Believers Should Be Behavers!
James 1:1
There seems to be a tendency in our generation for those who say they are Christians to somehow fail to understand that their Christian faith is to have an impact upon their daily behavior. There seems to be some kind of disconnect between faith and life; and for many who call themselves Christians, their Christian faith is like a coat they put on for Sunday. They put their coat on and go through the motions of their Christian life or their Christian belief on Sunday. When the day is over, they take off their coat of faith and they live the rest of the days of that week just as they please.
Why is that true? Why is it that many people who say they are saved and say they are going to heaven when they die, seem to have no understanding that what they believe is to impact the way they are to behave?
I can see only one or two reasons for this. It may be that though they have professed to be Christians and profess to be saved, and they have not really been saved. In II Corinthians 5, verse 17, the Bible says, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." If your conversion experience has not impacted your behavior in a positive kind of way, there is some reason to doubt whether or not you have truly experienced salvation.
When I see a bird and it looks like a duck, it's got feathers like a duck, it waddles around like a duck and it quacks like a duck, I come to the conclusion that it is a duck. When I see people who look like the world, act like the world, behave like the world, I am driven to certain conclusions. So it may be that there are some who profess to be Christians and yet they have never really received Christ as their personal Savior.
The other reason may be that there are some who have truly been saved, but for whatever reason, they have never come to understand the moral imperatives of the Christian life. They have never understood that to know Christ as your Savior is to affect the way you live in your Christian life.
There are many places in the Bible where this connection is clearly made. In Ephesians 5, verse 3, the Word of God says, "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints." What he's saying is, "Don't let these kinds of lifestyle behaviors be characteristic of those who are saints." He's saying the saints ought to live saintly lives. Believers should be behaviors.
Interestingly enough, there is a book in the Bible, that especially deals with the matter of Christian behavior. It’s called the book of James, and in it God has given to us a very practical and down-to-earth book. It is a book which deals with how we are to live our life now that we know Christ as our Savior. O.S. Hawkins wrote a book on the book of James that he entitled “Getting Down to Brass Tacks”.
It is extremely practical. So if you want to know how to live the Christian life, or you struggle with the discipline of living for God and fleshing out your faith, then I don't know of any better book in all of the Bible than the book of James to study because James deals with where the rubber hits the road. He deals with Christian behavior in a very detailed and intense way.
I want to open up the door of the book of James. I want us to look at this introductory first verse. There are only two major considerations in this verse. First of all we are told about the one who is writing, and second of all we are told about the ones who are reading.
I. The One Who Is Writing.
He begins by saying, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." There are several “Jameses” mentioned in the Bible. One of them was a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is almost universally believed by Bible teachers that this particular James is the James who was the half brother of our Lord Jesus. They had the same mother, but they did not have the same father. Mary was the mother of both of them, but James' father was Joseph and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ was none other than the heavenly Father because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. It is probably it is this James who is the writer of this book.
We know several things about him. When you piece together all of the verses in the New Testament that have to do with this man James, you have a very thrilling and fascinating and exciting story.
We know that he was one of the brothers of the Lord Jesus. He was the half brother of the Lord Jesus. Jesus had brothers and sisters. There were other children born into this family of Mary and Joseph after Jesus. Jesus was the big brother of the family.
But in the Gospel of Mark 6, verse 3, we read, "Is not this the carpenter (he's talking about Jesus), the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and of Judas, and Simon?" So we know he had at least four brothers. "And are not his sisters (plural) here with us?" We know He had at least two sisters. "And they were offended at him," that is the people in Nazareth. So Jesus was brought up in a home where He had brothers and sisters.
As you read the story you will discover that the little village of Nazareth where Jesus was brought up rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. That had to be embarrassing by the members of the family and by the peers in the family of the Lord. Jesus, in this very context, says in Mark 6, "A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house."
Jesus experienced one of the bitterest of human sorrow, rejection by His home town and rejection by His own family. In fact, one time the Bible tells us that the brothers of the Lord thought He had lost His mind. They thought He had gone insane and so they came to where Jesus was and they were going to take Him home. How embarrassing it must have been to think that you have a brother and he's not just exactly right.
