Christianity, Something Beyond Creed - Summary Of The Book Of James - Konrad Stauffer

What is the theology that the world reads in the body of Christ? It's not our books. And that helps if a person is a seeker, but it's not our books. It is the life. It is the person. It's the living person. And that's what Paul's saying. He was so delighted in the Corinthians. He said, "You are our epistle. We've written all these words to you, but you are our epistle to the world. The world is reading you today." And I think that he was, um, he was so delighted to see that. And I'm, I'm delighted to see that in us too. I love the epistle I see written in each one of your lives, and I pray that that could continue.

Good morning to you all. It's good to be here again this morning. Um, this morning I'm doing something a little bit different from what I normally do. I, for those who are visiting over the last year or more, I've been going through the book of James, and I decided instead of starting a new book, I was just gonna do my final message here on a, as a review of the book of James, just kind of go over some of the, the high points you could say. Um, so I, that's what we're doing this morning. We're just kind of going back over that, the, just hitting some of those points as, um, the important points of this book.

So, um, for a title today, I have Christianity: Something Beyond Creed. Here a couple of weeks ago in Sunday school, we talked about the Schleithaim Confession, how this confession is all about practical living and how it contains no complicated theological creeds or statements.

This letter that James wrote to the persecuted church is much the same. I would say that the main thrust of the whole letter is that of, um, you are what you live, not what you say you are. That's one of the things I see loud and clear throughout this book. This message is comprised of bits and pieces of the practical teachings of James. I've done this in the hope that it can help rivet some of what we learned deep into our hearts and minds. Our true theology is demonstrated by how we live. The first point that we run into as we start with the book of James, with barely first, second, third verse, we run into this theme: joy and rejoicing in tribulation.

These words of encouragement were not written in a vacuum. They weren't just, he didn't just say this off the top of his head. He's talking to a group of people that have been under pretty severe persecution. He's talking to the church that's been scattered throughout the known world because of persecution. So this is not spoken in a vacuum. It's something that really impresses me that he starts off with this. You, joy and persecution. Let's read James chapter one, verses two through four says, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials and var of various kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Along with his encouragement for those finding themselves in various trials, James makes it clear that much of the temptation in which we find ourselves embroiled is due to our own desires. Thus, we cannot blame God. And I would encourage you to, um, to listen to brother, um, I almost called you Daniel again, Jason's message, where he talks about that subject. A lot of the trials and the temptations we face come from within ourselves. We furnish the material for them a lot of times. So we can't blame God.

You can, can't blame that God, and you can't even blame Satan for it. It's, um, when we play face a temptation, it comes from the, the capital or the substance that we have within our own character many times. So just keep that in mind when you're facing trials or temptations.

Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Patient endurance is our best recourse and, of course, prayer. As we find ourselves in these trials, these are character-forming, showing us who and what we really are and helping us to become what we really desire to be in the Lord.

And that's hard to remember when you're in the thick of it, but that's what it's all about. First of all, it shows us what, shows me what I am, and then it shows me what I need to do, what I need to work on right now.

And it often takes us off guard. I've, I'm hardly ever prepared for when something comes up.

James 5:7-8, "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains." I'd just like to stop and comment on that. I think about this, I think about a person like my dad who started off at some point in his life. He had the conversion experience where he committed his life to the Lord. And that's a time of joy. It's a time of greenhouse effect, kind of, you could say, where you start off and you are full of joy, but then you hit the summer months of your growing season of your Christian life where the heat is on, the weeds come in, and you're dealing through it.

It's all that stuff throughout the better part of your life. You're working with that stuff. But then as you get closer to the end of your life, like my father, he's 82, 83 years old, and I see him as kind of a happy, peaceful man in his older years. It's because he is in that latter rain. God is blessing him and filling him, refreshing him, preparing him for eternity.

This is what I see in this picture. Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and then the latter rain, the last rain of the season.

You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. It's something that's near. God is a bountiful giver of wisdom to those who seek him in faith. In all our trials, we face as Christians, we can, can and must rely on God our Father for wisdom. He is a liberal giver. James goes on to say that God will never reprimand us for asking. However, we must not ask if we are not committed to obey or to make practical the wisdom we receive from him.

James says, "Don't think you're gonna get anything from God if you're double-minded." We'll read about this here. And James chapter one again, verse five through eight, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

For the person, for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." In our asking, we must never forget that everything good that we receive or experience is from the Father. Again, 17 through 18 in chapter one, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. God's wisdom is not like man's wisdom. It is not self-seeking and self-serving. Truly, godly wisdom brings about peace, life, and continual growth. It is reliable, no shades of malice."

And that's totally different from the kind of wisdom that our world wants to give us.

