James Session 1

Tom Shrader begins a series on James by sharing his personal testimony of coming to faith in Christ and explaining the book's central theme found in James 1:22 - being doers of the Word, not merely hearers. He introduces James as the half-brother of Jesus who identifies himself as a bondservant, writing to dispersed Jewish believers facing trials and persecution.

“The Bible is truth.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: James (2009)

Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 35 min

Themes: testimony, faith, obedience, trials, persecution, discipleship, hearing, doing, new believer, facing trials, questioning faith, seeking purpose, dealing with persecution, spiritual seeker, doubting christian, young adult

Scripture: James 1:1, James 1:22, James 1:2-4, Matthew 5-7, Acts 1:8, Acts 7, 1 Peter 5

Theological Themes: bondservant, servant leadership, biblical authority, scripture application, persecution theology, jewish christianity, apostolic teaching, practical christianity

Full Transcript

I was born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, and went down to Arizona without even knowing what state Scottsdale was in. I just knew the weather was good, so I went there with the goal to party and play golf until my money ran out. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a lot of party in me.

After a few months of that lifestyle, I had to get a job and find a place to live. I moved into apartment 202, and one day while sitting outside drinking—that was my big thing—I saw a truck pull up to the vacant apartment 201. A girl went in, followed by another girl carrying something that covered her face. All I could see was this cute little body before she went inside. When she came back out and I saw her face, I set it as a goal to woo her.

I went over and started talking to her, and we began dating. That didn't go so well because of my party lifestyle, and she told me, "I never want to see you again." That didn't bother me since I'd heard that before from lots of girls. I actually took it as more of a challenge.

The Pursuit That Changed Everything

I called her every day for about a week and finally said, "If I don't call you for a week, will you go out with me then?" Six days later I called and said she promised to go out with me. She agreed but said, "I'll go out with you if you promise me you'll never call me again."

I agreed, and when I went over—in those days they had doorbells you push that go "ding, ding, ding"—she opened the door. She'll be here all week, so you can verify this with her. She said to me, "The only reason I'm going out with you..."

[Note: The transcript appears to cut off mid-sentence at this point]

You is because you promised if I went out with you, you would never, ever call me or bother me again, and I said okay. She said give me your word, fine, I give my word to lots of things, that didn't make any difference. Oh yeah, I won't. So we went out, and to make a very long story very short, she fell in love, I already was, I think, sort of, and we've been married ever since, 31 years plus.

We've been married for a while, and it was like three months, and I came home one day, and I said, you know, I married you to make me happy, I'm not very happy. She said, really, well Slick, you're no party either. So we're 90 days into this, and it's falling apart. God moved us around, and then, as I said, I used to drink a lot, and I had just picked up my second DUI in about 60 days.

If that was now, I would be in jail for automatic at least six months to a year, but they didn't do it then, they just sent me to a class. I'd been in a lot of classes before. We're in a half moon, and I'm the last one. They go around the room talking about how you got here, so it was like, this guy said, I had taken some cough syrup and went to bed, and my daughter called me and needed a ride. Finally they got to me, and I said, apparently I'm the only one in the room that just drank that night, so I'm not in the denial, this is what happened.

The arresting officer that night was a lady, a woman, Barbara was her name. She had a little badge on her, it said Sergeant Barbara something. What I learned that night, and this is a little advice too, they do not like to be, female police officers named Barbara do not like to be called Babs. I didn't know that, it's the things you learn.

A Desperate Cry for Help

I went into the office the next morning. Susan came to pick me up, she was 8 plus months pregnant with Sarah, and I knew my life was a mess. I went into the office, I talked to a friend of mine, I said I need really help, really a ton of help, can you help me. He said you need Jesus, and I said to him, do you have anything else, do you have anything else, do you have a pill I can take or something. He said no, you need Jesus.

It was roughly three and a half months later that I went into a Bible study. This is interesting, no one invited me, guys from our office was going, but no one reached out to me. I went to this Bible study, and it was a couple of weeks later that I said to the guys, how come you never invited me. Listen to this, I said how come you never invited me to that study. Here's what they said, it's never occurred to us that God would save a person like you. I said okay, well that's what I said, you're not going to insult me.

