Introduction to James

  • Sam Ford
  • Sep 13, 2009
  • Series: Retro-Faith

Retro Faith:  Intro James 1.1

September 13, 2009

Sam Ford

 

Bring back the 80’s

Every person here has their own era, the span of years that are “the best” because they are yours.  I am a child of the 80’s.  MTV, the Delorean, John Hughes Films, Ronald Regan, Nintendo, Miami Vice, Top Gun, Karate Kid, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Getto-blasters, Walkmans, Cabbage Patch Kids, Parachute Pants, Spandex, Smurfs, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Gun’s and Roses, Prince, Underoos, Levis with the cuffs rolled up, Personal Computers, and big hair that was crimped, colored, or cut mullet style.   The terribly wonderful thing is that, whatever era you grew up in, whatever was once popular to watch, say, or do, whatever fashion you thought had passed never to return—it always comes back.  Ecclesiastes 1.9  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

 

Retro-Faith

Today we’re launching our new study of the book of James, and the series is called RETRO FAITH.  The word "retro" derives from the Latin prefix retro, meaning "backwards" or "in past times".   It implies a movement toward the past as a part of progressing toward the future.  Retro is a term often used to describe culturally outdated or aged trends, styles, fashions, or forms from the past that have once again become the norm.   You might be familiar with retro clothes, retro furniture, retro art, retro looking cars, etc.  Retro movements emphasize a throwback to the past, bringing elements of an earlier time to the present and breathing new life into them. 

 

When speaking about culture, the word “retro” is most often used in a positive sense, referring to quirky or attractive products and trends that are no longer available.  The idea of “Retro-Faith” is also meant to be positive, but at the same time, somewhat of a critique of our faith today as compared to the 50s…A.D.  

 

Sadly, the Christian faith has changed since James wrote his letter.  There are many people who AGREE that the “church” has changed, crying out that we need to go back to the “Acts 2” church: the church of the New Testament.  Of course, they want to skip over books like 1Corinthians that demonstrate how messed up churches were back then too.  The series is not called RETRO-CHURCH it is called RETRO-FAITH.  Without question, the things that clothe the body of Christ change and need to.  It is important that we not pretend like it is 1975 anymore.  But I wonder if, even by accident, we have ‘grown out’ or ‘progressed beyond” not the things that clothe Christianity, but the very things that define what it means to be a Christian.  

 

Where do we look

I am not the first, nor will I be the last, asking if our faith has lost something.   There many critics of “the church” from within and without; many claiming that the church is dead that the FAITH is irrelevant and out of touch.  AND, in an effort to resuscitate the body back to life, many say we need to redefine “the church experience.” Because they believe that without a radical overhaul, the church is in deep trouble.   Their sense of urgency drives them to experiment with new methods, new experiences, and even new doctrines.  They do the very opposite of “retro”, instead of THROWBACK they THROW OUT everything they know and start fresh with what it means to be a Christian…today. 

 

The word throwback can cause us tension.  Our minds think of going back 50-60 years ago, when “Christian faith” meant complete separation from the world.  Driven by pure intentions, Christians lived out a REACTIVE holiness.  Living out our faith was defined by how we interacted with the WORLD, namely, we separated from it.  Today, we have people still reacting to that and they go too far into the world.  As the world watches Christians strategize, they see one group as holier-than thou AND the other group as hypocrites. James would argue that both started in the wrong place—outside of themselves.  We are not called to react to the world but to respond to God’s Word in the world. .

 

Faith 101

For the next 19 weeks, we’re going to study verse by verse the book of James.  Unlike James, the Apostle Paul’s writings were dedicated to how salvation is experienced—through faith.  James dedicates his letter to how this true and saving faith is lived out.  Instead of looking for the next “new” thing, we believe that we should go back to find what is to be at the heart of our faith.  Everyone loves James because he reads so smoothly and just sounds like one of those nice pastors who loves sweater vests and playing boggle.  ON THE CONTRARY…

  • James doesn’t tolerate our religious facade, our false confessions, or our pious disguises.  
  • James doesn’t use a bunch of theological term that many of us would be tempted to “reinterpret”,
  • James pushes us to have a real faith in the real Jesus. 

 

In short, he says DON’T JUST SAY YOU BELIEVE IT; DO IT.  Faith is not just something said, it is something lived.  Every week as we study James we will get a different image of what faith is.  This image might be new to many of us, but in fact, it is quite old—Retro.

 

Danger of Reading James

People LOVE and HATE the book of James.  They love to READ it because the book of James is exceedingly practical for the Christian faith.  They hate to LIVE it because it provides vivid instructions about what it means to practice a life of godliness that are difficult to live out.  While the book is highly instructive and helpful, it is equally convicting.  Much like the Old Testament books of wisdom such as Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, James offers concrete counsel about issues that all Christians face daily:  Trials, wisdom, poverty, riches, favoritism, social justice, the tongue, prayer, illness, and more. 