"Who is wise and understanding among you, by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambitions in your heart, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambitions exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere." I love that verse. "And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." So you're not gonna have a harvest of peace unless you're sowing peace.

If you sow strife, you will reap strife. If you sow peace, you will reap peace. The third point is one that's really strong in James. This is something that most of us probably remember from reading the book of James, is the tongue, a subtle yet powerful instrument. James spends a good bit of time writing about, about the tongue. Its power to give life and hope, its power to destroy, poison or cause to rot.

He compares it to the fire that warms and destroys. The fire has these two qualities. The tongue has these two qualities too.

A bit in a horse's mouth, the rudder of a ship, the tongue can steer the course of nature. It can change things, the whole world. I wish I could remember the, what, um, John D. Martin said one time about, um, Hitler's book, Mein Kampf.

How many words that book had in it and how many people died for every word written in that book. It's unbelievable. It's millions. So the tongue has great power. Our words have great power. They have creative power, you could say, because we are images made in the image of God.

James 1:19 through 20, "Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." So he starts off with that. Now we jump to verse 26. "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless."

And to chapter three, verses one through two, and then nine through twelve, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body."

And then jumping down to verse nine, "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God." That should make us stop and think that if I'm going to say something evil against somebody or to curse somebody or to destroy somebody, I'm destroying somebody that's created an image of our Father. "From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water." I remember growing up in Southern Maryland, we did, we had water down there that was different from a lot of places. I'm sure there's other places like it, but we had what you call brackish water down there. And that's what a lot of Christians carry in their life is brackish water. It's a mixture of fresh and salt.

Um, we have to be careful that we're not trying to create brackish water that we shower on other people. It's not nourishing and it's not a blessing.

Four, fourth point, true Christianity does not exist outside of practical demonstration. You all probably remember this point from another message. James is known for his nuts and bolts teaching on the practical Christian life. Unfortunately, many modern Christians struggle with the teachings of James because his teaching does not fit modern theology.

It doesn't fit modern creeds.

In James chapter one, verse 25, 21 to 25, it says, "Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror.

For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? But someone will say, "You have faith, I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. So that's no, that's no proof of anything. Um, Satan's demons can say the same thing. They believe in God too. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

And the question I had here is, what would you say is one of the most obvious works we can do that prove we love God and our true followers of Jesus?

James chapter one again, verse 27. The Christian life in a lot of ways and its demonstration is encapsulated in this one verse. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. And that's more than just trying to be separate in the way we look and dress. To be unstained from the world is to be free from the value system of this world.

From this verse, we might even deduce that one, true religion serves others and looks out for the poor, and two, it keeps itself clean and free from the corrupting influences of our world today.

True Christianity leaves no room for partiality towards others. Point five. The scene that James depicts in chapter two is in the context of the church or a synagogue. But as we examine this passage, we will find that partiality is a prevailing spirit or attitude that will taint our judgment of others in day-to-day life.

If we just stop and analyze how we think about somebody when we see them or how, what kind of judgment we make in our minds, that pretty much tells us where we're at. It's not just the thing of what you do, but it's what you think, and it'll eventually work itself out in that way.

James chapter two, verse one through four, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." It's like oil and water. You can't have the two things together. "For if a man wearing a gold ring in fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, 'You sit here in a good place,' while you say to the poor man, 'You stand over here there and sit down at my feet,' have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" James calls us judges with evil thoughts if we favor one person over another because of social status or wealth.

He explains that in the body of Christ, in the kingdom of God, we are under the royal law, which is the law of Christ. In the law and the kingdom, and of this kingdom, mercy triumphs over judgment. In other words, any thoughts one may have in the kingdom towards others are seasoned or influenced by love and mercy, or they should be.

Chapter two, verse nine and verses 12 through 13 as well. "But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. If you believe that God has forgiven you and you weren't worthy of that forgiveness, you need to also be willing to extend that same kind of love and mercy and forgiveness to others.

For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment." Next, the sixth point we have here is all wars and fights stem from someone's lust or desire to keep or to take.

Most wars and fights at their base stem from self-love. And I'm gonna, it's gonna start at the, literally start at the animal level of this thing. A cat scratches when it feels threatened. A dog bites when you want to share his food with him, which is not a good idea.

A child screams if another child takes their toy. Leaders become hard and pushy when they feel their position is in jeopardy. Those are just some things. There's a whole raft of other things that apply to all sorts of different people. James chapter four, verses one through three. "What causes quarrels? What causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within yourself? You have a private agenda. You have something you want to happen.

You desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, despended on your passions. Your passion isn't God's, it's your own.

So God is not gonna work along with you."

