Well let's turn then to James chapter 1. James chapter 1, at the fear of giving credit to to my tendency at times to speak on a very short portion of scripture, we're going to read one verse. It's all we're going to be able to do. And this is where the thought that God has placed on my heart to bring to you is found in. And it's just the first verse. It's really the first 11 words of the first verse of the letter of James. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. to the 12 tribes and the dispersion. Greetings. I want to ask a question as we begin today. It's a question you've probably answered many times in your life, but it's this. Who are you? Who are you? There have been a number of times in a work setting, or I'm sure even I would remember back in college days or summer camps or any many, many different situations and circumstances in life where you have to have to go through that question around the group. Who are you? I think it's probably one of those questions that would separate the introvert from the extrovert pretty quickly. You're like me. That's I hate that question. Who are you? Tell us about yourself. And you go around the room and You tell people who you are, and you try to answer that question. You've answered that probably many times, but I want to ask it to you today. And I want you to think about it, because I think there's a lot more to that question than we know. But who are you? And when you're asked that, how do you answer it? What do you tell others when they ask you that question? Well, who are you? Where are you from? And oftentimes, they don't They don't ask it that directly because that would be probably perceived as a little bit rude. Well, who are you? But there are many questions that essentially are asking that question. Who are you? And in answering that question, people oftentimes will will refer to relationships, right, that we have. Well, so and so is my dad or so and so is my mom or my cousin, my friend. to help people coordinate or isolate you or put you in some kind of a context as to who you are, where you come from. People will refer to all kinds of things. Maybe they'll maybe you'll tell people where you work, what you do for a living. Maybe you'll tell them where you went to college or where you go to school. Well, who are you? When you really think about answering that question, it's kind of a difficult question to answer, to give people much of any kind of real sense about who you are. Maybe you'll share interests and hobbies, something about you that you enjoy doing, to try to tell people who you are. But these answers, they don't answer the question at its most deepest level. They certainly don't answer that question for a child of God and a follower of Christ. They begin to perhaps they might tell you about, but really what these answers are there. You're telling people about you. You're not telling them who you are when you answer the question of what you do for a living or where you go to school or what you're studying or what your hobbies and your interests are. Those are things about you, but they're not who you are. And I want you to ask yourself that question, perhaps for the first time. Who am I? Who are you? How do you answer that question? James opens his letter with the answer to that question about himself. And answering that question about who are you, goes deeper and requires a much more extensive exercise to answer that question. It involves an investigation that goes more deep than these surface level answers that we so often give. James opens his letter and he tells you who he is. And as I was reading and studying, and oftentimes it is one of the later steps in what has become something of a standard approach to sermon preparation. I will read what other commentators on Scripture said, a variety of commentators. And many of them, they read this verse and their comments on it might be what one would expect. Well, here's James and he's giving his opening salutation. He says who the writer is, it's him. Although there's questions, which James is it? And then he gives the answer as to who he's writing to, the Jews and the dispersion, those of God's followers who are dispersed across the land. But I see a lot more in this first verse and again in these first 11 words than that. And I'm sure many of them did too, and many others have before. But I want you to look at this, and I want you to consider the question for yourself, who am I? How you might answer people when they ask, who are you? Because I think James answers the question for himself. And the book of James covers some of the more difficult things about the Christian life. If you've read the letter of James before, you know that. There's some there's some graduate level stuff in James, some difficult things. This is not surface level Christianity that James is talking about. It's written. Probably it's the first book that was written in the New Testament from a chronological perspective, written just 10 to 20 years after the Lord's crucifixion. One of the first, if not the first letters written. And James is going to deal with a lot of difficult things about the Christian life. He's going to. He's going to immediately, in verse two, launch into this understanding to count it all joy when we fall into various temptations and difficulties and trials. He's going to tell us that faith without works is dead. I mean, that's heavy stuff. He's going to tell us that teachers ought to be very cautious. Because they're going to be judged with a stricter judgment than those who don't teach. He's going to tell us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. He's