 

The danger in “preaching” this book is that it may stir us to action for the wrong reasons and leave us floored.  The letter is piercing to the heart, almost too much so.  With 59 commands in 108 verses, the book can look and feel like a checklist of righteousness.  Misunderstood, a study of the Book of James can fail to lead to the gospel and, instead, produce feelings of pride or despair.   If James is read only a series of commands, it would be easy for any reader to leave feeling like a moral failure.  Without question, James emphasizes obedience, charging Christians to do what they know and say.  And while James does lack formal statements of the gospel, and though he only mentions the name of Jesus twice, and though he never directly quotes Jesus, the words of this pastor are saturated in the same themes and language that Jesus himself used, especially in the Sermon on the Mount.  The gospel according to James is not one that seeks to enlarge the work of men while diminishing the work of Jesus.  James is not ADDING works to our faith, but reacting to the hypocrisy of so called Christians who do not live as if their lives have been transformed by the gospel. In other words, he speaks to the works that affirm one’s heart has IN FACT been changed by God.

 

READ James 1.1

James 1.1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

 

James the Just

James writes the letter…Ancient letters typically began by identifying the sender, referencing the recipients, and included a greeting.  It’s important for us to understand who this James is and who he is writing to.  There are at least three different James in the Bible.  First, is James of the apostles included in the trio of Peter, James, and John.  He suffered martyrdom at the beginning of the Christian era (Acts 12.1-3).   The second apostolic James is the son of Alphaeus.  We hear of him occasionally in the gospels, but know nothing of him following the resurrection (Luke 6.15, Acts 1.13).  The third, and most likely candidate, is James the younger brother of Jesus. 

 

James and Jesus

After Jesus was born, Mary had other children (Matthew 12.46, 13.55).  Jesus had brothers and sisters who did not follow him during his ministry before his murder.  We can only imagine how difficult it would be to come to faith in your older brother, just as difficult as it is for many who know me to think I became a pastor (Matthew 13.53-57)  John 6.1-5  After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him.

 

But something changed in James.  Around AD 44 (10 year post Jesus) shortly after the martyrdom of James, son of Zebedee (of the trio), and the release of Peter from prison, James became the head of the Jerusalem church (Acts 12.23).  Historians identify James as “the Just” because of his incredible piety and godly living.  One historian, Jerome, gives an account of James as one who prayed so often for people in the temple that his knees became calloused like “camel’s knees.”  Accounts vary about his death, but it seems that at some point James was thrown from the top of the temple, then stoned and clubbed to death as a result of an accusation by the high priest of the day, Annas.  The death of James so upset the people that it caused an uprising resulting in the Roman prefect deposing Annas. 

 

The question is, what changed him?  Something happened that was so life-altering from him, he went from mocking sibling to martyred servant.  What happened with him is the same thing that happens to anyone who comes to faith, an encounter with the resurrected Jesus before he even met with his disciples  1Corinthains 15.3-7 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 

 

Do you ever wonder what he said?  “Told you!”  Whatever he said, or did, the kind of RETRO-FAITH we are talking about is the very faith the James lives out.  His encounter with Jesus was so life-altering that his entire way of living changed.

 

James the Servant

James calls himself a SERVANT…Though it might be tempting for us, James does not pull rank.  He does not claim authority because of his family relationship with his half-brother Jesus; rather, he identifies himself simply as James, the “servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”   He doesn’t identify his education, pedigree, experience, accomplishments, or anything else he may have done. How quick are we to dismiss people who aren’t “experts” in our minds.  Most of us would read over that verse statement rather quickly and never ask if that is how we identify ourselves.  How would we title a letter?  Sam the father, the husband, the preacher,  the teacher, the welder, the builder, the office manager, the sister/brother.  Perhaps we’d get a bit spiritual…the follower of Jesus, the believer in Jesus, the worshipper of Jesus…what about the servant of Jesus?

 

The term servant here comes from the word the greek word dulos which literally means bond-servant.  Slavery was a part of the Hebrew culture in the Old Testament.  People were conquered but other times they were sold into slavery to pay off debts.  Deuteronomy 15.12-17b  12 “If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. 16 But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you, 17 then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever.

 

James identifies himself as the bond-servant, the second kind of servant described in Deuteronomy.  He is the servant who has no debt, not because he has worked long enough to pay it off, but because Jesus paid the debt he owed.  Now, he chooses to serve not out of duty, rather, he is FREE to serve out of love, out of the joy it brings him FOREVER—a beautiful picture of the gospel.

