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Sacramento Central SDA Church

The Book of James

Chris Buttery

The Book of James: James, the Lord’s Brother

The basis of our study material, as we have been doing and will continue to do, is the Sabbath School Quarterly, produced by the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And during our time together, each day, each lesson, we'll bring fresh biblical insights, and we trust it'll enlarge your understanding of God's Word and lead you closer to Jesus.

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Well, we're going to go right into our study, and we're going to be delving into our new quarterly lesson and we're going to be studying the book of James.

And I hope you've got your lesson, I trust you've been thumbing through it, opening your Bible during this week to look at the lesson and are ready to be engaged here and look at this exciting study.

Before we get to the book of James, and you might as well open there, you're welcome to do so, Before we get into the actual content of the book of James, we want to be asking those 5 W's, the 5 W's, the who, the what, the why, and the when.

It was Thomas Wilson that wrote, who, what, and where, by what help and by whose, why, how, and when do many things disclose?

And they were memorialized by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories in which a poem accompanying the tale of the Elephant's Child opens, and he wrote this little poem.

I keep 6 honest serving men, they taught me all I knew.

Their names are what and why and when and how and where and who, That's right.

So it's come to be known as the Kipling Method.

And so we're going to be asking some of those questions here during this lesson to find out who the, well I want to say who the author of the book of James is.

We know who the author of the book of James is, but we want to know who James was, and who was he writing to, and for what purpose and intention.

And we're going to look at that here in today's lesson.

And then the following preceding weeks, we're going to delve right into the content of the book of James.

And so we want to be informed about who the author is, give us some background, and by doing so, we'll just shed a little bit of light on the content of the book of James.

All right, so we're gonna go over to Sunday's lesson here and take a look here at James, the brother of Jesus.

And if you have your Bible too, turn with me to James 1 and verse 1 and notice how the book of James opens.

It's very simple and yet it is rich and we'll seek to unpack this here.

It says in James 1 and verse 1, James a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad." So a very succinct opening and introduction.

He reveals, The author of the book reveals himself as James, a fellow servant or bond servant of God and Jesus Christ, and he's writing to the 12 tribes scattered abroad.

Now James' name is in the Greek, Iakobos, and is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Jacob, which was a very familiar and common name in first century Judaism.

Now there are many references in the New Testament to men named James.

As a matter of fact, I went ahead and counted them and there are 40 references to James.

Now, there's not 40 different Jameses, but they are some of the same, some are not.

James was the brother of John, that's right.

That's 1 of them, the sons of, do you remember?

Sons of Zebedee, but they're also known as the sons of thunder.

So you've got James and John, and then you've also got James, who's the son of Alphaeus.

And so you've got 2 disciples that were named James.

Also, a father of 1 of the disciples, that is Judas, not Iscariot, but Judas, his name was James.

So a father of 1 of the disciples' name was James as well, and you can read that in Luke chapter 6 and verse 16.

Now it's reasonable to suppose the author of James is 1 of these, or 1 of these Jameses already mentioned in the Bible, and that's pretty obvious, because when you read, and we just read James 1, 1, he just comes right in and says, James, a servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is to the audience, they knew, they would know who was writing.

He doesn't say, I'm James and I'm the son of, or I'm associated with, and I work here, and this is my background.

He just said, hey, this is James speaking to you.

And so in this congregation, if a letter came out to you and said, hey, this is from Chris, a servant of God.

And well, if it had the letterhead of central on it, you would know it'd be coming from 1 of your pastors.

Now if I said, if a letter came to you and the name was Mike, Now you might be a little tricky.

We've got now 2 Michaels here pastoring the church.

So it's assumed that the audience knew who was writing this particular letter.

Now it can't be the brother of John because he died around AD 44 and this letter was written a little bit after that from what scholars tell us.

James, there was only 1 prominent James that existed in the church at the time of the writing of this particular book.

So we know it's not James the brother of John, the sons of Zebedee or the sons of thunder.

Another James is mentioned, and he's the first mentioned brother of Jesus.

And let's take a look at that in Matthew 13, verse 55.

Matthew 13, verse 55, and notice what it says.

Matthew 13, 55, it tells us, is this not the carpenter's son, talking about Jesus?

Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers, notice, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas.

And so 1 of the brothers of Jesus was named James.

And you can also reference that in Mark chapter 6 and verse 3.

Paul also mentions that he saw this James in Jerusalem after he'd returned after his conversion.

And you can read that in Galatians 119, which we'll get to shortly.

Now elsewhere in the New Testament, mention is made of a leader in the church by the name of James.

And he comes to prominence right after the death of John's brother James.

And you can read about that in Acts chapter 12 and verse 1 where it says that Herod sent out men and they slew James with the sword.

If you jump down to verse 17, another James is introduced and it seems as though he's a leader of the church.

And so that's, right away we know that certainly this James who wrote this book isn't the brother of John, and we've mentioned that already.