not going to pull any punches. He's going to tell you that if you're a friend of the world, then you're an enemy of God. He's not going to mix words. He's not going to gray the lines. He's going to come out and tell us like it is. He's going to give us strong medicine for our spiritual condition. He's going to tell the rich that you should weep for what's coming for you if you don't know the Lord. He's going to tell those that seek worldly riches that they ought to be, in a paraphrase, quaking in fear for that that is ahead of them. He is going to deal, James is, with some of the most deep and difficult doctrines of Christianity. James did not see, as I'm afraid far too many of us do, any difference between what is called orthodoxy and orthopraxy. And those are complicated words for right belief. and right behavior. He saw no conflict there. He saw that if one believed rightly, they ought to behave rightly. James was called James the Just, and this is, in my opinion and the opinion of most others, it seems the brother of our Lord himself. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. This is James, the first pastor of the first church in Jerusalem, the first New Testament church. Man of great influence and leadership, and we'll talk more about that if time allows. But he saw no difference, very little distinction between the need to not only believe rightly, but to behave rightly in accordance with that belief. James, though, This is a difficult book I've probably shared before. It's well known and it's often referred to when anybody is dealing with the letter of James. They talk about Martin Luther, who had very little good to say about this book. He questioned even its place in the Bible. He saw in it a contradiction of salvation by grace alone through faith is what I think. He was far more intelligent than I am, but in my humble estimation, his misreading of the relationship between works and faith in James in regard or with regard to salvation had him see this letter in contradiction to Paul, and again, even Peter, and what is the clear teaching of the rest in the New Testament. But of course, a right understanding is that works follow justification. They're not separate from them in that sense. And that's what James is trying to say. James, you need to know, is a pious Jew. He is a advocate for the law, even as a follower of Christ, as one who is committed to Christ. And that's what he's going to say here. This is who James is. He's going to tell us. I want you to think about yourself. Who am I? Who are you, if I were to ask you, would you be able to answer like James does? But I want you to understand that James is an invested Jew and an advocate of the Mosaic law. In fact, the Jerusalem Council that we read about in Acts chapter 10, James presided over that. He talked about those who were still zealous of the law and yet followers of Christ in the letter of Galatians. I believe it was the member that said the Judaizers that came to them, they came to them from where? From James. Assuming no doubt authority, they were not given, but James is a Jew through and through and yet a follower of Christ and to him he saw no difference between the two because Christ was the Messiah of the promised people. The descendants of Abraham. The difficult things that James takes up in this short letter, though. It must be understood in light of the question, who is James? And so he answers it right off the bat. And I think in this there is there's a great demonstration of how we ought to be able to answer that question. Who are you as well? I hope that I would reach maybe the first or second rung on the ladder of what James is able to say by the time this body that you see in front of you and this voice that you hear now will eternally be laid to rest. I hope I can reach, just at least climb a step or two. To be able to say what he says is one of the most blessed things that anyone could ever say. And to understand what James means when he says you should count trials as joy. To understand that faith without works is dead. To understand that if you're a friend of this world, you're an enemy of God. To understand what he's really saying, you need to know who you're hearing that from. And of course, it's God, the spirit of God, as he moved upon James. But the spirit of God chose James to write these words and used his personality and his proclivities and his history and who he was in that inspiration. And then before we can understand any of those other things that he's going to take up, For those difficult doctrines that he hits on, we need to understand something about him. And in so doing, I hope that it then directs our own hearts to where we can understand something about ourselves and then perhaps be able to tell others something about ourselves and in particular, tell others who we are. Now, how? How do you know how you ought to behave as a follower of Christ? How do you know? You might say, well, you need to read the Bible, and of course you do. You need to go to church, and of course you do. You need to follow him in your mannerisms and in and in your life. But the questions they come up, do they not? Is it OK for a Christian to drink alcohol? Some alcohol, no alcohol. Is that OK? Is it OK for me when I say, who am I? Are these things OK? How do we know how we ought to live and behave? Is should you how should you deport yourself in the world? Is it right to dress nicely before going to church or will any outfit do? Is it wine or grape juice that the Lord sucked What place does my language have in my walk with God? What's right and what's wrong? On and