Connect with Skip - Skip Heitzig

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Thanks for joining us
for today's program. At Connect with Skip Heitzig, We're all
about connecting you to the timeless truth of God's Word
through verse by verse teaching. That's why we make messages
like this one today available to you and others. Before
we get started with the program, we encourage you to
check out connect with Skip dot com, where you'll find

(00:22):
resources like full message series, weekly devotionals, and more. And
while you're at it, be sure to sign up for
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connectwiskip dot com. That's connect with Skip dot com. Now
let's get started with today's message from pastor Skip Heitzig.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
My oldest brother was named James Jim and one of
his frequent admonitions to me, as the youngest of four boys,
was grow up. He would love to say that to
his younger brothers, especially grow up. Well. Essentially, that is

(01:04):
what the Book of James says to us, that as believers,
we should reach maturity, we should grow up. You know,
having a baby is exciting if many how many parents
do we have that have had babies before. Sort of
a trick question. How many of you once were babies? Regioansky, Okay,

(01:27):
some of you just are not engaged at all, sort
of like the class that we just saw on the video.
But when you have a baby and you hear that
baby's first sounds, first words, you record it, you take
pictures of it, you share it with family and friends

(01:48):
because it's so exciting. Fast forward twenty five years. If
a twenty five year old is saying Mama, dad, dad
and holding a bottle, not so excited because you figure
by that time there should be maturity. That child should
grow up. Somebody once had a baby is a digestive

(02:12):
apparatus with a loud noise at one end and no
responsibility at the other end, So you want that to change.
It's appreciated for what it is, but not for the
long haul. So how do you know when you're an adult. Well,
a few people took a stab at it and said this.

(02:32):
You know you're an adult when the bills in the
mailbox start coming in your name. You know you're an
adult when four thirty am is early in the morning
instead of late at night. You know you're an adult.
When the heater kicks on and the first thought you
have is how much it's going to cost. You know
you're an adult when you start hearing your favorite song

(02:56):
in an elevator. You know that you're an adult when
jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as dressed up.
You know you're an adult when your car insurance goes
down and your car payment goes up. You know you're
an adult when dinner and a movie is the whole date,

(03:18):
not the beginning of one. You know you're an adult
when you actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time. You
know you're an adult when ninety three percent of the
photos on your phone are of your pet or baby
and the rest of the pictures are things you're trying
to sell on Craigslist to make room for your pet

(03:40):
or baby. And finally, you know you're an adult when
the thought of buying a new sofa or kitchen appliance
makes you as giddy as a twelve year old at
a Justin Bieber concert. Welcome to adulthood now. Just as
having a baby is exciting, a spiritual baby a born

(04:05):
again individual is even more exciting. When you see someone
make a decision to follow Jesus Christ and experience the
thrill of salvation, the joy of forgiveness, the feeling of
peace and joy that comes over them. Having a brand
new start is infinitely more exciting. But there's more. You see,

(04:29):
there's two great themes that run through the Bible from
cover to cover. The first theme is how to get
to God. The second theme is how to walk with God.
The first theme is directed to lost humanity. The second
theme is devoted to saved humanity. Once you know God personally,

(04:55):
you grow in him continually. Both of those themes run
through the scripture. So Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must
be born again. But that's just the beginning. After the
new birth comes growth, growth is expected. And so James
is the adult in the room, the older brother, if

(05:19):
you will, saying to younger brothers and sisters, it's time
for you to grow up in all things in Christ Jesus.
Now today, as we begin the Book of James, I'm
going to look with you at one verse, just James,
Chapter one, Verse one. That probably doesn't take some of

(05:39):
you by surprise, but I have managed to break James
one into four separate pieces. By the way, there are
one hundred and eight verses in the Book of James.
If we were to take just one verse a week,
it would take us over two years, so I will
speed up as we go. But today we want to
look at verse one because I want to give you