Subsequent references are made of this James.

1 is significant in that it shows that James, this James, is very likely James whose brother was Jesus.

Now I want you to turn with me to Galatians chapter 2.

Galatians 2, and we'll get some folk reading some scriptures here and asking some questions in a bit.

Galatians 2, and we're looking at verse 9.

Galatians 2, verse 9, it says, and when James, Cephas, that's Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship and that we should go to the Gentiles and they to be or to the circumcised.

The Book of James: The Perfecting of Our Faith

And we're going to be delving into our second lesson in the quarterly, in the book of James.

And as Kula mentioned, we're going to be studying here the perfecting, about the perfecting of our faith, or at least reviewing our lesson together.

And for those who are tuning in and viewing us and watching us here we're glad that you joined us as well and we want to make sure that you know that you can call in or email in anytime to pick up your copy of the CD or the DVD presentation of the lesson.

And you can call in to 916-457-6511 or you can email CSH, that stands for Central Study Hour, CSH at saccentral.org.

You want to call in and receive your copy of that.

Okay, well we are here and we are getting into the book of James and It is exciting and riveting.

And by the way, if you go and go into our website, which is sackscentral.org, you can also view the edited version of this class and you'll also can pick up some study notes.

And so those will be available as well there on our website.

And so let's go on our Bibles here to the book of James as we launch in to our study and talk about this.

As someone told me once that pesky word perfection.

We're going to talk a little bit about that and discover what it means, Christian perfection, biblical perfection, character perfection, what it is and what it isn't.

And by the time we're done here today, hopefully we'll be encouraged in the Lord and strengthened and our faith will be certain here.

You may recall if you're a car lover and have followed the production of vehicles along the way.

Toyoda, issued a challenge to build the world's best car.

And so This challenge prompted Toyota to embark on what was then known as a top secret project name codenamed F1, and that stood for Flagship 1.

The F1 project aimed to develop a flagship sedan that would expand Toyota's production line, offering both long-time and new customers an upmarket product.

6 years later, 1989, after an extended development process involving 60 designers, 24 engineering teams, 1, 400 engineers, 2, 300 technicians, 220 support workers, approximately 450 prototypes, and over $1 billion US dollars in costs, the F1 project was finally completed.

The resulting flagship was, does anyone know?

That was the flagship prototype, or the resulting flagship was the Lexus LS 400.

And its debut, the LS 400 was widely praised for its quietness, for well appointed and ergonomic interior, engine performance, built quality, it was quality built, aerodynamics, fuel economy and value.

So the original Lexus slogan, does anyone know what that original Lexus slogan was?

Well it was developed after Team 1 representatives visited Lexus designers in Japan, and they noticed the incredible attention to detail.

And they came up with this motto, the relentless pursuit of perfection.

Lexus manufacturers may have discovered the truth about the big picture about biblical perfection that many have missed.

And we'll talk about the Apostle Paul in when we get to reading Philippians chapter 4 in just a little bit.

But like the Apostle Paul, when he said, "'I press toward the mark I have not attained, "'but I press toward the mark, ' many, They think they have, they never think they've arrived.

They are relentlessly pursuing the prize, continuing to aim high, never lowering the standards, and always pursuing the goal of Christ-likeness of character.

That was Paul, what Paul strove for, and that's what you and I are striving for.

Always learning how to be more gracious, more considerate, more courageous, more like Jesus.

But always trusting, and this is the key and we'll talk more about this as we go along, always trusting that the author of our faith, the 1 who began our faith, will also complete and finish our faith.

You see, He is the perfecter of our faith.

So what God has begun in us, he will be faithful to perform.

You can read that in Philippians 1, verse 6.

God is with us from the beginning and right through the very end.

Some folk get the idea in their minds that well, we come to Jesus, Jesus forgives us and then sends us on our way and we're kind of on our own.

What He's begun in us, He will be faithful to perform and complete in us as we cooperate with Him.

So We'll talk more about this idea of the perfecting of our faith.

Keep in mind Alexis' motto, the relentless pursuit of perfection.

That was Paul's goal, and that's the goal of the Christian.

That's what we are pursuing in our walk with Jesus.

So we'll chat about what that looks like because when we talk about, as someone said, the P word, perfection, some folks get a little bent out of shape and a little concerned that we're talking about something that is not biblical.

And for sure, the concept of perfection is very, very biblical.

So we're going to go over to Sunday's lesson And we're going to just start right in there.

And talk a little bit here about the persistence of faith.

Hebrews 11.1 is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

It's basically, if we condensed it, it would be simply taking God at His Word.

And if God's Word encourages us to obey God in some particular area in our lives, and faith obeys.

Faith is a set of beliefs founded on God's word and carried about in our lives.

So when we talk about my faith or our faith, we're talking here about a way of life as we follow Jesus.

That's what we're referring to, the faith that I believe or the faith that I have or our faith, my faith.