The guy who taught the study's name was Larry Wright. I went back to the office that morning, it was a Thursday morning, and I opened the phone directory. The Phoenix phone directory has a whole bunch of Wrights in it, and a whole bunch of Larrys and Lawrences. I went like this, and I called that Larry Wright, and I heard the hello, and I said my name is Tom, is there any chance you're the Larry Wright that teaches a Bible study. He said yeah, that's me, and I said well I'd like to meet with you, I was there this morning for the first time.

Then he described me, he said I saw you walk in. So we met on Tuesday the following week, and I asked him about all the great questions. Do you really believe in Adam and Eve, do you believe in this Bible, do you believe in the flood, do you believe, do you believe. He said listen, you need to read the Gospel of John, and then meet with me.

The Night Everything Changed

I did, and that night I read the Gospel of John. It meant absolutely not one thing to me, I got nothing out of reading it, other than I invested whatever time it took to read it. The next day I was waiting for a client, and I was sitting there. It was about 8:20 in the morning, and I remember waiting, and it was March 6th, 1980.

I remember saying God I know that I'm a sinner, I have empirical data to support that. I believe that Jesus came and lived and died, I think there's empirical data to support that. I've been told that He died for my sin, and that I need to trust Him and Him alone, and that if I do You will save me. God save me.

I remember thinking, looking out the window, and expecting angels or harps or something, and nothing happened. I went to the study the next day, so it was Thursday, I went in to Larry, yesterday God saved me, and he hugged me. I thought oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into, they're huggers.

Sharing the News at Home

I went home and I told Susan what had happened, and she said I don't want any part of this. Now this is her version of this part, I don't necessarily remember this, but she said I would come home every day and say if you don't accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you're going to hell. It doesn't sound like me, but she said I would do that.

One day I said to her if you don't accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you're going to hell, and she said are you going to be there. I said no, and she said then it ain't going to be that bad. So really pray for her, she's got a hard heart, she's a very tough woman. I don't know it was three or four months later and God saved her.

Our lives have been transformed, our lives have been changed, not remodeled, but transformed. It began with the renewing of our minds, and He did that as His Spirit applied His word to our hearts. That's what we mean by a Christian, not somebody who goes to church, not even somebody who just reads a Bible, but somebody who believes and trusts and puts their faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

What Makes a True Christian

It's got nothing to do with any church or conference center or any action or activity that you can be engaged in. It's about you knowing Him in a personal way. We see at our church men and women all the time who've been in church, we see guys...

James Writes to Committed Believers

Who come to our place from other churches where they've been deacons and elders and leaders, we've even seen pastors get saved as God opens their heart. That's what we're talking about. James is writing this book to people who have made that commitment.

So if you have your Bibles open to the book of James, we can just jump right into it. Like I said, we're going to see how far we go. We'll spend a ton of time, and by that I mean at least today and tomorrow, and we're together twice tomorrow, so at least today and tomorrow on these first three or four verses.

The theme in the key verse is found in chapter 1 verse 22, where James writes this: "But prove yourselves doers of the word, not merely hearers who delude themselves." Now remember that, and look at the beginning of this: "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings." That's probably as far as we'll get tonight.

The Structure of James's Greeting

James identifies himself, and then he identifies the audience, and he tucks in the middle a biographical sketch of himself. He's writing to people who he thirteen times in this book uses the word brethren, or brothers. They're believers. They're people who have come to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And now they begin to see God work in their life.

But what he does, and the reason I'm convinced he uses that term brethren thirteen times, is he's going to tell them some very difficult things. He's going to challenge the way they think and the way they act. He's saying, you've got a problem here. You're a hearer of the word, but not a doer.

The Two Extremes: Hearers vs. Doers

You could be the other side. You could be a doer of the word and not a hearer. But the problem that they had is they loved Bible study, but they didn't love doing what the Bible said. Know people like that? Are you a person like that? Love to go to Bible study.

I'm around a lot of those. I hang out—I'm probably in a lot of ways, not necessarily some thinking, but certainly theologically and probably in a lot of ways politically—when Jeff said no place free from politics and stuff, I'm going to do my best. But I mean even when he said are you from Canada and they said yes, I thought they're down here getting medical treatment while they can. It's a whole different thing. And I'm probably conservative in a lot of ways.