on these questions can go. There are so many of them, though, that the questions can become the focus. Is this right? Is that right? And we then create, do we not, a whole list of do's and don'ts. And when we think about the question, who are you? We almost then begin with the list. Of what we're supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do. And it's almost like we missed the point altogether, because what drives those things is is more fundamental and at a layer deeper than that. It's who are you? Who are you? Are you what James says he was or are you something else? Have you turned your Christian life into a list? A list of things that are right and a list of things that are wrong. Or is your Christianity based on this? This is who I am. I am a follower of God. I am his servant. I am I am one who's been redeemed and made new. I've been made in the likeness of him and and he gave me peace and he has been drawing me ever closer to him. And I take steps back. I fall and then I get back up again by his help and his strength. Is your Christianity about a list of do's and don'ts or is it about this? Who am I in Christ? Who are you? How do you answer that question? It's important for us to know the answers of how we ought to behave in our life. It is. I'm not dismissing that. In fact, again, James, I encourage you to read the rest of this book. James is going to go into a lot of detail of what you should do and should not do. But he doesn't begin there. And neither should we. You should begin with what James begins with and understand the question, who am I? Who do you desire to be? If you are not a Christian and you're you're not a follower of Christ. That is not who you are. If that's not who you are. Then behaving as one. It's not what you need to be concerned about first. And I'm afraid sometimes that even Christians don't understand that. We sometimes want people to act like Christians before they become one. We expect behavior and attitudes and hearts and minds that are Christlike that have not yet been made Christlike. James begins with answering this question, Who am I? He doesn't ask it directly. And I know that I might be taking some license here, and that perhaps in James' mind, all he was telling them was, this is from James, and there was no need for him at this time, this early date, for him to explain who he was. I think everybody knew which James this was. Maybe I'm reading more into it, but I will tell you that this is what has leapt off the page and into my heart. And what I what what leapt into my heart and what I want to share with you today is answering that question and understanding it rightly as a follower of God. Who am I? And what does James begin with? He says, a servant. A servant. Who am I? I hope I answer that question with this, I'm a servant. I'm not the master. I am not the one in charge. I am not the rule maker. I am the rule follower. I am not the one that people ought to glorify and look to. I am a servant of the one that people ought to look to and glorify. I ought to be as much as I possibly can be, at the best, a mirror to God. I am a servant of His. And what we want to note here at this time is that James doesn't begin with what we might think he would begin with. Humanly speaking, he's the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see any mention of that? He does not give you a whisper of it. He doesn't name drop. James, the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's not what he says. He says, James, a servant. And we have in this word, servant, that tricky Greek word, doulos. And its most direct translation, and hang with me after I say it, its most direct translation is slave. That is what the word means. He is a servant. He again does not begin with his natural connection with Christ. One commentator said it this way, it's noteworthy that he keeps entirely out of sight his natural relationship to our Lord and styles himself simply a bond servant, which, by the way, is how the New American Standard translates this verse. a bondservant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, that his position as a servant of God, that and that alone gave him a right to speak and a claim to be heard. But how much and how often do men make much of heredity and natural connections? For much of history, kings and queens have inherited their thrones. from their parents, from their father, from their mother. They were descendants of kings and queens who themselves obtained their throne because they were descendants of kings and queens. And we often make so much of earthly heredity. earthly genealogy. But James, he makes no mention of this at all. He makes no mention of his natural relationship with Jesus. He doesn't tell them in this letter. Yes, I remember being raised with Jesus, how we experienced so much of the same things, how he is my natural brother. And in some ways, even by that inferring some superiority, he doesn't say that. He says, I am a servant. And, you know, not only did he not claim that place as a natural brother of the Lord Jesus Christ and said he says servant, not only that, he also doesn't make any reference to his position of influence and power in that church in Jerusalem, does he? He does not say James, the pastor of the Jerusalem church, the leader, the influential one. He does not refer to himself that way. I do not believe he thought of himself that way. Though he was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, a leader of great importance and influence, he makes no mention of his status or his position. He says, James, a servant. That's what every child of God ought to