James 1:1-3
Life’s Travel Bag
James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which
are scattered abroad, greeting.
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall
into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience.
This epistle starts with the believers in the fire. James was writing
to Jewish Christians who were having a terrible time. He speaks of
them \\#2\\ as suffering “diver’s temptations,” different troubles.
These believers were not just having bad days-alarm didn’t go off,
Couldn’t get my hair to do right, traffic is a booger. These were
Having deadly days. There is no handbook—other than the Bible—For
dealing with these days, but James outlines something that we should
make sure we have.
Let me mention them to you briefly tonight, BTW, I am going to change
the order some of them are given in the Bible because it will flow
easier in my train of thought.
I. \\#2\\ "count it all joy"
A. I have been saved a long time; and I have read through and
even taught through this Book several times; and I never that
passage without experiencing a little emotional jolt.
1. Use your imagination now.
2. It’s like you’re in the army, on foreign soil, behind enemy
lines, and you accidently wandered into a mine field. You
found out you were in a mine field when you put your foot
down on a spot of earth and heard the "click" of the mine
being set. Now, if you start to pick your foot up—no
matter how fast you move—before your foot ever
completely clears the mine, it will go off; but then you
think what’s the point of trying Even if I had both feet
free to run, any direction I run in is covered by more
land mines so that I would just step on another. And
then from outside the mine field, your preacher shouts at
you, "Cheer up." "Count it all joy!" "Just be happy
you are where you are."
3. That’s the way these readers must have felt when they read
James’ words.
a. And that is exactly what the Bible says for these
Christians were literally in a mine field.
b. So in the middle of life’s minefields, with your foot
on a loaded mine, James says "count it all joy."
B. Why does God say that? Lots of reasons:
1. Because God has not forgotten me.
a. God never forgets us, but I think we are even
more on His mind when we are being tempted.
b. Psalm 89:33
Psalm 89:33 Nevertheless my lovingkindness will
I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my
faithfulness to fail.
2. Because every temptation has a victory.
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you
but such as is common to man: but God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it.
a. Whether we see it or not, there is a way off of that
mine and out of that field.
b. God says there is a way out of every temptation and a
victory over every trial.
3. Because attitudes open and close our eyes.
a. To be honest most of the time, we see every challenge
like a minefield.
b. Most aren’t.
c. We are like the little child who thinks eating a few
bites off the plate to get to the desert is
equivalent to have every tooth in our head pulled.
d. But no matter how bad it is, God’s got it.
e. We just need to the right attitude, JOY instead of
fear, fret, and a fit.
II. \\#5\\ Wisdom
James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
A. Wisdom is the ability to see things the way God sees them.
1. A lot of our problems are immediately eliminated when we
see things as God sees them. For example:
a. What we thought was a problem was really God working
on us.
James 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that
ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
b. What we thought was a problem was really God creating
a way to reward us.
James 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation: for when he is tried, he shall
receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath
promised to them that love him.
c. What we thought was a problem was just the
consequences of our own actions.
James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is
drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth
forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death.
2. I am not going to pretend that makes everything all better
because it doesn’t.
a. Most of the time the present problems are going to
have to be dealt with because they are already here.
b. But this kind of wisdom can help us in two ways:
(1) The wisdom James was telling us to ask God for
is the wisdom to know what to do in this
situation.
(a) I repeat what I already said.
(b) Every temptation has a victory.
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you
but such as is common to man: but God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it.
(c) The wisdom we want tells us what we need to
do to "fix" whatever can be fix and to
"handle" whatever cannot be fixed.
(2) No matter what, the wisdom James was telling us
to ask for will keep us from facing these kinds
of problems again!
c. Years ago, a couple of ladies came into our church.
They were young, maybe 30 but probably younger. They
loved our church, our people, and everything about
us. One of both of them made a profession of faith.
They came regular for a while and seemed to be
learning; but they dropped out. After that, every
few years they would come through and go through
similar scenario. As they got older, sometimes it
was their problems that brought them in: boy friend
problems, the husband problems, then money problems,
then kid problems—and so it went on for years. I
eventually came to see that these ladies were on a
Merry-Go-Round (Although now I guess I should call it
an Unmerry-Go-Round.) They kept making the same kinds
of mistakes and winding up in the same kind of
troubles. Why? Because they lacked wisdom.
B. James’ emphasis was not so much on what wisdom is but how to
get it.
1. You can’t get wisdom from a school.
2. You don’t necessarily get wisdom from mistakes.
3. There is no book where it can be found—except the Bible.
4. Where does one get wisdom? \\#5\\ Ask God for it.
5. If you ask God for wisdom, you already have some.
a. You had wisdom enough to be exposed to the Bible.
b. You had wisdom enough to listen to it.
c. You had wisdom enough to see you needed wisdom.
d. You had wisdom enough to ask for it.
6. Now all God has to do is to show you what He is doing in
your life in this situation and what—if anything—He
wants you to do.
7. And James said He will!
III. \\#6\\ Faith
James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing
wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of
the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
A. Faith was already mentioned in \\#3\\, but we will start with
it here.
B. Faith is the ability to see the invisible things of God.
1. I speak about faith often, and I always tell you that
the first three invisible things you need to see are:
a. God is.
b. God is good.
c. God has a plan.
2. Once you can see these things, God can show you other
invisible things, such as the details of the invisible
plan that he has for your life.
C. But James is not as interested in teaching us what faith is
as he is in teaching us that faith must be steadfast.
James 1:7 For let not that man think that he
shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his
ways.
1. An unstable faith produces an unstable Christian.
2. We cannot be on today with our faith and off tomorrow.
3. For faith to do anything, it must be consistent.
a. Interesting, God never said we had to have a lot of
faith.
(1) Jesus said faith as small as the grain of a
mustard seed could move mountains.
(2) I take it that nether the volume nor the size
of our faith is that important.
b. Just the consistency of it.
4. Based on that, if you are struggling with your faith, go
back to the basic three that I gave you.
a. Don’t worry about reaching any further than that.
b. Just concentrate on holding that tightly.
c. I have a notion that everything else will fall into
place.
IV. \\#3-4\\ Patience
James 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
A. Patience was mentioned second in James’ list, but I have left
it last.
B. What is patience?
1. Patience is the ability to wait without frustration and
anxiety.
2. I think in this context, the One being waited for is God.
a. These Christians are going through a deadly time while
serving God.
b. The One they want to show up is God.
c. They want Him to do something to change their
circumstances.
3. So let’s insert that, "Patience is the ability to wait ON
GOD without frustration and anxiety."
a. Again, we are standing on a mine in minefield waiting
for God to show up, and He wants us to be joyful,
wise, full of faith, and patience.
b. That is not easy to do, is it?
c. That is the reason I changed the order,
d. I believe it gets easiER if we do them in this order.
(1) Set our attitude to joy instead of fear, fret,
and fit pitching.
(2) Be wise, open our eyes to see things as God sees
them.
(3) Be faithful, believe in God, God’s goodness, and
God’s plan.
e. And if we do these things, God can give us patience to
wait for His plan even while we are standing on a
mine in the middle of a minefield.
C. I notice that while all four of these are important in dealing
with the different troubles of life, the only one that James
declared to directly affect us is patience.
1. Once we have patience, we can be made:
a. Perfect
b. Entire (and defines that, wanting nothing)
2. All four of these are like steps on the ladder.
3. It appears after we climb step four, step five is real
growth in Christ.
4. I hope that is what we want.
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