When you read the story you will discover that the family members of Jesus Christ, His brothers and sisters, did not believe in Him. In fact, there was absolute open disbelief in John 7 on one occasion. The brothers of Jesus said to Him, "If you are who you say you are, go show what you're doing before your disciples. Nobody who seeks to be known does what he does in secret. Go up to Jerusalem and do it openly." John 7 says, "Because his own brothers did not believe in him."
You may recall that when the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross of Calvary that it was not a brother of Jesus, it was John, one of the apostles, to whom Jesus gave the responsibility of taking care of His precious mother, Mary. The brothers were nowhere to be seen that day on the cross.
There was a physical relationship, his relationship with Jesus in terms of the family. But we know after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection of our Lord, that something happened to this brother James.
In I Corinthians 15 when it begins to give the resurrection appearances of the Lord and the people to whom Jesus revealed Himself, it says in I Corinthians 15, verse 7, "After that, he was seen of James." Somehow the living Lord Jesus Christ manifested Himself in reality to His brother James, and James had a conversion experience. He received Jesus Christ, not as his brother, but now as his Savior, and he entered in, not to a family relationship, but he entered into a faith relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that all through those years, the one who was brought up in his very home was none other than the Son of God, was none other than the Savior of the world.
When the disciples were gathered in the upper room before the Day of Pentecost, the Bible tells us that the brothers of Jesus were there. James was right there, and we discover that he became one of the leaders of the early church. In fact, Galatians 2, verse 9, says that along with Simon Peter and with John, James was one of the pillars of the church.
You may recall that when Paul came to settle the great issue of what salvation is and they had that early church council in Acts 15, that finally when the two sides were presented, it was James who stood up and became the spokesman of the congregation. It was James whose words of wisdom were used on that occasion. He was a great leader in the church of the Lord.
James became a very devout man. He is known as James the Just. They tell us that James had a nickname. They called James "old camel knees." The reason they say they called James "camel knees" is because he spent so much time on his knees in prayer that he developed calluses on his knees just like camels have. Would to God that you and I spent so much time on our knees in prayer that we would develop like calluses. James the Just, old camel knees. What a wonderful man of God James was.
What does he say about himself? What would you say? How would you describe yourself? In this first verse he says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."
The word servant is literally a bond slave. You might expect James to say, "I'm a brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm a pillar of the church.
I'm a leader of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ." He doesn't refer to himself as the brother of the Jesus nor as a leader of the church, but he refers to himself as a slave, someone who is in abject, humble submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. "James, a bond slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."
What does he say about Jesus? Does he say this Jesus was just my brother? No. He says that He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the full title of the Lord Jesus.
James is writing about the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ! What's the point? Why have I gone into all of this detail about the one who is writing, James? James was brought up in the same family where Jesus was. He saw the behavior of Jesus on a daily basis.
Here is one of the brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ who saw the life of the Lord Jesus Christ for approximately 30 years, and he saw that Jesus Christ practiced the faith that he professed. He saw that Jesus Christ lived out in His daily experience, in His relationships at home, the things that He was preaching.
If one of your peers should be called upon to write a book describing what the Christian faith is, and they wrote that book on the basis of how you lived that Christian faith in front of them in the home, what would the substance of that book be? What James is saying is, "I saw Him. I observed His behavior. The Lord Jesus Christ practiced what He preached."
Now think about that: I’ve told you that James is a very practical book about how to live the Christian life.
What a perfect choice James is to write the book. He was a first hand observer of the Lord Jesus. And as a witness to his life, he then writes as a pastor and preacher.
And and as you read this book of James, it's almost as if you are reading sermon notes. What we're doing here is just reading a compilation, evidently, of the sermon notes of this man, James. He writes and he preaches like an Old Testament prophet. His words are filled with illustrations and pictures. You can see that Nazareth background of himself and the Lord Jesus Christ as he writes.
Sometimes you see that directness and bluntness of the prophet. You see that tender heart as he writes and addressed them as brothers. He talks to them about his dear brothers. As he writes you can almost see the Sermon on the Mount. It's as if he's giving a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus talked about the birds in the air and He talked about the lilies of the field and He used illustrations from nature. Now James is coming along and writing a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount which his brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, preached. That's the one who's writing this book and that's why it's important for us to listen to him.
II. The Ones Who Are Reading.
I want you to notice the second consideration in this verse. Not only the one who is writing, James the brother of our Lord, but second, the ones who are reading.
