Introduction: The epistle of James, like the epistle of Jude, was written by one of our Lord’s half-brothers. Although James initially rejected Jesus, his half-brother, as his Lord and Savior (John 7:5), he eventually believed (1 Corinthians 15:7) and became the leader of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-21). In Galatians 2:9, the Apostle Paul calls James, along with Peter and John, the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church.
The book of James has been called the Proverbs of the New Testament, because of its wise and practical advice for living. Martin Luther, the famous Protestant Reformer, tore it out of his New Testament, because of his mistaken belief that it teaches salvation by works. The truth, however, is that it teaches a salvation that works, not a works salvation. In other words, James doesn’t teach us that we are saved by our works, but that if we are saved we will work, as a sure sign of our salvation.
James 1:1 — Although he was the half-brother of Christ, James calls Christ his Lord and humbly introduces himself as the mere servant of Christ.
James wrote his epistle to Jewish Christians who were “scattered abroad,” because of the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the first persecution of the church, which broke out under King Herod. (Acts 6:9-7:60; 12:1-4)
James 1:2-4 — When one considers the profit of spiritual maturity produced by our trials, James’ seemingly paradoxical and perplexing admonition—to count it all joy when different trials come upon us—suddenly makes perfect sense.
Because of their spiritual benefits, the bothers and burdens of life should be seen by Christians as blessings.
“We will never be a victorious church until we see suffering as a divine gift.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
James 1:4 — Patience is the proof of spiritual maturity. We know we’ve arrived spiritually when we can sit still and wait on God without angst or alarm.
It is a sure sign of spiritual maturity to patiently leave things in God’s hands rather than to impetuously take them into our own hands.
James 1:5 — Wisdom is found in our prayer closets, not in the ivory towers of academia. God generously gives it to those given to prayer, not to those given parchments.
Knowledge helps you take things apart, but wisdom helps you keep it all together.
James 1:6-7 — To pray with wavering faith is to washout in prayer. It makes your prayers like wind tossed waves, which turn to sheer foam as soon as they wash up on shore.
If you’re not sure God answers prayers, you can be sure that your prayers won’t be answered.
James 1:8 — There will be no stability in our ways, if we are not single-minded and single-hearted in our worship, for a divided loyalty is disloyalty.
A man who can’t make up his mind about God, needn’t think he will ever get anywhere with God.
James 1:9-11 — Poverty, from which God lifts the poor, as well as prosperity, from which God lowers the prosperous, can both imperil immortal souls by impending men from coming to Christ. Therefore, the prosperous should rejoice just as much to be lowered from prosperity as the poor do to be lifted from poverty.
The lifting up of the poor and the lowering of the prosperous are both a testimony to our transient station in this temporal world. Therefore, both should serve to teach us to focus on forever things, lest we too fade away, like the fleeting things of this fallen world.
James 1:12 — It is love for the Lord that enables us to not only endure temptation, but to also gain the crown of life, which Christ has guaranteed and promised to all who prove they genuinely love Him.
All who have crowned Christ in their lives will be crowned by Christ with the crown of life.
James 1:13 — Not only can God never be tempted to do evil, but He never tempts any man with evil. Therefore, God can neither be blackened by it nor blamed for it.
No man who falls to temptation is tripped by God.
James 1:14-15 — Unlike God, who cannot be tempted, because He has no evil desires, we can be tempted, because we have evil desires, which not only make us susceptible to sin, but sin seductive to us.
Adam Clark calls these two verses, “The true genealogy of sin and death,” for they show us how sin is conceived when we’re enticed by it, born when we embrace it, and finally ends up finishing us off by bringing forth death.
James 1:16-17 — We should not err, as so many erring earthlings do, by erroneously attributing evil to God—who is incapable of it—rather than to ourselves—who are either culpable for it or at least collaborators in it.
All perfectly good gifts are given by God above and by God alone, who, as the Father of lights, never changes or casts the lest little shadow upon us by turning even a tad from His goodness to us.
Apart from God, the Giver of all good and perfect gifts, there is no good, and away from God, the Father of Lights, there is no light!