So I hang around a lot of these conservative guys and they love to study. So you say how are you doing spiritually and they tell me what they've read. And I didn't ask them what they read. I know what they read. All the Puritans. I do too. All the conservative guys. I do too. But the problem with guys like me is they love to read and study but they don't like to apply it.

There's a whole other group of Christendom that loves to just go and do stuff. But if you say why do you do it, they say I love Jesus and they say why and then they're stumped for an answer. So you have these two poles. He said neither one of these are good. And he said it's not an either or but a both and. Be a hearer or a student of the word and a doer as well.

The Gospel as Ethical Imperative

One author writes this: "This epistle sternly insists upon Christian practice consistent with Christian belief. It heaps scathing contempt upon all empty professions and administers a stinging rebuke to the reader's worldliness. Its stress upon the gospel as ethical imperative makes the gospel as relevant today as when it was first written." That's what he's saying.

He's saying I ought to be able to see your Christian faith. I'm not putting any of these things down but it's not the fish on the car, it's not the bumper sticker, it's not my Bible. It's my actions. Jesus said that, right? In the Sermon on the Mount.

By the way, let me just tell you, if you're into doing a little study on your own, take the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 and 7 and you lay it out against the book of James and it lays side by side really well. Well in there Jesus said you're the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Let your light shine in such way that men see your good works and then glorify your Father in heaven. So I'm supposed to be able to see something different and unique about you.

The Problem with "Preach the Gospel, Use Words If Necessary"

So one of the great saints said years ago, "Preach the gospel and if you must use words." Right? You've heard that? Just stupid. Okay? I probably shouldn't say that, probably too far, just incomplete.

That's what Jesus said. Jesus said let them see your good works and then glorify your Father in heaven. They will not glorify your Father in heaven unless you tell them to. They're not going to do that instinctively. They'll see your good works and say well that's just their personality. That's just the way they are.

So they'll say to you, "Boy I really admire that. I admire your perseverance. I admire your dedication. I admire your commitment to family. I admire that you aren't climbing corporate ladders. I admire your lifestyle." But unless you say it's Jesus, unless you say that, they'll never make that connection. They will instinctively—cut me slack here, it'll be a small w—but they'll instinctively worship you and your personality. They're going to say look at the way they're wired. I wish I was like that. And that's how we are. We're always on that behavioral level.

The Supernatural Distinction of Christian Living

Now there should be a distinction. That's clearly what James is saying and I should be able to see it because there should be a uniqueness in your life. Being distinct and different. Really important here. Not odd. Not peculiar. Not dorky. But different. You get that? And it's something that's supernatural, not natural.

I'm going to be back and forth, but just go to verse 2. We're not going to get there tonight, but just look at how supernatural it is. "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." Well there is no way that you look at a trial and immediately move to joy. There's nothing in you that says

praise Jesus, there's a spot on my lung. Praise Jesus, I got laid off. That doesn't happen naturally. I'm operating there in the supernatural. We don't get past verse 1 before James is saying, I'm not into natural behavior. I'm into supernatural behavior.

Who Was James?

Let me tell you a little bit about this James, because I think it lends a lot to the understanding of this letter. There are three or four possibilities of who this James is. I'll give you the two most likely and then the right answer. There's always this discussion that this is James, the son of Zebedee, the brother of John. But if we take the calendar, in all likelihood he was martyred too early to have written this book.

The James who wrote this book is James, and this always rattles a few cages, the half-brother of Jesus Christ. Now I was raised in a faith that taught that Mary was a perpetual virgin. In fact, I went to a school, Holy Family Grade School. I remember as a kid, we had all these classrooms and we had this one area where they gathered together, and then they had this little alcove where they had statues of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. I remember as a kid, noticing the rather frustrated look on Joseph's face, but I never connected it until I was older to this doctrine.

I'm not making fun at all of that doctrine or that belief or that faith, I'm just saying the Bible teaches something contrary to the perpetual virginity of Mary. We see several times where Jesus is identified, wait, wait, wait, that's the carpenter's son. Isn't Joseph His father and Mary His mother, and aren't those His brothers, and then it names three or four of them, and then sisters? This is James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ. It's James who is a pillar of the early church. It's a James whose reputation says his legs were disfigured, his knees were disfigured from spending so much time in prayer that they called him old camel knees. That's his pedigree, his resume.

