Those who knew James called him “old camel’s knees” because of the callouses on his knees from spending so much time in prayer. Perhaps it was his prayer life that gave him the wisdom to present the power of faith in everyday life in his letter to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. Some have called James “the Proverbs of the New Testament.” James desired that his readers understand that genuine faith will carry them through all of life and through any trial. In his letter, he declares the truth that genuine faith leads to action.

Okay, so James, the book of James. Open your Bibles to the book of James and let's pray before we get going on it. Lord, we thank you for giving us such practical and helpful wisdom for so many parts of our lives. We thank you for giving us the testimony of a man like James to come and speak the words of truth to us, to help us to walk by faith, to have an authentic faith, not a dead faith. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see that in this marvelous book that you've given to us.

Amen. James. You can summarize James in a very, very short phrase, and it's this phrase, faith that works. It's about a faith that brings forth works, And it's incredibly practical. It's very street level.

That's why some people have called James the Proverbs of the New Testament, because he speaks about how There are so many ways that faith that's true expresses itself in real life. And of course it has to do with real life relationships. And that faith without works is dead. And So he reveals that issue. True faith is not simply an intellectual assent to something.

It's a faith that actually works. In James, there's much to help you understand yourself and what's going on inside of yourself. James speaks of things that show you your self-centeredness. James shows you how to unsnarl bad, inward attitudes towards people, especially the poor. He talks about favoritism, and he deals with handling anger.

How to understand if what you're seeing is godly wisdom or worldly wisdom, That's a really important thing to have in your own thinking sorted out correctly because James tells you what worldly wisdom looks like, and it's an infallible proof that you're given. So you can always know whether something good or something bad is going on in a room. It's really a manual on biblical counseling, and there's so many situations that James addresses. You know, how to respond to trials, how to handle your tongue. Well, that's something that you have to deal with every day.

How to understand the results of self-centeredness, how to deal with anger. There are 108 verses in this book, and there are 50 commands in those 108 verses. James does two things. He cuts and he makes you bleed and then he comforts you and he heals you with wisdom from heaven. He confronts you and then he cures you with wisdom from heaven.

And James calls for us to change our thinking about lots of things. One of the most prominent things that he desires our change is the way that we think about trials. He begins his book with this whole matter. James wants to completely refashion your thinking about trials. You might just pause for a moment and ask yourself, what's my attitude toward trials?

Not the trials of other people, but my trials. You know, usually we have a different view of other people's trials than we do our own. But James wants to change the way that you think about your trials. Well, we think that trials are bad, but James wants us to think that they're actually good, that first of all, they're from God. Secondly, that they are designed specifically to increase our joy.

It's really important that you change your view of trials. You're going to have trials, lots of them, all your life long. You may as well figure it out now. It's a blessing to understand this when you're young, that God is the one who brings trials and He does it in order to increase your joy. And if you talk to people who've undergone enormous times of trial and if they are the kind of people who trust the Lord, that they cast their cares upon the Lord, you'll find that they will say that their greatest trials have been their greatest blessings.

But James wants you to refashion your brain in the way that you think about trials. He also wants to help you think rightly about faith. Faith isn't just an intellectual matter. Faith isn't just having thoughts about God, because faith without works is dead, and true faith never stops with knowledge. The Bible makes it clear that faith comes by hearing, and James makes it clear that hearing causes us to be doing.

So the matter of faith is critical. Faith isn't just a personal matter. It's something that has an expression in the real world. And you learn that Christianity is not just an intellectual proposition. It's something that makes your feet move.

It changes your relationships. It helps you to think differently about the things that you face. Now, why is this important? Well, it's important on many, many levels. I'll just bring up one level of its importance.

You know, I don't know how many sermons you've heard in your lifetime. Probably many sermons. You've probably heard hundreds, you might have heard of thousands of sermons at this point in your life, but what do you do when you listen to a sermon? What's happening in your mind, And how are you thinking about that sermon? Well James wants to reveal to us that true faith never stops at knowledge.

That listening to a sermon doesn't stop with knowledge. One of the traps that Christians can find themselves in is that they are just acquiring knowledge from a sermon. They're just trying to get the points down, when in fact all of that knowledge was really designed by God so that they would spring into action. And the way that we ought to listen to sermons is to ask this question throughout the entire sermon, Lord what would you have me do? What are you telling me about this world?