(06:00):
the introductory material so you understand who this guy was,
why he wrote it, and just the basis of what
we're getting into. So we're going to look at four things,
the author, the autobiography, the audience, and the address. Let's
begin with the author. The first word in the book

(06:22):
is the word of the author, James, so we know
who wrote the book. James wrote the Book of James.
That's typically how people in the New Testament wrote letters.
They didn't write their name at the end of a
letter like we do. We say dear so and so
and put our name at the end, so that the
first thing we do when we get a letter is

(06:44):
look at the very last page to find out who
wrote it. So they saved you the time in antiquity
and put the guy's name or gal's name at the beginning.
So James begins with his name. The problem is, though
it says James, we have to ask the question which
one because there weren't just one or two. There were

(07:05):
no less than four different men named James in the
New Testament. So let me give you the first three
that we can push aside and end with the author
of this book. The first James in the New Testament,
the most famous James, was the brother of John. James
and John, both disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, both

(07:29):
sons of Zebedee, fishermen up in the Galilee region. Sons
of Zebede nicknamed sons of Thunder by Jesus, remember that
because they wanted to nuke a Samaritan village that didn't
receive Christ as readily as they thought they should. So

(07:50):
James and John sons of Zebede. That James did not
write this book because he died too early. He was
martyred in Acts chapter twelve by Herod, who put him
to death with the sword, so we can push him aside.
The second James in the New Testament is James the
son of Alpheus, also a disciple of Jesus Christ. But

(08:15):
besides that, we don't know anything about him. We just
know he was one of the twelve. And because we
don't know anything about him, he is often called James
the less James the less, not because he's a less
significant person in the eyes of our Lord, but simply
because we know less about him than we know about

(08:36):
the first James. He was never seriously considered by any
scholar to be the author of this book. Second or
third is James the father of Judas not a scariot.
Let me explain that James the father of Judas not
a scariot. You may not know this, but Jesus did

(08:59):
not have one follower named Judas. He had two named
Judas among the twelve. We know less about this guy
than we do even about the second guy. And James,
the father of Judas is only mentioned because he is
the father of a disciple. So we have three men

(09:21):
named James. Were pushing them aside, and we're ending on
this fourth person named James. And this is James, the
blood brother of Jesus, actually related to Jesus by blood,
the oldest half brother, the natural son of Mary and Joseph.

(09:46):
Now we know that Mary was a virgin when Jesus
was born. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in
the virgin womb of Mary. But after Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph, being married, had several children together.
We read that in a few places in the New Testament.

(10:09):
One is when Jesus went to Nazareth. Remember when he
went into the synagogue and he stood up and he
opened the scroll of Isaiah, and he quoted from it,
the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because
he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor,
to open the prison doors to those who are bound,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed

(10:30):
the scroll, handed it back to the moderator and said,
today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And they
didn't like that. They got all upset, saying, who does
he think he is? And they said, isn't this the
carpenter's son. Isn't his mother's name Mary? And aren't his

(10:55):
brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, And aren't these his sisters?
So Joseph and Mary had a large family after Jesus
was virgin born. James is the one who occupies number
one on that list. So he is the oldest second

(11:19):
or oldest half brother of Jesus. So James grew up
in the same home as Jesus. Now just imagine having
an older brother who was perfect. Imagine having an older
brother who never sinned. That would be intimidating, wouldn't it.
How come Jesus never gets spank Mom and Dad, but

(11:43):
James grew up in that home. Now, James was not
a believer in Jesus during jesus whole earthly ministry. He
did not believe he was the Messiah. He did not
believe he was the Lord of all. John chapter seven,
verse five says even his own brothers did not believe
in him.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
You're listening to connect with skip Heitzig. Before we return
to the message, consider this. Abraham's life was full of
ups and downs, but God was in every moment in God.
Print The Life of Abraham Pastor skip unpacks seven engaging
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shapes the hearts of those who trust Him. Through trials

