsake us.
But you know who works this in our hearts? He does. He does. The gospel is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. I don't imagine there's anybody
sitting right here that won't say, that's true. I believe that. The devils believe it too. They
tremble at it. They know that this gospel is
the power of God and salvation. They know that doctrine. Satan
knows that doctrine better than anybody knows it. But it's not just power unto
a decision. It's not just power into making
you make a profession of faith. The Gospel is Christ Jesus, the
power and wisdom of God, who is saving His people every hour,
every day, and who shall continue to save us unto final glory. And if you don't have this Word,
preach to you continually, reminding you continually, teaching you
continually, the Spirit of God coming into your heart continually, you'll starve to death. You'll
look to your wisdom, you'll look to your flesh, you'll look to
your strength, you'll look to anything and everything but Christ. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Not just the first hour
they believe, every hour of every day the rest of their lives. We have to hear the gospel declared. Faith cometh by hearing, not
just in the first hour, continually the rest of our days. That's
why God said, I will give you pastors after mine own heart
and they shall feed you with knowledge. He's sovereign to
give his pastors. He's sovereign to give men who
preach the truth of God. He's sovereign to save his people
through the truth of God. And he does. And when he does
this, this gospel ceases to be a theory. It ceases to be a doctrine. It ceases to be a system. I think
I could teach my children. I got a son that's six, a daughter
that's eight. I'm quite convinced I could teach them Calvinism. I could teach them the five points.
And they could reasonably understand that logically makes sense. I
can see that. But that won't save them. That
won't save them. Only through trial. Only through day-to-day walking,
stumbling, falling, and being held up by God Himself, and having
God through the Spirit make us to behold that it is God Himself
holding us, keeping us, growing us, teaching us, only then does
this cease to be a doctrine and become an ever-present reality. The person of Christ Jesus is
my salvation. He's my salvation. It's the word
of the Lord that endureth forever. That's why he says, blessed is
the man that endureth temptation, for when he's tried, he shall
receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them
that love him. There's one constant. One immovable
anchor of the soul. It is Christ Jesus the Lord. It's Christ Jesus the Lord. Now,
I want to give you one more thing here before we stop. Now then, he says, let no man
say that when he turns away from God that God has produced this
fruit in him. Verse 13. Let no man say when
he's tempted. This word tempted here is that
when he fails in the midst of the trial, when he turns from
God in the trial. Let no man say that when he's
tempted, I turn because of God. God was the source that turned
me away from him. For God can't be turned with
evil and he don't turn men with evil. But every man is tempted, turned
away from trusting God when he's drawn away of his own lust and
enticed. Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin. Sin, when it's finished, bringeth
forth death. You know what lust is? Covetousness. It's desiring to have, to obtain,
to want, to have. Among other things, in this trial
that you're in right now, The lust of your flesh, the lust
of your flesh is to be your own wisdom, to be your own strength,
to obtain your own deliverance from this trial so that you can
have all the glory for doing it. I know because that's the
lust of this flesh. That's the lust of the flesh
that's in me. But that's not of God, that's our own sinful
flesh. And our flesh will only bring
forth the fruit, the produce of death. Paul said, if you bite and devour
one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the
spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now look
at verse 16, that's what James says. Do not err, my beloved
brethren. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no fearfulness, neither shadow of turning. He
doesn't turn, there's not even a shadow of turning with God.
And he lists one of those gifts here as being born of God. How did he do that? Of his own
will. Not your will, his will. How
did he do it? With the word of truth. Not the lies of men, not the
wisdom of men, not the sayings of men. He did it with the word
of truth. And He made you a fruit, a first fruit, a choice fruit,
a new creation, His produce. He did this. So what's the application
then? What does James, and we'll look
at this more next time, but I just want to give you this application.