answer the question with. Who are you? I am a servant. We've lost something of that, I think, in our day. The dignity of service to others, the honor of serving others, and certainly the dignity and honor of serving God. James could have began with that. He was seen and looked upon as a man of great influence and position. In Galatians 2.9, we read it this way, when James and Cephas, that is Peter and John, who were or seem to be pillars. When they were there, they brought with them the teaching that they brought, and they looked at James as a pillar. It was James who wrote the letter to the Gentiles after that conference in Jerusalem to say what role the law should have in the lives of the Gentile believer. It was James who wrote it. It was James who was given the charge to send that message to them. He's, again, the leader in the church at Jerusalem, yet he is silent here on any of that. He is silent on his position in the church. He is silent on his position as the brother of the Lord. And answering the question and telling you who he is, he says simply here at the beginning, a servant. We should not get wrapped up or concerned about our position, our power, our influence. Certainly not. First of all, if at all, we should be thinking, I am a servant. That's who I am. I'm a servant. And again, back to that word doulos. One in the Greek who is a slave in the sense of becoming the property of another. That's what it means. A doulos translated servant here and in most other English translations, and honestly, I'll say this now as we continue to talk about it, I don't think that's wrong. I think servant does capture. In essence, what was what James was intending to say because of the way the word slave has become understood in our day. Only negatively. In our day, the word slave has no positive connotation in our common vernacular. It's not something we brag about. It's not something we aspire to. It's not something we want for anyone else. But this is the word James used, and we've got to deal with it. What did he mean? How can it be good to be a slave? Because that's what James calls himself. For Adulas, everything in his life was determined by his master, what he ate, the clothes he wore, the work he performed, the life he lived, all of this and more was in the hands of the master at his or her behest, at their bidding. Now, again, I understand the sensitivity to this word, but does but this does not. Remove from us the reality that this is the word that James used, and by the way, when we define it and understand it, that a due loss is one who has committed himself completely and entirely to his master. Is that not what God has called us to do? And to be. To him. Is that not what he has called us to? Luke 16, 13, Jesus says no servant, and there's that word, no servant can serve two masters. And he says it's not possible, not merely because the servant can't serve two masters, but because two masters would not allow one servant to serve them both. They're either the master or they are not. They are either the owner or they are not. Jesus going on. Either he, the servant, will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 16, 24. Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Sounds like God is calling us. To be a loss, one wholly and fully submitted and committed to him as our master, as our Lord. You remember the young man that came to Jesus and ask him how he could get to heaven, the young ruler, the rich young man, you remember that conversation. Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus gave him a little first says, well, keep the commandments. And the young man, deluding himself, by the way, and lying to himself, said, I've done that from my youth up. And then Jesus says to him, looking at him in Mark ten, twenty one, he loved him and said to him, you lack one thing. Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. James says, I am a servant. Who am I? If you ask James that, James, who are you? He does not begin with, oh, I'm Jesus' brother. He does not say, oh, I'm the pastor of Jerusalem. He says, I'm a servant. And did not Jesus tell us, by the way, do you want to be great? Then you must become a servant to all. Did he not demonstrate that himself in his earthly life to come here as the king of kings and the Lord of Lords and yet serve everyone around him? Who are you? I hope your answer begins with this, I am a servant. As we have removed from our understanding the idea that service to this extent, slavery even. And again, I know the negative connotation there, but I want you to understand that even in ancient times, the idea of slavery in certain situations, it was not compelled. It was voluntary. People willingly chose to commit and submit themselves to someone else. It's what they chose to do with their lives. Again, our idea of slavery is one of only compelled, forced, but that's not the only idea in the word or even in history. This was not the only idea of slavery in the ancient world. Many slaves were slaves because they chose to be, because they willingly and gladly gave their lives in service to another. I want to tell you today that you'll never regret giving your life gladly and willingly in service to God. in such a way that you say, I am his servant. I serve him. When asked, who are you? Do you answer first by saying, I am a servant of God, one who is totally And this might be the thesis of the message here today, one who is totally and completely submitted to the will of God, entirely reliant upon him for everything you have. Is everything. In your life and underline that word, everything, if you're taking notes is