What does this have to do with politics and what does this have to do with family life? What does it have to do with work life? What does it have to do with church life? And what do you want me to do about it? That's the way that James would have us think about our faith, because faith without works is dead.

Hearing sermons without springing into action is dead. So he wants us to completely trust the Word of God to such a degree that we actually do something about it. We're not just picking up knowledge in our brains and letting it sit there and rot, but that knowledge is designed to make us move. So that we really demonstrate that we really do love God, we really do believe in God. We believe in His Word, and we completely trust in it.

You know, it's one thing to say, I have faith. It's a completely different thing to move out in faith by making particular changes and taking particular actions, because faith, without works, is dead. Here's an illustration of that. Many years ago, probably in the 1970s or the 1980s, engineers started building high-rise commercial buildings that were covered with glass. They're all over the place today, but a long time ago they weren't built that way very often.

But when builders started building these buildings that were glass on the outside, at the beginning the workers in those buildings were afraid to go near the glass. And so the owners of the buildings would be constantly trying to educate the tenants that they could actually put their desks right near the glass, but nobody wanted to go near the glass. They felt like they would fall out and it was a long way down and, you know, if they put pressure on the glass, you know, they might go through. So they would bring, you know, in one building in particular, they, you know, brought everybody together, gave them a lecture about how strong the glass was, told them it was no problem. But people still were afraid of getting near the glass.

So they brought some structural engineers in to come and give the real calculations of the load capacity of these windows and how there's no way anybody was ever going to fall out of those windows. But It still didn't work. And so in one building, they decided to stage a demonstration. And they got everybody in the building together. And the man who was giving the lecture saying, this is really safe, he pulled way back from the window and he started running and he threw his whole body into the window and he bounced back and people started trusting in the windows.

And you know often what happens to us is that we don't trust the Word of God. We're not willing to throw our whole weight against it. But what James is saying is that faith actually rests its entire weight. Faith risks its entire reputation, its entire life upon the Word of God. Faith works.

The only true faith is a faith that works. And the only kind of working faith is a faith that is true, and a true faith trusts completely. That man completely trusted in the integrity of those windows and he threw himself up against the window. The true Christian trusts God, trusts his Word, and is willing to risk everything on that word because he trusts in it. He knows it's true and he knows that it will save him.

He knows it'll always take him in the right direction. So James is all about a faith that works. Jay Adams wrote a book, a commentary on the book of James, and here's how he outlined it. I really like the titles. You can be a complete Christian.

You can face trials with joy. You can resist temptation. You can conquer doubt. You can pray effectively. You can have good motives.

You can master desire. You can overcome anger. You can be genuine. You can be a peacemaker. You can remain faithful.

You can plan providentially. You can learn patience. You can handle sickness. You can turn people back from destruction. Those titles really give a sense of what you find in this book that James has written.

And he's saying in many different ways, there's a beautiful life out there in the kingdom of God. It's a different life. It's a wonderful life. And so he explains it. Now, why?

Well, we don't know exactly why James would be so practical, but those who knew him called him old camel's knees because of the calluses that were on his knees. And he had such calluses on his knees, so tradition says, because he spent so much time in prayer. And perhaps it was his prayer life that gave him the wisdom to present the power of faith in everyday life in such practical terms. And he's speaking to these 12 tribes that are scattered abroad, but he has wisdom that's really helpful. Wisdom you can use every day of your life.

If you take the 15 or 20 minutes or so it takes to read James, and you ask yourself, can I put this into practice? You'll find you can put almost everything into practice every day because there's such street-level situations that he brings up. So that's the message of James. Faith works. Let's talk about the audience.

This is written to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad. The gospel began to spread, persecution rose, and there was a dispersion. People fled their cities where persecution was taking place. The persecution hadn't risen to its greatest levels yet, but people were losing property and reputation. Not much loss of life here quite yet, but they were dispersed by God and they were dispersed in order to spread the gospel.

The persecutions came because God wanted His Word to spread, and this often happens where you have great dislocations of people. They're persecuted and they go to a different country, and that different country hears the gospel. And, you know, our own nation was populated initially by people who were fleeing persecution, and they came here to preach the gospel. And the reason that you have so many Christians in this nation today is because of a persecution that took place in England. So you never want to despise a persecution because it can cause a dispersion where the gospel is carried to other parts.