This is what James says. First of all, he says this. Hear
this word. Heed this word. and put off that old man. Don't look to him anymore, but
heed this word. Look at verse 19. Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. Hear what? This Word, this Word of God that
endures forever. Be slow to speak, slow to wrath,
for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness,
that's that overflowing of naughtiness in the flesh, lay all that aside
and receive with meekness the engrafted Word. Do you see how
important the Word is? What are you going to get when
you ask God? His Word. How did you begin in this thing?
His Word. What is this trial about? It's
to bring you to hear His Word, His promise, fulfilled, completely
satisfied in Christ Jesus. So hear this Word, James says,
and lay aside everything else. And here's the second thing he
says, and be doers of it. How do I do this Word? Verse
22, he says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only. deceiving
your own selves. He gives an illustration here
of a man in a mirror. If you hear this Word that's
preached here, you hear this Word James is declaring here,
you hear this Gospel of Christ, and you kind of like look in
the mirror, and you look in the mirror, and you look at yourself,
and you leave, you walk away from it. And right away, you
just forget what you saw in the mirror. When you look into this
Word, you're going to see what you are in your flesh, and you're
going to see what a believer is in Christ. Now, if you're
a doer of this Word, you're not going to walk away from this
Word with no sense of urgency. You're not going to walk away
from this Word with no sense of your need of this Word. You're not going to walk away
from this Word with it planted in your heart that I've got to
have this bread. I've got to have this Redeemer.
I've got to have God to save me or I'm not going to be saved.
I've got to know if you do walk away. And there's just a, well,
What he said was true, but you know, I can take it or leave it. You've
forgotten right away, forgotten right away that you got no strength
in yourself, that you're a helpless sinner, that you have to have
this gospel. You have to have this word. You
have to have Christ. And he says, the man that does
this, he may seem to be religious, he may go on in his normal routine
of religion, but his religion is vain. But, verse 25, whoso looketh
into the perfect law of liberty and continueth, he being not
a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed. Verse 27, pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, to visit the fathers and
widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from
the world. Here's the first thing to do,
to doing this work. It's to look into this perfect
law of liberty. It's to look and to behold that
Christ Jesus is the One who has liberated His people, who has
made His people free, who has delivered us from the bondage,
from the sin, from the curse of the law, and set us free. If He sealed this Word into our
hearts, and it's a Word of promise that He sealed there, we're persuaded
We look into this Word and we are persuaded by it that this
is how God is going to save. This is how God is going to keep
us. This is how God is going to continue
to save us and to keep us and to edify us and to grow us. This is how He is going to do
it through this Word, this law, this perfect law of liberty,
Christ Jesus. Continue therein. depend upon
him, look nowhere else but to Christ, to God, our savior, for
this wisdom and this power, beseech him. And he says here, pure religion
and undefiled is visiting the orphans and the widows in their
affliction. The orphan and the widow is the most helpless. In
all the world, they have nothing. They're totally dependent on
somebody else to visit them and their affliction. That's a sinner. That's every sinner who's in
need of grace. The people in this place. need to be visited in their affliction. They need to be visited with
the Word of Grace. They need to be visited with
the sure promise of God's Word. They need to be visited, edified,
strengthened in the knowledge and wisdom of God. And the only cure is the Word
that ever liveth, the Word that endureth. Continue in this Word. Don't
forget it. Go home and ask God, God, tell
me what to do. Teach me what to do. Give me
wisdom in what to do. Send a pastor to me. Send someone
that can feed us continually with this Word. And take every
measure, every step that you can. Give yourself no rest. No rest. Because this is what he says,
whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth,
being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this
man shall be blessed in his deed. In other words, God will be that friend who will
come to you, and because of your importunity, He'll give the bread. He'll give the Spirit. But He
looks on the heart, and He knows the heart. He knows the heart. Beseech Him, brethren. Believe
Him. And if you believe Him, you'll do what He says. You'll
continue in it. You'll trust Him. You'll look
to Him. You'll give yourself no rest. You need the bread. Gotta have it. Be doers of this word. Be doers
of it. Rejoice in Him. Continue in Him. He'll bless you in this day.