James' Humble Self-Introduction

But that's not how he identifies himself. See it? James, what is it? A bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't say, hey, listen close to me, I'm James, you know my brother Jesus, probably heard about Him rising from the dead. You know my mother Mary, did you know, you must know, I'm the head of the early church. When we gathered together and we had a controversy, I'm the one who dictated and declared our findings. You must have heard about me. Hey, have you seen my knees? I'm old camel knees. I don't know about your prayer life, but boy do I pray. There's none of that in there.

He says, James, a bondservant, literally a slave, but there were different words you could use for slave. He chooses the one that depicts a person who's forfeited all personal freedom and is totally under the control of his master, absolute obedience to his master. His master provides everything for him, food, clothing, housing. He's in debt to Him and Him alone, and he's a slave. There are different types of slaves, categories of slaves. This bondslave is one who could never be removed from that position. He could never be bought out of that. In fact, James is saying, I was purchased into that. We're told in scripture, you were bought at a price. There was a great price that was paid. Jesus died so that you and I can have eternal life.

Our Universal Need for God

We come into this world separated from God, at war with Him. That's what's wrong with us. We deal with this all the time. Jeff mentioned Bible studies. For 20 years, I've done Bible studies in the community. I do three of them now. I used to do six, and church takes time, and I'm old, and I'm tired, but I deal with people all the time, and I try to really make this clear.

The most recent study I'm doing, I have a noon study that I do, and it's the largest of the studies, so there's 300, 330 people in there. There was a guy who got really into this, and he's a guy whose life's been a mess. In fact, the first time we were together, he was sharing with me that he had been in prison with a relatively famous criminal. I said to him, and this is what you're prone to do when you're with a guy like that, I said, what did you do? His answer was, a lot more than they charged me with. I really like this guy.

He hangs around with people who are a little bit like him. He hangs around with people who've been on drugs, and are living lives that are different than maybe you would identify with. And so when he brings these guys and gals to the study, they stand out. You can spot them. And I think in their minds, people look at them and go, boy, they really are screwed up. Let me tell you something, they're no more screwed up than anybody else. We are all in the same position naturally. We hate God. That's why we create our own gods. That's why we love religion. Religion keeps us in control. That's why we love rules and regulations.

Creating Our Own Version of Faith

I'm with a guy, and I've asked this question, it feels like a billion times, and I'm meeting this guy, we're having coffee for the first time, and I said to him, are you a Christian? And his answer is classic. Here's what he said, not in the biblical sense, but it becomes an icon for what we do. We create our own version of Christianity, our own version of God, our own version of what we believe. Haven't you had your friends say that to you? I'm glad that you've found something that, what, works for you. We've lost a sense of transcendent truth.

See, this book that we study is written by God. It's His infallible Word. So if somebody says to you, I know the Bible contains truth, you have to stop them and say, stop! That's not completely accurate. The Bible is truth.

The Jefferson Bible and the Need for the Complete Word

So it's this little small book, and it's called the Jefferson Bible. What Thomas Jefferson did—are any of you familiar with the Jefferson Bible? A few of you. Thomas Jefferson took the New Testament, and this would have been a lot easier if he had a Mac, he cut out all the stuff he didn't like. He just took out everything he didn't like, and he took out anything that was supernatural. In the introduction he said, what I've done is compiled the real true saying of Jesus, and the result of that is this wonderful ethical guide.

Now Thomas Jefferson, I want to stipulate here, Thomas Jefferson is 50 times smarter than I am in just about everything but this. The minute he says, I have taken out the real sayings of Jesus, doesn't that raise a question? Don't you want to go, Tom, how do you know what the real sayings of Jesus are? It's interesting when you do that, because he extracts anything supernatural. So the Jefferson Bible begins with Mary, Jesus, and Joseph's census being taken, so there's no virgin birth, and it ends with, they placed him in the sepulcher and rolled the stone over the entrance to the tomb, and that's the end. So there's no resurrection. Lots of helpful things in the Jefferson Bible, but no salvation.

