James, the Son of Zebedee
Making a Difference in the World
James, the Son of Zebedee:
A Faith That Shook the World
Mark 3:13-17
 
This morning we are continuing our series of studies on the 12 ordinary men known as the Twelve Apostles that were called by Jesus to accomplish some very extraordinary things.
 
This morning we are going to be learning about the person and the passion of a man by the name of "James, the son of Zebedee."  And before we get too far involved, I want to just clarify something that can be confusing.
 
There are three prominent men in the New Testament who were named James.  One of them was the half-brother of Jesus.  That is the “James” who wrote what we call the book of James.  He was also the pastor of the church in Jerusalem.
 
Then there was "James, the son of Alphaeus" who was also an apostle and most likely Matthew's brother. He is sometimes called “James the Less”.
 
Today we are talking about "James, the son of Zebedee."  He was a part of that triad of friends who were kind of the inner circle of Jesus.  Quite often we read about Peter, James and John.  That is the James we study today.
 
And just to be honest, of those three men who were the closest to Jesus, we probably know less about this man than either of the others.
 
In fact, as you study your Bible you will find no explicit details of his life and personality.  Whenever he is mentioned, he's always tied together to his younger and better-known brother, John.  In fact, the only time that James is mentioned in the Bible by himself is when we are told that he was beheaded at the command of Herod Agrippa and even then he's referred to as John's brother.
 
And yet, the times that we do see and hear James in the pages of scripture, there is one thing that you can't get away from and that is the fact that there was a confidence and a passion and a zeal to his personality that is very compelling and convicting to read about even today.
 
As a matter of fact, it was this part of his person that probably caused Jesus to name him and John "the sons of thunder."
 
Mark 3:13-17
 
This is one of the 3 main lists that detail for us the names of the twelve men that Jesus chose to follow Him and fulfill his mission and ministry upon this earth, and from this list we discover that James and John are nicknamed by the Lord “The Sons of Thunder”.
 
What did Jesus mean when He gave this nickname to the two sons of a fisherman by the name of Zebedee?
 
Some speculate it was a compliment.  Others say it was a constant reminder of a character flaw that needed attention. Others say it simply described their personality and attitude.
But even if all of that was true, what did Jesus mean when He called James and his brother, "sons of thunder?
 
It helps me to think about it logically.  Certainly those of us who’ve been around southern Oklahoma for very long know what thunder is.
 
Most of us have had the experience of watching a thunderstorm brew and roll in.  There is that sweet smell of rain before it actually starts to fall.  There is that noticeable drop in temperature.  You can watch the clouds forming and moving and coming together.
 
And then there would be the thunder - loud and powerful.  The first clap will make you almost jump out of your skin it seems so close.  The windows rattle; the house shakes; the ground moves and everyone knows a storm is brewing.
 
I think that’s what James was like.  I picture him as loud and powerful and just like a building thunderstorm, he shook the world with his forceful faith as he announced the coming of the Lord.
 
And even though our details are few, as we look at James, we gather that he had an all-consuming zeal and a passion for Jesus that must have vibrated in his voice and shown on his face. He couldn't do anything half-way, or shoddy for his Savior, and in that he was only rivaled by one other disciple, Simon Peter.
 
Everything that he was and everything that he had, his body and his soul and his spirit, was laid out as an offering for his Lord, both in his life and in his death.
And so, there are so many positive things that we can see in and say about James, but the main thing that I want you to catch this morning is that if a fisherman from Galilee can shake the world by his faith in Jesus, so can you and so can I.
 
Let me give you a very simple outline of some of the things I observe about James, the son of Zebedee and his faith that shook the world.
 
First,
 
1.  His Early Life
 
Now, I know that we're already on the third disciple that is mentioned in Luke chapter 6, the list that we've been following over the course of this series of studies, but I want to make sure that you understand that these men, James included, had an early, earthly life before they ever met Jesus and were called to follow Him.
 
I say that, because I get the feeling that a lot of times we tend to view these men in a vacuum. Somehow these men just kind of showed up on the scene out of nowhere, and started to follow Jesus.
 