They had the Scriptures and they took the Word of God with them and they were lights in the countries that they had been dispersed to. This was also a fulfillment of prophecy. The Lord promised, He prophesied in Ezekiel chapter 11 verses 16 and 17 that the Lord would cast his people off into the cities of the Gentiles. He says, therefore say thus says the Lord although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone." They fled persecution, and God was for them what he calls a little sanctuary in those places. And in that sanctuary, the Word of God was preached, and because it was preached, it was heard, and because it was heard, it was spread.

So the audience is composed of those who are scattered in a great persecution and a dispersion of those people among the countries of the Gentiles. Let's talk about the time of writing. Well, this is one of the oldest books of the 27 New Testament books, probably written before 49 AD, probably written before the Jerusalem Council. And so what you get in the book of James is really a reflection of the various earliest churches and the issues that they were facing. The struggles that they were having were the struggles at the beginning of the first New Testament churches.

Isn't it interesting that those are the same issues today that we need to hear about? The same problems that existed in the earliest days of the church exist today. People still struggle with the use of their tongues. People still struggle with despondency when they go through trials. People still have various kinds of problems.

People still have pride and they practice favoritism. There's nothing new under the sun. And so what was written there in the early days of the church is very practical for us. And, you know, James is calling a church to live a sweeter life, And he really underlines or really gives an example of what the Apostle Paul said when he declared that no temptation has overcome you except that which is common to man. The problems of the early church are the problems of our church, and the problems of our church are the same problems the early church had as well.

Now there are a number of allusions to Job in this book. There are at least ten allusions to Proverbs, But one of the most interesting things about the book of James is that the words of Jesus are repeated over and over in the book of James. For example, the Sermon on the Mount would be the place that you would find the most illusions or references in James. Like, for example, in Matthew 7, 7 the Lord Jesus says, Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you. James 1, 5 says, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him.

In Luke chapter 6 20 you read, Then he lifted up his eyes toward his disciples and said, Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God." In James 2 verse 5, you read, Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him." So you see this connection between the words of Jesus and the words of James. Here's Matthew 5-9, "'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.'" In James 3-18 you read, "'Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. In Matthew 12.39, Jesus answers them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it." And in James 4, 4 you read, adulterers and adulterous. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? In Luke 6, 24 Jesus says, Woe to you who are rich.

In James 5 verses 1 through 6 James says, Come now you rich, weep and howl for your miseries are coming upon you. So there's a lot of commonality in James' words and the words of the Lord Jesus. So why? Why is there so much of Jesus in the book of James? Why did that happen?

And perhaps the answer to that question has to do with who wrote the book? James. So let's talk about the authorship of the book. We know him as James the Just, but there are several James in the New Testament. There's James the son of Zebedee, there's James the son of Alphaeus, there's James the son of Mary and Joseph, and finally there's the brother of Jesus.

So you have got at least four Jameses in the New Testament, and who is it? Which James is it? We can't spend the amount of time we take to really explain this carefully, but my view is that James is the brother of Jesus. And the reason there's so much of Jesus in James is because a student when he is fully taught will be like his teacher. And we see this with James, that he was like his brother.

And interestingly enough, there was a time when Jesus's brothers rejected him. You can read about it in John chapter 7, verses 1 through 5, and there's the statement that John makes, for even his brothers did not believe him. So James, the brother of Jesus, probably wrote the book of James. He filled the book of James with the words of Jesus, but there was a time when he didn't believe Jesus. He'd rejected him.

So that's the authorship. Now let's spend the rest of the time in the book itself, and you have an outline in front of you. There are five chapters. James is really very easy to outline because he moves from very clear subjects one to another, and it really is very, very clear. So let's just pick up the first four verses.

The first section is this introduction, and James gets right to the point about trials, And I think it's important that he does that because we do have so many trials. He says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Now here he deals with trials, and How one responds to trials determines almost everything about that person's life. It'll either make him a bitter person or a continuously getting better kind of person. A medieval author, John Donne, wrote this, affliction is a treasure and scarce any man has enough of it.