Who are the ones who are reading this particular letter? We learn first of all to whom it is addressed. He says, "To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting." You will notice the similarity between the way James begins his letter and the way Simon Peter began his first letter. There are similarities.
James is specifically addressing this letter to those he calls the twelve tribes scattered abroad. The twelve tribes is a reference, of course, to Israel. He is writing to Jews and Jews who are scattered into many parts in the world, the Jewish dispersion.
In those days there were Jews who were scattered all over the world. Peter is evidently writing to the dispersion in the eastern world. James is writing to the dispersion in the western world. In particular, he is writing to Jewish Christians. Most of the early believers were Jewish in nationality.
Some of them living in many other parts of the world would come to Jerusalem for feast days; and on the Day of Pentecost, evidently they came to Jerusalem and many of them were converted, and they went back and they were dispersed and scattered out there into many different cultures and into many different nations.
James is writing to those people who are scattered abroad, like seeds, scattered out in a field. Now obviously, there are some advantages as far as opportunities were concerned as they were scattered.
But the emphasis in James I think is on something else. To be scattered into the cultures of the world was an opportunity, but it was also a difficulty because these believers were going to be living out there in a culture that was hostile to the Christian faith and very different in the behavior and lifestyle from what the Christian faith was intended to be.
It was a culture that was difficult to the extreme. These believers were living out there in a different kind of culture and in a different kind of morality. They were living in a culture where the business world was dishonest and where it was unjust. Art and drama in those days was depraved and shameless. The family life in the culture of that day was in absolute disarray. Families were on the verge of collapse. Does that sound familiar to any of you tonight?
He's talking to a group of people, believers, who are living in that kind of culture. The danger of any group of people is that they take on the atmosphere of the culture where they live. That is exactly what was happening to these early Christians. They were Christians and were called to a higher standard of life, and yet they found themselves under tremendous pressure from the world around them.
Actually, from what happened historically we know this is true. Some of these Christians began to adopt the languages of the world around them. They began to adopt the morality and lifestyle of the world around them to the point that you could hardly tell these people were Christians at all. The world so influenced these early Christians that they lost their distinctiveness. They lost their Christian testimony.
In fact, archeologists have discovered in some of the churches of these believers in western cultures pictures of the pagan gods that were drawn on the walls of the churches. We here echoes of that today in all the appeals for everyone to just get along and accept one another’s beliefs and religions and all are equal. That's the ones to whom this letter is addressed.
But let me remind you, this letter, though it was addressed to a particular group of people, applies to all believers and it applies to you and to me. Not all of the Bible is directly addressed to us, but all of the Bible applies to us. That's why when I pick up the Word of God, written 2,000 years ago, I preach it and I apply it to you because when God revealed this truth to these New Testament writers, He was revealing eternal truth. He was revealing timeless truth.
The problems of people today are basically the same. They have never changed. The problems believers had 2,000 years ago, believers are having in the year 2010. He is talking now to Christian kids going to schools in the midst of lost kids. He is talking to business people who are working in an atmosphere of business which is not Christian. He is talking to people in social settings who are believers, but they are in social settings which are not Christian in their convictions.
The same difficulties believers had in the days of James are the difficulties believers are having today.
And like them, our difficulties are our opportunities.
Believers who are called to know the Lord and to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, though their difficulty maybe living in a culture that is hostile to the faith and puts tremendous pressure on you, it is also our opportunity.
I don't think there has ever been a better time to live the Christian faith than there is right now. It is more exciting. There are more opportunities for people who know the Lord by life and by lip to manifest the story of Jesus Christ and to live the Christian life than any other time I have ever known in my existence.
People are looking for purpose in life. They're looking for meaning in life. They're looking for hope in life and if you just live the Christian life they'll see there's a difference.
A father gave his son a globe of the world. One night after the little boy was asleep the dad went into his room to get the globe. He wanted to locate a country on the globe. He got the globe and on the way out the little boy woke up. He saw his dad with the globe in his hand and the little boy said, "Dad, what are you doing with my world?"
Christian, I want to rephrase that. "Christian, what are you doing to impact your world with the life of a believer that shows this old world there's a better way to go. There's a happier way to live.
Let's bow our heads and pray.
