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This is East from West, discovering God's amazing grace through the teaching of His Word, a ministry of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more information about our ministry at eastfromwest .org.
Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabriel Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We are in James chapter one again today, and we'll be reading the entire chapter through to verse 27. James introduces himself, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.
Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and let the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away.
For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Last week, when we began our study in the book of James, we talked about who James this is, the half-brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jerusalem church. We talked about who he was writing to, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, which is likely not referring to ethnic Jews, but rather as James' audience consists of Jews and Gentiles, we are seeing a church that is built of those of the ethnic people in the line of Abraham and also the Gentiles who are a spiritual people in the line of Abraham, as we have all been brought together as one by the blood of Christ.
So the 12 tribes in the dispersion are those who have been brought to the faith by the testimony of 12 apostles. And they have gone out into the world, churches that have been established all over the Roman empire.
And that's who it is that James addresses. He says in verse two, count it all joy, my brothers, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, all kinds of trials, whether they're big things or small things, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.
So the trials that we go through have a purpose to them. There's a meaning behind this. Something is ultimately being accomplished through these things that we endure. If we know that God is sovereign, if we understand what is said to us in Romans 8, 28 and 29, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
If we know that all of these things are happening, we go through all these things that we go through in life to shape us more and more into the image of Christ, then we should want all the more to give God the glory for all things.
James goes on, verse five, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. So as we understood this in the context in which it is given, James is talking about asking for wisdom in the midst of trials.
So we are not sovereign, we do not understand the end from the beginning of things, the way that they happen. And so we should ask God for the wisdom to understand how he is using these things for his glory, how he is shaping us into the image of Christ through these things that we go through.
And that is how we desire the wisdom of God in the midst of trials. So again, verses two and four, two through four are not their own thing. And then James shifts gears and puts forth another principle in verses five through eight but rather he is saying even in the midst of trials, we should ask God for wisdom and he will give it to us generously.
Let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.
He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. The point here is simply this, when we ask anything of God, it should be not to benefit ourselves but to give glory to God. As James is gonna say later on in this letter, the reason why you ask and don't receive is because you ask with wrong motives.
So even if we are asking of God for wisdom, we're asking for a godly wisdom to see and understand things through the eyes of God, then he will give it to us. If it is to his glory, it will be given us.
God gives it generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. We go on today to verses nine through 11, where James says, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away.
For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Now, James is doing more here than just contrasting the rich man with the poor man.
There's some similarities between the two. Both the rich man and the poor man are after the same thing. They are both tempted by this world to pursue wealth. The poor man wants to be like the rich man and the rich man wants to be richer than he already is.
And so as James is addressing the church here, he mentions the brothers, okay? The lowly brother. This is a person who is a fellow brother in Christ Jesus. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation.
And this is very similar to something that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In other words, the exaltation of the lowly brother does not come from himself.
It's not a look at how humble I am. So therefore how great I am, okay? If a guy were to consider himself that way, he would no longer be humble. If a person is boasting about his humility, he's not actually a humble person, but rather this is the person who is lowly in spirit, who is poor in spirit, who is meek and inherits the earth as is also one of the Beatitudes.
In his lowly state, thinking less of himself and more of God, he is exalted because he has given the glory to God. And so therefore shares in that exaltation of Christ. It is because Christ is exalted and we are fellow heirs of his kingdom.
Paul says in Titus 3 .5, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Heirs, we are fellow heirs with Christ of the kingdom of God. That means that we get all the stuff the king gets, but this is because Christ is exalted and therefore we share in that exaltation. So give all of the glory to Christ reserving none of the boasting for ourselves.
When it comes to understanding humbleness, being humble, we need to understand it the way that C .S. Lewis defined it. Being humble does not mean that we think less of ourselves, it means that we think of ourselves less and think of others as more significant than ourselves.
Paul says this to the Philippians in Philippians 2, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father.
Jesus is our ultimate example of what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Because it says here in Philippians 2 that Jesus did all things to the glory of God the father.
And Jesus is also our ultimate example of what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. Because though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant.
As Jesus said, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to lay his life down as a ransom for many. And so this is our example on how we are to love one another, how we are to be humble before God and before others.
And so as we get to verse 10 here, the rich in his humiliation. So again, verse nine of James chapter one, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation. Because the rich man needs to understand this, that his wealth and the power that he has does not give him any greater standing before God.
He is humbled before God, knowing that without God, he has nothing. No matter what he has accumulated in this world, he has gained nothing if he does not have Christ. And so before God, he is humbled because like a flower of the grass, he'll pass away.