The God of the Bible vs. Our Version of God

This is the infallible word of God, and the Bible tells us that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, that we've been reconciled to God. So if I say this, let's say you don't know anything else, I just tell you, Jeff and I have been reconciled, that's all you know. Based on that sentence alone, you can deduce, Sherlock, that, what? There was a pre-existing hostility of some sort. God and sinner reconciled. You and I have been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. We were at war with Him. God reconciled us to Himself. God did it. God moved. You didn't want that. You were seeking your own version of God. You wanted a God on your term.

The philosopher Voltaire said it this way: God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since. We make our own gods, the way we want them to be. So you'll be with somebody and they'll say, my God would never. My God would never send anyone to hell. My God would never allow this to happen. My God would never. Well, I'm not interested in the God you created, I'm interested in the God of the Bible.

James's Identity and His Recipients

And James says, listen, I've lived with that Jesus. And I identify myself with Him as a bond servant, totally dependent upon Him. And I'm writing to twelve tribes, the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad.

Now there's probably a couple of reasons that these Jewish believers have moved out of Jerusalem. One, they were told to, right? Acts chapter 1 verse 8: you'll be my witness in Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, the outer most parts of the earth. And then Pentecost comes, but when you get to Acts chapter 7, persecution comes. And it's probably—and we're totally speculation here—it's in my mind likely that much of that dispersion, just knowing human nature, much of that dispersion was driven by persecution and suffering.

So the minute these Jews believed in Jesus Christ, they lost everything. Their families held a funeral for them. They had lost all ability to do commerce. There'd be no one who wanted to do any business with them, no family relationships. That's why, by the way, that first church had to cling together, because all they had was each other. They're dispersed. They're refugees. They've been driven away. They're in a foreign land with probably little or no physical resources. They're needy.

James's Purpose: Encouragement and Instruction

And so he writes with two things. Number one, I think, to encourage them, and number two, to remind them how the church and how they are to act and respond. How do I know that? Because he identifies himself and he identifies them, verse two, we're going to read it.

"Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance have its perfect result in you, that you may be perfect—that's mature—complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously, without reproach, and it will be given to him."

The Command to Consider Trials as Joy

He begins by addressing them and saying, consider. It's an imperative. It's a command. Consider it all joy. Calculate. Take an inventory. Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance.

I'm going to give you an equation. We'll unpack it tomorrow morning. Here's what he says: trials plus faith equals endurance. So that's the equation. Consider it all joy, what? When you encounter trials, why? Well, because you know that the testing of that faith, so that trials plus the faith equal endurance.

The Paradox of Wanting Endurance

So you say, you know what I want? I want to hang in there. Some of you know that name, Bob Craning. Last time I was with Bob Craning, Bob probably was 68 or 69 or 70, however old he is. I said, what are you doing? He said, I want to make sure I finish the race. Right? Isn't that what you say? Fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith. I want to hang in there to the end. I want perseverance.

When you say that, here's what God hears: let me suffer. That's what He hears, right? Because if you want endurance, the only way to get it is to have that faith of yours tested. That's what we're going to pick up tomorrow morning.

Let me pray for you as we adjourn tonight. Father, thank you for this amazing, marvelous, wonderful truth. You are an awesome, mighty God. You are a God that is good all the time, even in the midst of our pain, hurt, suffering, trials. God, I know there are people in this room right now who it's probably all they could do to get here. I don't just mean physically, I mean emotionally. They are bone dry. It may be financial, physical, relational, spiritual. Father, I pray you will take this week here and you will just pump energy into us. We're going to be so bold as to not even

ask You to change the circumstances. If you want to do that, that's fine. But change our hearts and minds and the way we view them.

Father, we thank You for Jeff and Janet and the entire team here at Cannon Beach. They have worked and planned. Thank You for those who are leading us in worship.

God, here's what we pray. We pray that Your Spirit would apply Your word to our hearts and our minds. That somewhere along the way in our journey this week, You would change us. You draw us closer to You. Don't know how You do that, don't know when You do that, don't even know exactly what that means because it will be something different for everyone. But God, we ask You to work in our life.

We know that You do that through Your word. We know that You do that through relationships. Father, I pray all of us as we're walking around the campgrounds in the town would be a testimony to Jesus and to who He is and the transformation in our life.

Father, thank You for that. We anxiously await tomorrow morning. We pray to You in Christ's name, amen.