Most of the time when someone is hesitant to follow the Lord it’s for one of two reasons.  Either they think they are too good to need Jesus or too bad to deserve Jesus.  In fact, it’s a whole lot easier to reach those who know they are bad than to reach those who think they are good.
 
 
 
 
If you think you are too bad for God to save you, you need to realize everyone has a past.  And all of it is ugly and regretful and we’d love to make it go away.  And the good news is, in spite of our past, in fact, because of our past, Jesus chose to love us and die on the cross and raise from the dead so we wouldn’t have to be bound to our past forever.  
 
Never lose sight of the fact that Jesus picked real, ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill men to follow Him and to become His disciples.  He knew their faults and their failures.  He knew their strengths and their shortcomings.  He knew their personalities and their potential.  Jesus knew everything about them, and in spite of that, or maybe even because of those very things, He called them to follow Him.
 
And one of those who He called to follow Him was an ordinary man by the name of James.
 
Now, who and what was James, the son of Zebedee when Jesus called him?  What does the Bible tell us about him?
 
He was a fisherman.  He was called on the same day and really at the same place that Peter and Andrew and his brother John were called.  If you'll remember, I've told you that they kind of had a fishing partnership together. (Matthew 4:18-19)
 
His father's name was Zebedee, a prosperous fisherman and an influential religious and political leader from Galilee.  Zebedee was known as a friend of the High Priest, Caiaphas and his family.  The Bible tells us that Zebedee had servants that helped him in the management and the operation of his fishing boats.
His mother's name was Salome.  There are some who believe that she was a sister of Jesus' mother, Mary, which would help us in understanding why she did some of the things that she did and said some of the things that she said.  This would also make James a physical cousin of Jesus.
 
His name means "supplanter" which means "one who grabs at the sole or the foot of another."  It's the idea of somebody who's trying to trip up the person in front of them in order to get ahead of them.  That may explain why his mother asked Jesus to let her two boys sit on his right and left hands when he came into His kingdom.  He may well have been being pushed to be pre-eminent.
 
Like we've already said, he was a lightning bolt looking for a place to hit. And zeal and enthusiasm is a great virtue.  In fact, I wish a whole lot more people had it.  I get so aggravated with those of God’s people who mope around with dead lice falling off of them.
 
We drag in to church like it’s the hardest chore of the week.  In fact many of you can’t even find the energy to return on Sunday night and Wednesday night is out of the question.  We sing, if we sing at all, half-heartedly and with mere ritual.  Wecan find no time or desire to go out on visitation.
 
And often times we are merely going through the motions which may explain the emptiness in our life and our church.  So I’m all for some zeal, and not just a worked-up kind of cheerleader mentality, but a zeal that stems from and grows out of our relationship with the Lord.
 
That’s what I picture in James.  He was like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse.  But sometimes that zeal has to be managed and controlled to be effective because it can expressive its self in improper ways if we aren’t being controlled by the Holy Spirit.  And sometimes it’s our temper.  I have an idea James was a hot-head.  Have you ever noticed how God has a way of taming a terrible temper?
 
I heard about an old boy who was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street.  Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
 
The tailgating woman hit the roof--and the horn--screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.
He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.
 
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
 
He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake.  You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him.
 
 
I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk.  Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."
 
That's a good illustration of just one of the personal problems that James had to deal with, and ultimately overcome through the Spirit's power, in order for Jesus to use him the way He wanted to.
 
So, the thing that I want you to understand as we look at his early life is that here was an ordinary man, with everyday issues (one of which was a terrible temper), who was transformed into a dedicated disciple using that same zeal and enthusiasm for othe Lord..
 
2.  His Explosive Love
 
Have you ever heard somebody make the statement, "Well, I'm a lover, not a fighter?"  Hey, when it came to James, he was both.
 
Can't you imagine what it must have been like for Salome, the mother of James and John, when they were growing up?  I can just hear her now, "James and John, you stop fighting right this instant!  I'll tell you what, I just can't take you two boys anywhere."
 