  • A bond-servant is the epitome of devotion.  This type of servant is devoted, not out of fear, not out of regard, but out of love, and with disregard to their own interests.  
  • A bond-servant is still a slave by choice.  On its basic level a bondservant—a slave—is simply following your master to the complete disregard of your own will, emotions, desires. A Bondservant of Jesus means genuine and comprehensive devotion to God, His word, and His will. 
  • A bond-servant is active.  A servant is more than just a passive devotee…they actively serve the master they love. 
  • A bond-servant is a way OF life not a way IN life.  We have a deepening meaningful walk with God not just a religious trot. A bondservant recognizes the beauty and blessing of the gospel and responds by seeking to God first, above all else.  EVERYTHING, what we think, say, do, is secondary to your relationship with Him.

 

James the Jew

James writes to the twelve tribes.

 

James is a pastor writing to believers.  His pastor heart bleeds throughout the text, using the term “brothers” 14 times as an affirmation of his pastoral love for his audience, even including himself in his challenges of what we must do.  But he uses some unfamiliar terms here to describe his original audience, writing to the TWELVE TRIBES in the DISPERSION (i.e. scattering).  The diaspora or scattering is a common reference to the historic deportation of the ten tribes from Israel to Assyria (II Kings 17:6) and the exile of the two tribes to Babylon (II Kings 25:11).  It may also refer to Jewish Christians who have scattered because of present persecution  we read about in Acts 7 and 8.    

 

As pastor of the church in Jerusalem, where there are many Jewish Christians, we may be tempted to believe that his intended audience is only Israel.  While I do believe that a lot of Jews are in his audience, it is not “national Israel” as much as it is a “spiritual nation” that Peter talks about or the spiritual building that Paul speaks about.  Perhaps he intends to emphasize the idea of ONE PEOPLE, God’s people whose God is the same God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The ONE gathering of people that God began in the O.T. and comes a deeper sense of realization in the N.T. Peter also uses similar terminology in the opening of his letter, identifying the exiles as those who believe in the Trinitarian God. 1Peter 1.1-2  Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

 

In that sense, we are Israel. What James writes is more than just a moralistic rubric for Christian faith.  Just as Moses described in the books of the Law, he is describing what it means to BE THE PEOPLE of GOD, more specifically, a PERSON of GOD.  Paul speaks of this in the book of Romans when he distinguishes between JEWS of FLESH and JEWS OF THE HEART.  He makes a point to say that:  Romans 2.28-29 28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.  Dare we say, that James writes in the same Spirit saying for a Christian is not a Christian who is one in voice or religious routine, but one who is in heart that bleeds into action.   As with Israel, James here talks about the PEOPLE OF GOD whose very identity, how they live, how they think, how they feel, how they experience the world is different from the world hostile toward God. 

 

Conclusion

A study of Retro-Faith is not a study to make Christianity relevant for today, but biblical.  We look “back to the fifties…A.D.” to recapture what we think is archaic—but is in fact essential.  We’re talking about the basics of faith as an affirmation of heart change.  Something happens to a person who has confessed the gospel AND believed it in their heart.  Genuine faith produces something—Jesus said so  The book of James , while highly instructive and helpful, is piercing—almost too much. We don’t PROVE that we’re Christians so that God will accept us.  We confess AND believe that God has accepted us, through faith in Jesus, and that we are expected to live  

 

Losing a Civil War

And many of us recoil at the thought of God “expecting” us to live a particular way, to sacrifice, to love.    What about freedom and liberty?  What about mercy and grace?  IF your heart has encountered the good truth of Jesus, the hard practical truths of James will build your faith, draw you closer to God, and reveal with a new sense of clarity and God-given power, of HOW TO LIVE THE GOSPEL.  These are not just “Christian living” suggestions….these are GOSPEL LIVING LIKE JESUS COMMANDS.  And even though James only mentions the name of Jesus twice, the whole book is about his life:

  1. Trusting as we suffer trials...like Jesus
  2. Fighting temptations...like Jesus
  3. Taking responsibility sin...like Jesus
  4. Seeking God’s will...like Jesus
  5. Giving our wealth away...like Jesus
  6. Helping those in need...like Jesus
  7. Loving our neighbors, friends, and enemies...like Jesus
  8. Judging those around us...like Jesus
  9. Submitting our plans to...like Jesus
  10. Controlling our tongue...like Jesus
  11. Keeping commitments...like Jesus
  12. Praying...like Jesus
  13. Crying out to God...like Jesus
  14. Confronting sin in others...like Jesus

 

There is a battle raging in all of us, a battle against our old nature—a Civil War of the heart.  The evil one will tell you lies like, “that’s not really important”, or “that’s not really what it says,” or deceive you into thinking “I’m good at that” when you’re not.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will break us all as we see how much we don’t LOVE God but LOVE ourselves and how much we pretend to LOVE but really HATE others.  I’m asking that you walk through this with me, as the Holy Spirit breathes new life into that old fashioned, outdated, unpopular, archaic, cheesy, simple, beautiful, incredibly powerful, alluring, and radical RETRO FAITH.

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