None of the stuff that he possesses gives him any advantage before God, and he doesn't take any of that stuff with him. Like the grass, it is gonna fade away. Do you understand that the cell phone that you have, the smartphone that you have in your pocket, as you're sitting there, maybe you stand and do your devotions, I don't know.
But however you are right now with the smartphone that you have, it is wasting away as you have it. It's wasting away in your pocket or in your pocket book. Tomorrow, a new model is gonna come out and the model that you have is gonna be obsolete.
The stuff that you have right now is the stuff of tomorrow's yard sales, trash bins, and garbage heaps. It ultimately amounts to nothing. It might give you some amount of joy and pleasure in the moment, but it is not going to sustain you and it certainly will not save you.
There is nothing eternally significant in all of these temporary things that we possess. And this is especially the case for the rich man, something that he needs to remind himself. Now, the poor man also needs to remember that the pursuit of riches is not gonna bring him any joy.
It's not gonna bring him any lasting comfort at all. But the rich man more so needs to be reminded of this because riches bring temptation. And the rich man knows this more so than the poor man because he is experienced in possessing much wealth.
The apostle Paul said to Timothy that godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content.
But those who desire to be rich, Paul says, fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.
You know that verse, 1 Timothy 6 .10, it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. So we need to be careful not to be enticed with wealth and possessions.
And that's more difficult for the rich man because he has wealth and possessions. You know the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10 who came to Jesus and he said, good teacher, what is it that I need to do in order to have eternal life?
The first thing that Jesus says to him is, why do you call me good? For no one is good but God. And it wasn't that Jesus was saying that he wasn't God, it's that he knew the heart and the mind of this rich man and that he did not actually think of Jesus as God.
So therefore, why was he calling Jesus good? And Jesus reminded the rich young ruler of the commandments. You have heard it said, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother.
The rich young ruler said to Jesus, teacher, all of these I have kept from my youth, I've done all these commands, I've known these things from the time that I was a little boy and I've done them all.
And Jesus looking at him, loved him and said to him, he said this to the rich young ruler out of love, you lack one thing, go and sell all that you possess, give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and then come and follow me.
Because Jesus knowing the mind and the heart of this young man, the Bible says that Jesus tests the heart and he knows the mind and knowing this about this young ruler, he knew that he loved his wealth more than God.
And so Jesus hitting him at his weakest point, again, doing this out of love because he loved this young man, because he did not want him to perish in his wealth, said to the young ruler, take all of this that you love more than God, sell it and give it to the poor and then your treasure will be not on this earth, it'll be in heaven and then come follow me.
And we know from the story in Mark 10, that the poor man or I'm sorry, the rich man was disheartened by the saying and he went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. He went away with sorrow in his heart because he did not wanna give up what he had.
And Jesus looked around at all of his disciples and he said, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were amazed by his words because they thought that when a person was wealthy, they must be blessed by God and yet here Jesus is saying, it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
And then in verse 26, it says, they were exceedingly astonished and they said to him, then who can be saved? If this rich man can't be saved, who can be saved? And Jesus said, with man it is impossible, but not with God for all things are possible with God.
It is not possible for us to be saved by any work of ours or by anything that we possess in this earth. It is only possible to be saved through Jesus Christ, our Lord. His sacrifice on the cross, his resurrection from the grave is the only thing that will save us from death, give us right standing with God and have eternal life with our creator.
It is only through Jesus Christ. So the lowly brother boast in his exaltation because of Christ, the rich man in his humiliation because the rich man needs to understand like a flower of the grass, he will pass away for the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flower falls, its beauty perishes.
So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. The pursuit of worldly things ultimately amounts to nothing. It is in the pursuit of Christ that we become fellow heirs of the kingdom of God.
Dear God, I ask that we would be remembered of the great sacrifice that was necessary for us to have right standing with you. It took the sacrifice of the son of God on the cross for our sins to be forgiven and for us to have eternal life with God.
And we have become fellow heirs of the kingdom of God if we are in Christ. So teach us to turn from worldly things and turn our eyes upon Jesus. And it is in his name that we pray, amen. What can wash away my sin
Nothing but the blood of Jesus What can make me whole again Nothing but the blood of Jesus Oh, precious is the fast snow No, nothing but the blunt eye Nothing but the blood of sin, righteousness Nothing but makes me other
This has been East from West, a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Five days a week, Monday through Friday, we offer a half-hour daily Bible study through this program.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday is a New Testament study. On Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. And on Friday, we take questions from the listeners. Subscribe to the podcast or find other ministry resources at our website, eastfromwest .org.
On behalf of Pastor Gabe and our church family, my name is Becky, hoping you'll join us again tomorrow as we continue our study of God's Word.