And the next minute they'd be playing together like best friends, which evidently they were, because whenever you see them on the pages of scripture, they're always together.  As a matter of fact, most bible scholars believe that when Jesus sent them out two-by-two that James and John probably went out together.
He was in Jesus' inner-circle, along with Peter and John, and was allowed to see and be a part of things that nobody else ever did.  He was there when Jesus raised Jairus' daughter from the dead.  He was there to witness Jesus' glory on the Mount of Transfiguration.  He was among four disciples to get to question Jesus in private on the Mount of Olives.  And he was included again with John and Peter when the Lord asked them to personally pray for Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
 
He was definitely a man of action, not a man of words, because as far as we know scripture doesn't give us any words that he spoke or wrote.
 
I guess other than having the Savior nickname you a son of thunder, the best example of this is found in Luke chapter 9.  Jesus was going to go to Jerusalem for the Passover, and he decided to pass through Samaria.
 
 
Now, for the sake of time, I won't go through all of reasons why that was a big deal, but let me just say this -- the shortest route from Galilee to Jerusalem went right through Samaria, but most Jews went through the barren desert of Perea, which meant that they had to go many, many miles out of the way, cross the Jordan river twice, just to keep from going through Samaria.  So, needless to say, this was a big deal that Jesus, a Jew was going to go through Samaria.
 
But listen to what Luke 9:51-53
 
Now, this wasn't the first time that Jesus had gone through Samaria, and He had always treated them kindly and with respect, which was more than you could say about other Jews who referred to them as "dogs," but in spite of that, they wouldn't receive Him, they rejected Him.
 
So, listen to what James and John decide would be the best course of action for Jesus.
 
Verse 54
 
There's Christian love for you.
 
Now, theologically and historically there is all kind of significance in that statement.  Again, the Jews couldn't stand the Samaritans, so there was more than a little bit of prejudice here.  Samaria was associated with pagan worship, so the idea of calling down fire like Elijah did on the prophets of Baal was a pretty good analogy.  But there is a personal significance in that statement as well.
 
Remember we’re talking about the explosive love of James.  James loved Jesus, and the idea of somebody mistreating Jesus or rejecting Jesus was unacceptable, and so he decided that the best thing to do was just fry their chicken! Again, if James was for you, he was for you; but if he was against you, he was against you.
 
I find it interesting that the brother of James, John is referred to in Scripture as "the beloved disciple" or "the disciple who Jesus loved," but it seems to me that while John was the disciple whom Jesus loved, James was the disciple who loved Jesus.
 
 
 
It is a rare commodity to find that person who loves Jesus supremely and hot-heartedly.  Do you love Jesus like James?  Do you love Him more than your family?  Do you love Him more than your friends?  Do you love Him more than your finances or even your future?  James did.  He loved Him with a red, hot, passionate, all-consuming love.  He even loved Him enough to go the ultimate distance and love Jesus more than his own life.
 
Turn over to Acts 12, and let me show you the last thing that I want you to see about this son of thunder.
 
3.  His Enduring Legacy
 
Acts 12:1-2
 
Back in Matthew 20, the mother of James and John had asked Jesus to give her boys a special place in His Kingdom, and Jesus responded by saying to them, ""You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able."
 
23  So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."
 
The cup and the baptism of pain and death were his.  Fourteen years after he accepted the call to follow Jesus, James was beheaded.  
 
 
You want to know what kind of man James was?  Herod decided to persecute the church and the first guy he went after was James and he chopped off his head. And they took Peter and put him in jail. Do you know what that tells me?  Peter was not as big a problem as James.  And apparently he didn't even think about Peter until he was told that it would please the Jews if he did that. It was James he was after.
 
One of the sons of thunder. He was filled with zeal. He was filled with ambition. He was filled with strong and intolerant feelings. And Christ had to harness all of that and make all of that into something useful and make him a pillar in the church.
What kind of people does God use? Well, He uses the great leaders like Peter. He uses the quiet, behind-the-scenes, obscure, faithful people like Andrew. And He also can use the brash, courageous, ambitious, zealous, sometimes loveless, insensitive selfish people like James.
He was the second of the martyrs and the first of the apostles to give his life for Christ and the first to be beheaded with a sword. 
 
But like Jim Elliot, the missionary made martyr when he was killed by South American Indians in the 1950's said, "He is no fool who give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
 
Let’s pray