everything in my life determined by my position as a servant of God. Is everything in my life. Is everything determined by my position as a servant of God, and that is what he says next, a servant of God, and we'll we'll not focus on these as we did this idea of servant first, but I want to point them out because they're important. He's not just a slave to anyone, to anything. He's a servant of God. Yahweh. Many might be offended, no doubt, at the idea of being a servant to anything, and many are today. This idea is repulsive to us, isn't it? To be a servant to someone else in such a way that we submit to them wholly, that is repulsive to the 2022 Western mind. and it has permeated Christianity. It has diluted, I believe, the strength of a scripture such as this one, when James says, I am a doulos, I am a servant of God. I am a servant of God and many are offended at that idea alone to be a servant to anything. But I do want you to understand that according to scripture, we are servants of something. All of us. You're a servant of something, one thing or another. Romans 6.16 that we've studied not too long ago. Paul says, Do you not know that if you present yourselves, if you submit yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, and that's what he's talking about, slavery, servanthood, if you submit yourselves to anyone in that way, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness. So when considering the question, who are you, realize that the answer includes who or what it is that you are submitted to. So what or whom, to whom are you submitted right now? Who's your master? That's part and parcel of answering the question, who are you? Who's your master? Who calls the shots in your life? Do your friends through some peer pressure? Does a boss, does a coworker? Does someone else call the shots in your life? Do they make your decisions for you or does God? Who is your master? Do you think you make all of your decisions? I would tell you, I doubt that's true. Even if you think it is. I implore you today to be, as James, a servant of God, the maker of heaven and earth, the author of life, including your own. The one who sent his only son to die for you, to restore you back to himself in a relationship that is pure and righteous and holy. You know, as offended as people might be at the idea of slavery, the sting of that is removed when you understand who it is that you are a slave to. I am a servant of God. I am his servant, far from being something to be ashamed of. To be a slave or a servant of God is to be a servant of the most high, as he is called in scripture, one in service to the mightiest king the world has ever known and ever will know. I'm his servant. Who are you? Who am I? I'm God's servant. I'm his servant. I don't serve anyone else. When I am working and thinking and believing rightly, I am the Lord God's servant. As you come to church, as you go through your life, as you wear the uniform of service to God. Do so without apology. Not with pride. But with no apology, I'm in the service of God. And I will tell you today that in the nation in which we live, in the culture in which we live, the time in which we live, that's going to become more and more needful for us to be willing to say, I am a servant of God. The world's going to call you to the question. Your life is going to come to points when you have to answer this question, who are you? And you're gonna have to tell the world, and you should tell the world, I am a servant of God. And he says, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm a servant of God and the Lord. I only want to make one simple point in two parts here. To serve God is to serve Jesus Christ. To serve one is to serve the other. James here, in the very early days of Christianity, making it plain that the doctrine of the Son of God is that He is all God, He is all man. But to serve God is to serve Christ. We do not serve God and in so doing serve some mythical or some energy, as some might call it, or some type of God that we've made up in our head. We do not serve an unknown God. We are servants of Jesus Christ. We are servants of the one who came into the world to bleed and die for us. We are slaves of Jesus if we are slaves to God. To be a servant of one, as we said, is to be a servant of the other. In Hebrews 1 3, he, Christ, is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. Matthew 17 5. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. That's God himself speaking. I am a servant of God, James says, and of the Lord of Jesus, who is Lord Kyrios, supreme in authority. I am a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is supremely in authority in my life. Jesus said it to his followers this way in that great commission in Matthew 28. He came to them and in verse 18 said, All authority has been given to me. All of it. Now, listen, if all authority has been given to Jesus, if he said all authority is mine, what authority is left for you and me? Absolutely zero. It can't be you can have no authority that has not been delegated to you and is ultimately someone else's. And that, of course, being Christ, because Jesus said all authority has been given to me. There is not an authoritative structure in your life that has not been delegated to it that ultimately finds its end in Jesus Christ. Why do you think it's so dangerous that the young people of the day and even our nation now, at a generation or two, has completely dismissed the idea of authority. What do you think the real root goal there is? To remove the idea of authority so that we can all just live the life that we think we want to live and have