No man has affliction enough that is not matured and ripened and made fit for God by that affliction. What he says is true. It is a treasure. It's a good thing. It matures you.

It ripens you. It makes you fit for every good thing. And so he says, consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. You'll find this very consistent testimony among those who suffer great trials. I don't know if you ever read the book In God's Underground by Richard Warmbrand.

He was a Romanian Christian. He was arrested. He served in prison. He was beaten. He was sleep-deprived.

He was starved. He was forced to do all kinds of very physically taxing things. He was beaten, he was abused very severely and was brought near death many times when he was in prison. But in 1965, he was ransomed out of Romania for $10, 000 and came to the United States. Eventually, he went to Scandinavia and England in the United States.

He ended up testifying before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. And he, in order to demonstrate what had happened to him, he took off his shirt down to his waist to show this committee the scars, the wounds that were all over his back and his neck and his chest to make it clear that he did suffer quite a bit of abuse at the hands of the communists there in Romania. And during that testimony he talked about his solitary confinement in his days in that Romanian prison. And here's what he said, For years I never saw the sun, moon, flowers, snow, stars, No man except the interrogator who beat me. But I can say, I have seen heaven open.

I have seen Jesus Christ. I have seen the angels, and we were very happy there." Well how does that happen? It happens when you have a faith that works. It's the kind of faith that James is talking about. That when you encounter various trials you consider it joy.

You know that God is not finished with you yet, that God desires to grow you, to help you, to mature you, to ripen you, and it is so true that when you encounter various trials you can be the very happiest in your whole life. And I've spoken with many people who've had severe trials, and those who are Christians say they were the sweetest times to me, because faith works, And it works in real life, and it works in the hardest conditions you'll ever face. That's why the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 9, he said, We were hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always caring about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh." And then Paul says, therefore we don't lose heart even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." So James begins with this recalibration of our thinking about trials. What should you think about your trial? Consider it joy. So then he speaks of the problem that we all have and that is that we lack wisdom.

So in verses 5 through 8 in chapter 1 he says, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him." God will give you the wisdom you need for the moment. He might not give you all the wisdom you want but He'll give you all the wisdom you need. By degrees He will help you to know what you ought to do. And you may not know what you ought to do completely forever, but He'll give you enough for the day. If you ask, He will give.

He's a kind father. He's a father that loves his children, and he gives his children wisdom when they ask. You can live in the abundance of God's wisdom. And then he speaks about riches in verses 9 through 11 in chapter 1, and he tells the truth about riches, and That is that they fade away. Two problems with riches.

The riches fade away, but it's worse than that. The rich man will fade away when he trusts in his riches. And then he speaks about temptation and the true nature of temptation. And the true nature of temptation is this, each one who is tempted is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. And that gives birth to the sin.

Our sins are not other people's faults. We're drawn. We are drawn into temptation and we take the bait. But James says, Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved He will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. We are tempted because of our internal desires.

It's our affections that are the problem. So you train your affections toward godly things and you'll find temptation to become a smaller and smaller problem in your life. And then he speaks about the wrath of man in hearing and in speaking. Now He says, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Does anybody need to learn how to be slower to speak?

Or to be slower to wrath or to be quicker to hear? You know, many of our problems in relationships can be traced right back to that. Instead of being slow to speak, we're quick to speak. Instead of being swift to hear, we're slow to hear. And as a result, we go quickly to anger.

It's such a help to be encouraged to just slow down, to listen more, to ask more questions before you shoot your mouth off and respond and tell everybody your ideas. I don't know if you've ever known people who can't seem to stop talking and They just blabber on and on and on. And you never have to worry about what you're going to say because they don't give you any room to say anything. And you should just be very careful if you find that tendency in yourself to always be the one talking. It's wiser to be the one asking and listening and waiting and seeking wisdom rather than spouting out your own.

So he addresses that in verses 19 and 20 in chapter 1. Then in verses 20 through 27 in chapter 1 he speaks of being doers of the Word. He says, "...but be doers of the Word, " verse 22, "...and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. If anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, He is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for He observes Himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man He was. This is a situation where you hear the Word of God and you just go your way, rather than asking the Lord what you might do about it.