I'm gonna let that be, move on to the seventh point. If we love the world, we become, make ourselves enemies of God's kingdom and purpose. As Jesus so clearly taught, you cannot serve God and mammon. When we become absorbed in the things of this world, we not only become useless to God's kingdom and purpose, we begin to oppose as does an enemy.

Hence the strong language James uses in the following passage. He wants to shock all those who are Christians out of their spiritual lethargy and call them back to the author of life. And we know who rules this world. We all know who is the ruler of this world.

He's not the author of life, certainly not. James chapter four, verse four through five. "You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us'? Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world." I read that verse before, but I felt like it applied in this situation as well.

I realized that in our circles, I'm talking about our Anabaptist circles, and I don't think this is all wrong, that there has been a lot of talk over the years about guarding ourselves against the world. And that is important, but I'd like to submit to you that worldly influence more often than not comes from within our own selves rather than from without.

And I'll let that be. I'm not going to go deeply into that right now.

Number eight, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And I think this is very much connected with the prior point. Um, we're this one, this is the same thing.

God not only withholds his blessing and aid from those who are proud, he wars against them. Pride was the first known sin committed. Lucifer lifted himself up in pride and said, "I will be like the most high." So when we are proud, we are fighting on the wrong side.

On the other hand, those who humble themselves, those who do not promote themselves, those who know their king and long to honor him, to these, God gives grace. He gives strength to prevail.

Chapter four, verses six through ten and 13 through 16. "But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." I know that's something that's hard for us to do, but sometimes we do have to stop and do that when we realize that our own passions, our own pride, and our own agendas are starting to take control of our lives. We have to sometimes just end up crumbling before the Lord on our knees and just asking him to forgive us and help us get back on track again.

This is what he's talking about. This is true repentance. "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.'

Yet you do not know that what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'

As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil."

Ninth point, God hates inequity. God hates when we take advantage of the vulnerable. Remember, pure religion and undefiled is to look after widows and orphans. They are some of the most vulnerable people in our world today, in our society and in the world at large.

So that's our, that's one of our main things. We see shades of this, of this vein of thought throughout the book of James because James knew from experience this is a subject near to the heart of Christ and certainly near to the heart of the Father.

Chapter five, verse one through six. "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are rotten, have rotted. Your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you."

And we'll just leave that as is and go to our last point, number 10. True healing resides in the body of Christ, the church. And I, I love it that I think we all believe that here. I, I felt that this morning as we gathered around Andre to pray for him in anointing that we, we believe that healing, spiritual and physical healing resides in the body and the power of the body of Christ.

That's because Christ is our head, and from him flows all of our nourishment and our strength.

Let's keep the previous subject in mind as we look at this. If we do the opposite of healing, we are not of the body of Christ. As we look at the passage, we will notice that one benefits from healing as he or she opens themselves up to the body of Christ. Here again, if you do not want to participate in the sufferings of others, you really don't belong in the body of Christ because we have, we're connected together. We're mutually connected together.

Chapter five, verse 13 through 20. "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." See, this thing of, of healing from sickness and spiritual sickness is all intertwined. I don't know how to separate the two things. I'm not saying a person who's sick is sinned or anything like that, but it seems like it all came with the fall of man. And when we pray, we just pray to that end that a person would be freed and healed physically and spiritually both.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power in it as it is working." That's a prayer life that's functioning like what David talked about. It's a prayer life that's active.

"Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth to Ahab's great chagrin.

Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins."

As we read over this passage, we realize that there is a lot more in this than just healing or asking for healing. This is only the beginning. Here are some of the things that James bears out that are so vital to the growth and prosperity of the body of Christ.

A, pray when you or your brother are suffering. B, sing when you have cause to rejoice, thus sharing your joy with others. C, if you are sick or suffering, reach out to your brothers. D, confess your sins to one another. This frees you from the poison of sin.

E, persevere in prayer in everything. F, the act of pulling someone back and out of destruction is near and dear to the heart of God. God wants us to strive to do that.

I would say this letter James wrote to those dispersed by persecution has an overarching theme of, "Lift up your brother, die to yourself and live. Your faith is useless as long as your base or passions are in control of your words and actions. Christ lives and is alive and well in the assembly of the body of Christ." If I were to sum up what James said, that's what it would be.

And I'd like to finish with, um, conclude with reading a little passage from Second Corinthians chapter three, verse two through four. If you all don't understand the connection here, you'll have to ask me afterwards. It connects in my mind somehow. "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in the tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart.

And such trust have we through Christ to God word." And as I read that and I thought about it, that those, those verses came to my mind as I was thinking over this book. I thought, what is it? What is the theology that the world reads in the body of Christ? It's not our books.