James 1:18 — By His Word, “the Word of truth,” and in accordance with “His own will,” God “begat” us and brought us forth as the “firstfruits of His [new] creation.”
We are not saved by our words, repeated in the sinner’s prayer, but by God’s Word, recorded on the sacred page and quickened to our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, we are not saved because we want to be saved, but only because God wants to save us.
James 1:19-20 — To be swift to hear, as well as slow to speak and slow to get angry, are all three requisites in the working of God’s righteousness.
The cliched fists of hotheads can never serve as holy hands in God’s work.
James 1:21 — All moral filth and evil must be uprooted from our hearts, if the implanted seed of God’s Word is to take root in our hearts and spring up to the salvation of our souls.
The weeds of sin cannot be cultivated alongside the seed of Scripture in the heart of a saved soul.
James 1:22 — Biblical doctrine is not just intended to be learned, but to be lived out.
“Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather.” (D. L. Moody)
James 1:23-25 — Referring to the Scripture as “the perfect law of liberty” and comparing it to the mirrored laver at the tabernacle in the wilderness, James teaches us that the Bible is like a mirror we look into to see who we are in Christ.
After we look into the Scripture and see who we are in Christ, we are to go out and prove it by living up to it. Otherwise, we’ll fall prey to spiritual amnesia, by not only forgetting who we are, but also how we should act.
James 1:26 — A Christian confession by an unbridled tongue is not only phony, but also the product of a spiritually deceived heart.
There is no such thing as a bona fide Christian confession by an unbridled tongue.
James 1:27 — Pure religion is not only unselfish, but also unspotted, being not only charitable to those in want, but also uncorrupted by this wanton world.
Pure religion is proven by its many practices, not its mere profession. (James 2:18)
James 2:14 — A faith that does not work is an unprofitable faith.
It’s not faith with works that saves us, but a faith that works that saves us!
James 2:26 — Just as your body without your spirit is dead, so is the body of Christ without the Spirit of Christ. Many a contemporary church is actually a corpse, built and operated by the power of man’s flesh rather than by the power of God’s Spirit.
James 3:2-8 — The Bible says a man who can tame his tongue is a perfect man, because any man who can stop sinning with his tongue can stop sinning altogether. Unfortunately, as the Bible also teaches, no sinful man can tame his tongue nor achieve sinless perfection.
A wagging tongue is worse than wicked hands and men slip far more often with their tongue than with their feet.
James 3:2, 8 — If one can bridle his tongue he can bridle his temperament, but since man is incapable of taming his tongue, there is no such thing as a sinless man.
James 3:6 — The Christian’s tongue should be set on fire from Heaven—spreading the Gospel—not on fire from Hell—spreading gossip. (see also Acts 2:3)
James 4:4 — Make no mistake about it; to get along with the world you must go along with the world, but if you’re going along with the world you’re not getting along with God.
James 4:6 — God frowns on and opposes the proud—the self-fixated—but smiles on and gives grace to the humble—the self-forgetful.
It is always the humble, never the haughty, to whom God’s grace is given.
Although men have no cause to be proud, the God-resistant sin of pride is still common among men.
OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD (By William Knox)
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure––her triumphs are by;
And the memories of those who have loved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king 'that the scepter hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint, who enjoyed the communion of Heaven,
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower of the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died; aye! they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossoms of health to the paleness of death;
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
James 4:7 —Christians are to resist the devil and reckon themselves dead to sin, not resist sin and reckon the devil dead to them. Doing the latter rather than the former not only gives sin an upper hand over you, but also gives Satan a free hand with you. (Romans 6:11)
James 5:16 — Earnestness is essential to prayer and fervency a fundamental. As Adam Clark taught, “Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue.” Words without heart to Heaven never go.
James 5:17-18 — As we learn from the life of Elijah, secret communion with God and prevailing prayers to God enable us, as they did him, to not only be confident and courageous for God, but also powerful witnesses of God.
Although Elisha asked, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah,” a better question today is: “Where are the Elijahs of the Lord God?” (2 Kings 2:14)
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