And He gives this illustration of a person who looks at his face in the mirror, he looks terrible, but he doesn't do anything about it. He just keeps going on his way. Imagine if you did that. Well, I can tell that you here today did not do that. You looked in the mirror and you did something about how poorly you looked, and you don't look so bad right now.

You look pretty good, actually. It's because you didn't do this. Well, it's easy to do that with the Word of God. And James is telling us that we should be poised for action whenever we hear the Word of God. Whether ever we read it, we should think of what we ought to do about it.

When we hear it preached, we should consider how we ought to spring into action. Be doers of the Word. Then in chapter 2, he starts off with favoritism in the church. Lack of love is the worst problem in a church, where people are driven by outward appearance, they're driven by success. It always edges out love.

But James says that this perfect law of liberty calls us to love one another. And our love is tested by the different kinds of people. Specifically, love is tested when you have a poor person in the congregation and they are next to the rich in that church. And you're tempted to treat the successful people better than the unsuccessful people. And it's nothing but wisdom from the devil that does that.

And so he addresses this and he talks about a man comes in with fine apparel and you give him the best seat. A man comes poorly dressed and you give him the worst seat. And it's lack of love for people. God would have us love all of his creatures that enter into the church. Then the classic statement in chapter 2 verses 14 through 26 about faith without works being dead.

And again, he brings up this problem of having your Christianity just living in your brain and doesn't get beyond your brain and it doesn't cause you to care for people. And he gives an illustration. If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and if one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warmed and be filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? And then he says, don't you know that faith of that works is dead? And he says, no, you show your faith by your works.

And then he gives an example of Abraham who believed God and it was accounted him for righteousness and he was called a friend of God and he says because he was justified by works and not by faith only. Now that statement sounds wrong, that man is justified by works. Well, James doesn't believe that man is justified by works alone. He believes that you're justified by faith alone and that your works are an outgrowth of your faith. And he gives the illustration of Rahab the harlot as well.

He says that a Rahab was also justified by works. Now that sounds heretical because it is heretical if you don't understand everything that James is saying. You just can't take that verse out of context and ignore the rest of the Bible. The Bible has much to say about faith and works, and this statement has to be harmonized with those other statements. But yes, James did say that Abraham was justified by works, But what does that mean?

And you have to take the rest of what James says and the rest of what Jesus says and the rest of what the Bible says about faith, that we are justified by faith. This is why Martin Luther did not like the book of James, because Martin Luther was appointed by God to be one of the chief communicators that salvation is by faith alone apart from any works of the law, which is a quote from the book of Romans. And so Martin Luther called James a right strawy epistle. In other words, a pistol full of straw. He didn't like the book of James.

He didn't think it should have been included in the canon because of this statement right here in the second chapter. But Luther was wrong, and the whole Bible does really speak of what faith and works are really all about. Okay, chapter three, one of the most practical and really convicting parts of the entire book on taming the tongue. And the first thing he says is, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment, because we all stumble in many things, and teachers stumble. There isn't a teacher alive that has not stumbled in his words in many ways.

So he's saying not many of you should become teachers, but then he speaks about how your tongue always takes you in a direction. Your tongue is like a rudder of a ship, and it takes you in a direction, so be careful what you say. And then he says the tongue is a fire, and it sets things on fire, And it is set on fire by hell, okay? Not very complimentary, but he's speaking of just how difficult it is to tame the tongue. And chapter 3 has a great focus on that.

And then He turns to instructing us on how we know whether we have wisdom from heaven or wisdom from below. This is really critical because He gives you a diagnostic tool to help you understand whether it's wisdom from God or wisdom from the devil. A lot of times you'll have sound doctrine spoken in such a way where it's not really wisdom from above at all because of the way it's being used. And he says that the wisdom from above is pure, it's peaceable, it's gentle, and it's willing to yield, and it's full of mercy and good fruits and without partiality. So when you see things that are not like that, it's not wisdom from heaven.

You can have the smartest person, the most articulate theologian, But if they are not pure and peaceable and gentle and willing to yield and full of mercy, it's not wisdom from heaven. It's just that simple. And then in chapter 4, he goes further to help us understand personal conflicts and he deals with the sources of fights and wars among you. He says, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You want something and you can't have it, So you covet and you fight and you war, and the problem is is that you you want a world of your own making, and he says that when you do that he calls you an adulterer and adulteress, having made friendship with the world.