And that helps if a person is a seeker, but it's not our books. It is the life. It is the person. It's the living person. And that's what Paul's saying. He was so delighted in the Corinthians. He said, "You are our epistle. We've written all these words to you, but you are our epistle to the world. The world is reading you today." And I think that he was, um, he was so delighted to see that. And I'm, I'm delighted to see that in us too. I love the epistle I see written in each one of your lives, and I pray that that could continue.

And I'm going to end with this, um, quote from Justin Martyr.

And please forgive me if I didn't word this correctly because it's from my memory, so it might not be perfect. "We do not speak great things. We live them." And I would like to end with that. Anybody have any thoughts they'd like to share?

I was really struck while you were sharing, and you did a good job of highlighting a lot of these health themes. Just consistently through the book of James, he, he brings out and shows what can't be separated. And then he also shows what can't be mixed.

Um, just an example, we can't separate faith and works. We can't do it. And James makes that so clear. You have one or the other, you have both, you can't separate them. He talks about you can't mix the sweet water and the bitter water.

Um, there's just, I was just, it was just coming out over and over as you were speaking because we were highlighting them. And whenever we do that, whenever we separate something that's not supposed to be separated, and whenever we mix something that's not supposed to be mixed, it creates conflict either in our own selves or some kind of outside conflict. It always creates conflict.

Um, that, that just really struck me. This morning, I appreciate that.

I really appreciate your message, um, but you did an excellent job. And the thing that struck me is James has a unique ability to go to the core. If you listen to what, if you listen to James, let me just take your 10 things that you pointed out. It's a thing that's difficult to do, but it's really the, um, prayer. Um, and you know, I'm reading a book right now. It's about compound interest. And it's this concept throughout life that most people aren't willing to do, to do the difficult thing of just prayer. And it's, it's unseen what you're doing in our closets. Um, but if you're, if you want to be a, a disciple of Christ and you capture what James captured and you learn to do those things, the unseen things, the compound effect of that is, is just profound.

And you wonder why, you know, you wonder why there's certain people that become outstanding in the Christian life. It's because they're willing to do the unseen thing and to control, to learn to control the tongue. Then it controls the body, it controls the desire. There's a whole bunch of things that start to build on itself. Um, and you know, anger is the last, I mean, it's kind of funny. In some ways, anger is the last thing of controlling the tongue. So when we, you know, if I have anger in my life, I'm way down the road. It kind of gets backed up and get a, get a, get the goal of this thing. Um, and I think that's why it's, it is so devastating.

Anger is so devastating. Things and words are said and, you know, families, marriages, children, churches are, you know, are affected like crazy by, by angry words. And, um, so yeah, my, my call is, and my, the power that I've seen in the message this morning is if we can capture the understanding to do those difficult things in secret and learn to bring them into control and the discipline to do what we do, those things, the, the compound effect will be, um, really, really powerful.

Yeah, this is, this book is definitely a high calling. It's so simple and yet it's such a, such a difficult thing. It was, yeah. I appreciate you taking us through the book of James these last months. Um, it's incredible that Luther would have his own calling and epistle of strong.

It is such a blessed book. Um, it's not surprising in the oldest Bible we have. It is the first book after Acts. You know, Acts is followed by, by James, and it's sort of the logical, uh, progression there. I thought a lot this week, um, well, at least since Thursday night, um, the verse there, the effective prayer of a righteous man avails much.

That our, our life affects our prayer life. You know, he doesn't say the, uh, prayer of an unrighteous man avails much. And so it made me realize that one reason among many to, to get my life totally in harmony with Christ and to walk closely with him is so my prayers will be effective. I want when I pray for somebody, for them to be powerful and to have an effect. But if my life isn't there, then my prayers are not going to be very effective.

I agree with you totally about the, uh, church. I love seeing this church as the epistle of what God's writing in us. And it reminded me of something, I guess Benny was quoting Spurgeon. I'm not sure he was quoting, but he said that the world doesn't have, the Bible isn't the light to the world, the light to us. And we are the light to the world. And then at ABT, someone else said something similar. They were talking to these all-nations Bible translators, people going to different countries translating things. And he said, it doesn't matter if you, if you can't live the translation to others, like be the translation to others in your life, then you don't need to be going and trying to translate the word, uh, on paper to them.

You need to be first, before you get to the field, you need to learn how to live it. And so they can see the translation of God's word by your actions.

That last scripture printed too is what they offer to you. In the end, the writings are for those who are, are established in the faith. Like you said, it's, it's there for us. Um, most people don't get it when they look at the Bible. They don't understand what's happening there.

I love that idea of us being the translation of that.