Now this faith, this lifestyle is to grow and is to last irrespective of difficulties and trials, and that's God's plan for you and for me.

And I would hazard to say, and I think we'd all agree, trials are just an inevitable part of life.

And so, as a Christian, are we going to escape challenges or trials?

Most people have challenges, whether they believe in Jesus or not.

They're not going to escape challenges and difficulties either, but there are greater challenges and difficulties that come to the Christian.

When we side up on Jesus' side and we become friends with Jesus, we adopt Jesus' enemies.

There is an enemy who the Bible calls is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

He's a big roaring lion trying to not just delay us, not just to frustrate us, although he does those things, but also to destroy us.

And so certainly trials come to the Christian life.

And so we're going to take a look at a few verses here and and look at what they had to say about trials for the Christians.

Notice what Peter says about trials or the trial of our faith.

He says, "...in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved, you have been grieved or distressed by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Wow, powerful.

Here in Peter's synopsis of the Christian life, he presents the Christian as being bombarded by annoyances, by problems, by disappointments, by different things that Satan uses basically to destroy our faith.

If the devil can destroy a believer's faith, he's got them.

The faith is like the anchor point in a Christian's life.

Personal faith, like gold, as Peter describes it here, like gold, gets tested to check its value or that its value might be determined.

And so Peter writing here about the Christian's faith being tried, it's much more precious than what?

Now with gold prices the way they are today, that's pretty precious.

And that gold, that faith, needs be tried according to what Peter says here.

The Book of James: Enduring Temptation

Lesson number 3, the title is Enduring Temptation, and we'll be getting right into that.

As a matter of fact, we'll be looking at James chapter 1 and several verses in the book of James and unpacking those for us here today.

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Send in your comments, let us know how things are going, how you enjoy the program.

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James, and you probably have your Bibles open, if not, turn with me to James chapter 1 and we're going to look at several verses here as we unpack this very important topic, enduring temptation.

You know, I'm not typically known for debating, but when I was in high school, sometimes I'd have sleepovers with our friends, and I would visit with my particular friends.

1 particular friend was not a believer in creation, actually believed in the teaching, the theory of evolution.

Now I hadn't made a conscious decision to serve Jesus at that time, but I knew we didn't come from goo and end up in the zoo to what we are today.

We came from the hand of a creator, an intelligent designer.

So here we are, we're getting ready to sleep and this very deep subject breaks out and we're having this discussion about evolution and creation and then the conversation took a bit of a turn and we started talking about the nature of humanity and who we are, our makeup, And I was using, I used the word temptation in the discussion.

We were discussing the problem of doing wrong.

And so have you ever been tempted before?

And my friend responded and, well, at least he asked the question.

And for the first time I recognized that some folk don't know what it is.

Because in our own natural state, we just go along with the flow, go along with what naturally pulls us to this thing or to that thing, and we don't resist anything, and so therefore, we're not feeling, there's no temptation is what I gather my friend was arriving at.

The Oxford Dictionary answers the question, what is temptation?

A desire to do something especially wrong or unwise.

It's a desire to do something especially wrong or unwise.

Now contrary to my friend, the Christian life is filled with struggles, filled with challenges.

We no longer just float with the current.

Now if you've ever been out here on the American River, or any river for that matter, and you're going with the current, it's pretty easy just to get in your boat and go downstream.

Now what happens if you reach a point where you don't want to be and you want to get back to where you need to be, then you've got to start paddling upstream and it's not that easy to do.

You're going against the current in the ocean.

Sometimes there's even an undercurrent that you've got to be careful of.

And the Christian life is not 1 of going with the flow, but we're paddling upstream because we're resisting the things that we didn't used to resist, that we just succumb to, the things we just used to do.

We have a new set of principles, new goals, these types of things.

Not easy to paddle upstream, But by God's grace, we can endure.

When I was living in the tropics in northern Australia, up in Australia, the north is the tropics, the south is the 4 seasons, kind of reversed to what we experience here in the US.

And we lived in Darwin, and in the backyard we grew a mango tree.

And I wasn't a fond, I just didn't like, I wasn't fond of mangoes at all.

These were the stringy mangoes and they didn't look good and I wasn't sure they would taste good either.

1 of the things that turned me off of mangoes as well was the fact that sometimes we'd go out in the yard to play before school or when we get home from school and scattered all along the base of that mango tree were mangoes that had fallen to the ground and they'd been bitten into or half eaten and that was because of the fruit bat.

These were, and it's interesting, the fruit bat, they wouldn't pick the green mangoes.

They would pick the mangoes that were ripe and they would mess them up.

They'd take a bite of 1 and then they'd just drop it on the ground and that 1 was contaminated so we couldn't use that 1, or some were half eaten or whatever, but we'd find out that the fruit bat had gotten to the mangoes.

Series

The Book of James

The Book of James: The Perfecting of Our Faith

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

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