(12:26):
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this powerful seven message series will encourage you that you
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(12:46):
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let's rejoin today's teaching.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
So James grew up in the home, but when Jesus
launched his ministry, James said, I don't believe it. I'm
not going to be a follower. In Mark chapter three,
when our Lord had crowds of people coming to him
in capernaium and he wasn't even taking a break to eat,
it says when his family heard about this, they went

(13:18):
to take charge of him, for they said, he is
out of his mind. Man, our brother is crazy telling
everybody he's the long awaited Messiah. So they definitely didn't
believe in him. And James held that opinion through all

(13:39):
the years of jesus ministry until something changed his mind.
Anybody know what that might be? The resurrection, And Paul
describes that in one Corinthians fifteen, he says Christ died
for our sins according to the scripture. He was buried,
raised on the third day according to the scripture, and

(13:59):
he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After that
he appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren
at the same time, most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James.
So James got his own post resurrection appearance interview with

(14:22):
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was that post resurrection
event that changed James's mind. He became a believer. We
know that because in the opening chapters of the Book
of Acts, James, the brother of Jesus, is with his
mother Mary in the upper room with the one hundred
and twenty followers of Jesus when that church started, and

(14:45):
evidently James became very prominent, very quickly. He became the
head of the church at Jerusalem. He was the one
that superintended and directed the Council of Jerusalem. In Acts
chapter fifteen, when we get to Galatians chapter one, Paul

(15:06):
refers to James as the brother of our Lord and
also as a pillar in the church at Jerusalem. So
James was a late bloomer, but he flowered well. He
grew very quickly in his faith. He became very deeply spiritual,

(15:29):
so much so that though he was not one of
the original apostles, he is seen as the head of
the Church in Jerusalem. Now, as time went on, he
became known as James the Just. That's how early church
historians write about him, James the Just, because he was
deeply spiritual. Eusebius, a early church historian, writes this, James

(15:54):
used to enter alone into the temple and be found
kneeling and praying for forgiveness for the people, so that
his knees grew hard like a camel's because of its
constant worship of God, and he became known as that
old camel knees. He'd always be praying, deeply spiritual. So

(16:19):
that James wrote this book. And one of the reasons
we believe that is not just because the other three
don't qualify, but also because the language in the text
of the Book of James is very similar to the
language in the text of the Letter in Acts, chapter fifteen,
written by James to the Gentile churches in Antioch. The

(16:43):
language is similar similar, and James wrote that one. And
so we believe that James wrote that. James wrote this
Book of James. A couple of other quick facts about him.
Tradition says that he died around eighty sixty two, and
he was pushed off the temple, landed on the hard ground,
still alive, was beaten to death by the Pharisees until

(17:07):
he died. One other fact that you may find interesting.
In two thousand and two, an oshuwary was found in Jerusalem,
and oshuwary is a little box made out of stone.
Oshuwary is where they put bones of people. So they
would bury the Jews would bury people in a sepulcher.
The flesh would corrode over time. All that would be

(17:29):
left are the bones. They would take the bones put
it in a box, a bone box called an oshuary.
In two thousand and two they found an oshuwary in
Jerusalem that says James, the son of Joseph, the brother
of Jesus. So that's a recent archaeological discovery. Some are
disputing it, some are holding to it being authentic. But

(17:51):
I thought you should know. So that's the author James.
He is the half brother of Jesus. But notice what
he calls himself. This is now the auto biography James,
a bond servant of God and Meaning and a bond
servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'll be honest

(18:14):
with you. I think if Jesus were my brother, I
probably would have mentioned that in the beginning of my letter,
but there's no trace of it here. He could have
easily said James the Just, or James from the sacred

(18:36):
Womb of Mary, the congenital sibling to Jesus Christ, the
Lord of the Universe. I mean, talk about name dropping.
That would be the name to drop if you are
related to Jesus. He didn't do that. He just says James,

(18:56):
a bond servant of God and of Jesus Christ, the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's significant because few people knew Jesus
as intimately as James knew him. Ate at the same table,
played at the same places, raised in the same synagogue,
probably shared each other's clothes. I did. I got all