no rules and do whatever we want to do? I will tell you this, a life without rules, a life without law would be chaos and you'd have no safety, you'd have no peace, you'd have no structure. All authority, Jesus says, has been given to me and I am a servant of him. And what authority I have has been given to me by him because all authority is his. The same, by the way, can be said of any power. If he is omnipotent, all powerful, all power is his. Then I have none. Not an ounce, not a drop in the ocean is mine. All is his. Jesus, the Lord, who is Christ, the Messiah, the promised one of the Old Testament. The one who said he would come, the one God himself in Genesis 315 promised to us, he is the one I serve. Who am I? I am a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the most proper name. For the Lord in Scripture, the Lord Jesus Christ. The deliverer, the mighty conqueror, the one who the world needed and waited for so long, and the one for whom we as his servants now wait again for the second and final coming. As servants of God, we serve Christ, we wait for his promised return with an air of expectancy and hope. And by the way, a fear for the lost world. And as we bring our remarks to a close, I have one other point I want to make, and I hope that you can give me your attention for just a little while longer as I make it. You've heard the phrase, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, some terrible event in your life or some terrible thing. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. You've heard that said. When we think about that, one of those things that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy is surely to be found on the wrong side of the King of kings and Lord of lords when he comes again. This is how I believe the martyrs went to their death praying for their execution. because they saw the reality and the truth of the situation. They knew who they were. They were servants of God. And they also knew who it was that was trying and perhaps even succeeding in taking their earthly life, one who was on the wrong side of an almighty, righteous, and holy God. Who are you? Who are you? Do you have the answer that James had? And, you know, when your life began. When you were young, a baby, an infant, a toddler, even in your early years, the question wasn't necessarily who are you? It was kind of more about who will you be? Who will you be? And then as you age and you get older and you become responsible for yourself, the question transitions from who will you be to who are you? Who have you become? But you know what's gonna happen next, right? It's gonna start with who will you be in this life? It transitions to, who are you in this life? One day, it's going to be, who were you in this life? And the follow-up question, who are you in eternity? Are you as James? Are you a servant of God? Do you desire to be one in the future? Have you been one in the past? Are you one now? Knowing again that this life is going to end. This life is going to be finished. None of us know when, how, what circumstances will be. But as I thought about this passage of scripture and I thought about this verse in James and these first 11 words that are so easy to pass by and so simple to go over the top of them and think, okay, okay, he's just giving us the general address of a letter and perhaps yes, but oh, there's more there. His life ended and by understanding it ended as a martyr, The Jews he loved so dearly, the Jewish system that he adhered to, even in his belief in Christ, they took his life, killed him for his belief in Jesus and his who am I turned into who was I? And now, who am I in eternity? So who are you now? That's an important question. That's what I want you to wrestle with and understand. And I hope the answer is I am a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who I am. Yeah, I've got a vocation, I've got a job that I do that provides for my family, but that's not who I am. Yes, I'm an athlete and I enjoy sports and I'm even gifted and talented, but that's not who I am. Yes, I go to church on Sunday. I do Christian things in my life and I should and I'm glad for that. But that's not who you are. Who are you is are you a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ or not? And all these other things, and he's going to deal with them. No, I don't know if this is the beginning of a march through James, I don't know. We'll ask the Lord that and determine it. But he's going to get into a lot of other things. But we've got to understand first who he is to make sense out of those other things. You want to know one of the most impossible things to do? Behave consistently and across a life as a Christian and you're not a Christian. That'll be a life of misery. It would. You know, a lot of people say those that aren't saved, that don't know the Lord, that they want to go to heaven and that they would enjoy heaven. I don't think they would at all. I think they'd hate it there. They'd hate it there because everything is for the glory of God there. The God they rejected. The God they rebelled against. Who are you? Only God knows the answer to that question. Ultimately, James is going to talk about works and faith. He's going to talk about their balance together. But as we as you look at this beginning verse. That's what that's what we want to bring to you today is that question, and I want you to think about how James was able to answer it. and strive that that too is how you'll be able to answer it, and that I'll be able to answer it that way too, and that God would help us to be able to do that. Let's have a song at this time.