You're caring about building your own kingdom, and it causes enormous problems. And then he speaks about godless conversation in Chapter 4, verses 11 through 17. And he's talking about how we talk and how it reveals our hearts. He first of all talks about speaking evil of one another. He says, do not speak evil of one another, brethren.

He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law." So he talks about that kind of talk when you're speaking evil against your brother and what that really is. Then in verse 13 he says, "...come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we'll go as such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit.'" He's talking to people who say things about their life. They're boasting, I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna go to this city, I'm gonna become great. We are gonna be so fantastic, right? It's the way that you talk about your life, and James is just, he's calling this godless conversation.

It's conversation that doesn't acknowledge God. It's not conscious of God in the decision-making process. It's trying to figure out your life all on your own. You know, it's right for you to plan. It's right for you to try to figure out your life, but how do you do it?

Are you doing it boastfully? Are you doing it without God in the mix? Are you just trying to create this fantastic life? You know, you're just figuring out this dynamic, wonderful picture of life, and does it just come from your worldly desire to be great or to have some kind of an image. That's what he's confronting and he's saying, so don't go say we're gonna go do this and this.

Seek the will of the Lord. Humble yourself before God and say, Lord, what would you have me do? Not what would I have me do, but what would you have me do? That's the key to all planning. And it's so easy to just launch out in planning your life without saying, Lord, what do you want me to do?

How have you made me? Where have you put me? How can I be useful to you in the life you've given me? And that's the whole matter of this issue of planning and the godless conversation that often happens. And then in Chapter 5, he speaks about just the bankruptcy of ill-gotten riches.

And he says, come now you're rich, weep and howl for your miseries are coming upon you. Why did that happen? Well, because they were taking advantage of people. They weren't paying their laborers what they deserved. They were withholding what they owed other people.

And then they were taking what they had gained and they were misusing it. They were living luxuriously on the earth. And James says all of your wealth is going to corrode and you're going to end up in a worse state than before. And then in the final segments of this book there's a section on prayer, James 5, 13 through 18. This is a section of Scripture that elders of churches use all the time because people need prayer and people ask for prayer.

And so he says, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing Psalms. 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 sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man avails much." And then he gives the example of Elijah who prayed that it wouldn't rain and it didn't rain for three years and six months.

So it's an appeal to prayer, but notice something really important. It's an appeal for people who are sick to ask the elders to pray for them. In other words, to be vulnerable. To say, elders, I need help. Please come and pray for me.

Please come and anoint me with oil. This is a passage of Scripture that is used very, very often in local churches to cause prayer to take place. One of the sad things that can happen in a local church is when people are reluctant to call the elders. They think, I'm on it. I'll get through this myself.

I don't need anybody. But God wants to create relationships of love and reliance and a godly dependency where we're vulnerable to one another and we say, come pray for me. And then the letter ends with one of the most wonderful things that can happen. And it's when someone wanders away from the truth and someone turns him back. Someone loves, someone reaches out, someone leaves the 99 and goes after the one.

And James says, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. So the book ends kind of abruptly with this appeal to remember that some people are going to wander away from the truth, but what are you going to do about it? You're going to go after them, and you're going to seek to turn that sinner back. Why? Well, because you have faith.

You have a faith that works. You have a faith that causes you to go and be a good brother or a good sister toward the one who's fallen into sin. Because faith, that is true faith, works. And that's the whole message of James. If you have faith, you are going to see wonderful things happen.

You're going to tame your tongue. Your relationships are going to be different. The confusion and the tumult and the fighting is going to go away. Because your faith is working. It will make you a peacemaker.

It will make you a person who uses your tongue for blessing. It will make you a person who will have joy in trials. It'll make you the happiest person in the room in the most difficult situation anybody's ever faced. You'll be like Richard Wurmbrand who in the face of some of the most terrible abuse, he would say, but the Lord was there. We were happy there, because faith, that's true faith, works, and it works everywhere, and it works all the time.

And that's the blessing of the kindness of God towards sinners, that He would draw them to Jesus Christ, and He would give them faith, and then He would change their lives, and they would walk differently and talk differently and think differently and feel differently, and they would consider it all joy. What a blessing, huh? What a life. It's the life in the kingdom of heaven. So there's James.