(19:16):
hand me downs. I was number four, and I got
all their clothes because they I washed them. They're good.
I'm not going to buy you new ones. But James
the Just is James the Humble, and probably he is
still regretting the fact that he was an unbeliever for

(19:38):
so long a time, and so he begins his letter
very humbly as a bond servant. Let me tell you
a little bit about that word and what this indicates
that James knew, James knew his rightful place. James knew
his rightful place. He uses a very particular word here

(20:00):
for servant. It's the word du loss. Du loss was
the word for a common slave in the Roman Empire.
William Barklay says there probably about sixty million slaves in
the Roman Empire at that time, about one hundred and
twenty plus million people altogether, so about half of the
population in the Roman Empire were slaves. Slave labor ran

(20:24):
the empire, and the common term for a common slave
was a du loss, one in permanent servitude to another.
He calls himself that a slave, a slave of Jesus,
a bond slave of Jesus. In calling Jesus the Lord Jesus,

(20:47):
and in my English Bible is capitalized, he is recognizing
the lordship of his half brother as the lord of all.
I'll tell you why I think this is significant because
today there is a trend to have celebrity pastors and

(21:13):
superstar pastors. And you know, this guy's something special and
something awesome, and we even love all the titles. Call
me doctor, reverend, Bishop, how about slave? All the new
Testament authors began their letters with this word. Paul a

(21:35):
bond servant, Peter a bond servant, Jude a bond servant. Incidentally,
Jude was the other half brother of Jesus, who wrote
a New Testament book, Paul a Bond servant, and James
as well. Another James, Jim Irwin, who was an astronaut
eighth person to walk on the Moon, said this, as

(21:56):
I was returning to the Earth, I realized that I
was a servant and not a celebrity. So I am
here as God's servant on planet Earth to share what
I have experienced that others might know the glory of God.
One of our astronauts, Jim Irwin, said, I'm not a celebrity,

(22:18):
I'm a servant to show you the glory of God.
That's how James felt about his life. He knew his
rightful place. He's the master, I'm the servant. Also, in
using this term, he knew his notable peers. James was Jewish,
grew up in a Jewish home, knew his Old Testament,

(22:39):
and he must have known that some of the greatest
heroes of the Old Testament were referred to as servants
of God. Moses was called a servant of the Lord. Joshua, Caleb, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
Job and Isaiah were all known as servants slaves of God.

(23:04):
So the first question in adulting one oh one is this,
are you willing to serve him? Are you willing to
serve him? Are you willing to be his tool? His instrument?
Paul will write in Romans chapter twelve, I beseech you, therefore, brethren,

(23:26):
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies
as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable. Which
is your reasonable service. It makes sense, It's the right
thing to do. It's your spiritual act of worship. Let
God have your body and work through your body. Let
your body be His instrument to touch people on the earth.

(23:47):
That's adulting is when you are willing to be a
servant for him. You might have tremendous talents, tremendous gifts, awesome,
how are you use them for His glory? There was
a visitor to a mission hospital overseas, and it was

(24:07):
the first time that this person went to a mission hospital.
And this person noticed a nurse in the mission hospital
tending to a person with leprosy and As this person
got closer and saw the nurse dabbing the oozing wounds
of the leoper, she sort of recoiled and said, I'd
never do that for a million dollars. The nurse said,

(24:29):
neither would I, But I do it for Jesus for nothing.
I do it for Jesus for nothing. You know you're
an adult when you are willing to use your life
to serve him.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
We're so glad you joined us for Connect with skip Heitzig.
Before we go, we want to remind you to request
this month's featured resource, God Print The Life of Abraham.
This seven message series from Pastor Skip terce's Abraham's Walk
with God and invites you to discover how faith can
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a donation of fifty dollars or more. Call eight hundred
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and we'll see you next time on Connect with skip Heidzig.

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