The Book of James
James 1:9-12
#3 The Crowing Touch of Faith
By Pastor Jim May
Faith in God causes some vast differences to develop in the way that God’s people react to every situation than how the world would react when facing the same conditions.
James has already sent a tremendous shock into the thought processes of a Born Again Christian when he said in verse 2, “count it all joy when you fall into many different types of temptations.”
Only someone whose faith is in God and whose anchor holds in the trust that they have in God, can be joyful when all Hell is coming against them. That joy is a product of their convictions, faith and belief that God’s promises are true and that we will make Heaven our home in spite of everything that Satan can throw at us. God is in control of it all, including the temptations that are allowed to come our way.
But James, the first pastor of the Christian Church at Jerusalem, has more shocking things to say. He makes statements that are so contrary to popular thinking that we are forced to stop and listen what he is saying. You can’t just hear it and then forget it, but it has to be meditated upon to get the full meaning of what he is trying to say.
His teachings stand out like the giant print on the front page of the newspaper. They are meant to grab your eyes, focus your mind and compel you to read on and hear what the Lord God of Heaven has to say. James understood the high impact way in which Jesus spoke and he wanted to make sure that he passed that feeling along for future generations.
He reminds me somewhat of some commercials I heard several years ago that went like this, “When E. F. Hutton talks, everybody listens.” Well, I submit to you that when you read the words that James has written down, they will grab you and force you to listen.
Now listen to what he has to say in James 1:9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
Now that just doesn’t make sense at all does it? If I am such a brother of low degree then how do you consider me to be exalted? Low means down, under, overcome, sinking fast and exalted means to rise about it all. How can I be both “low” and “exalted” at the same time?
If you were to study from other sources of historical writings from this same time period you would discover that, at the time James wrote this, there had been a famine in the region and many people had become extremely poor because of it. James’ audience could see the evidence of the wisdom contained in his teaching by observing the circumstances surrounding them. He was a master at drawing from real life experiences in order to create a high impact spiritual lesson.
We must learn the lessons that James taught Israel in that day. It does not matter our status in life as to how we relate to God. Poverty and riches do not hinder the depth of relationship that we can experience with Him.
Paul learned this lesson too and he tried to teach to the Christians at Rome who were undergoing such tremendous persection. Romans 8:35-39, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Thank God, we don’t have to be rich to enter Heaven, or to obtain our eternal inheritance through Christ. God doesn’t check your Dunn and Bradstreet Rating, or log on to “Free Credit Report.com” before He is willing to invest in you. All He is looking for is a willing vessel with a willing heart. When God sees those qualities in you, then he exalts you by his own power and will.
Both rich and poor need to come to God in the same way – through the narrow door of Christ.
Since most of the world is considered to be “of low degree” God gives us a real reason to rejoice. It’s not our station in life, but the condition of the heart that God looks upon.
You may have only 1 or 2 suits of clothes that you feel are good enough to come to church, but God doesn’t care. You may have to come to church from time to time with your dirty work clothes on and you haven’t had the time to get cleaned up. God doesn’t care. The folks in the service may give you your own private section for about 6 chairs in every direction but God doesn’t care one little bit. God looks at your heart that wants to worship Him, wants to serve Him and he accepts you just as you are. You may be a person of low estate, but God lifts your soul out of the miry clay, cleanses you by His own blood and announces to all of Heaven that you are a Child of the King and a joint-heir to the throne with Him.
In that knowledge we can rejoice, knowing that our Lord and King has exalted us in spite of our outward appearance.
You can rejoice when the check book is empty and the lights are turned off.
You can rejoice when the pockets have nothing in them but a few bits of fuzzy lint and the care breaks down.
You can rejoice when things go wrong and you are powerless to make them right.
Why: because Jesus has still exalted you and called you His own.
Ephesians 2:5-10, "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
James 1:10, But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
James is not preaching that we should all be poor or live in poverty – not at all. Look at what he says here. James says that even those who are rich in this world’s goods, who have all they need to make life comfortable, and even more, should also rejoice, but only if they are Born Again by the Blood of the Lamb.
Riches do not condemn you to hell, any more than poverty earns your place in Heaven. It’s the condition of the rebellious heart that will condemn you. Though the Bible says in many places that riches can be dangerous, they are never actually called sin. The danger lies in the fact that riches make us self-sufficient, not needing God and not willing to totally trust and depend upon Him.
There were rich men in the church in James’ day as well. But he also knows that the cross of Christ creates a level playing field. Therefore those in poverty and those who are rich are both considered as equal brothers in the sight of God. He is no respecter of persons and treats all of us the same way.
The Christian whom God has blessed with riches has reason to rejoice in that God has brought him down off of the pedestal that the world tries to put him on, and has given him a heart after God and equality in the Kingdom of God.
The poor is exalted; the rich is brought low; and now we can all worship God together without favoritism. We do not look upon a rich man as being more spiritual because of his wealth, neither do we look upon a poor man as though he lacked spiritual power. Both are our Brothers in Christ and that’s all that matters.
The important thing for both the rich and the poor to remember is what James says next, “Because, as the flower of the grass he shall pass away…”
James 1:11, “ For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.”
Another great leveler of the playing field is death. The scriptures tell us in Hebrews 9:27 that, "… it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
So nomatter what our state is in this life, death brings us all to the same level of nothingness as far as this world’s goods are concerned. We came into this world with nothing and that’s the way we are going out. You weren’t born with a chest full of gold coins tied to your umbilical cord, and you won’t take it with you when your spirit leaves this body lying in the grave. What’s of this earth is staying with the earth and what came from God goes back to God to face judgment, one way or the other.
Just last week, Leona Helmsly, a billionaire Hotel magnate whose entire life was filled with acts of contempt for other people, left this world to face God. From all accounts she is probably burning in the flames of Hell at this very moment. I can only judge by the fruits of her life and the terrible legacy she left behind.
She was a cutthroat who cared nothing for anyone buy herself and earned for herself the title as the “Queen of Mean”. She spent time in prison for tax evasion because her attitude was such that she believed that, “only little people pay taxes.” She left this world as a hated and despised woman that very few, if anyone, will miss. She left her fortune behind, giving nothing at all to some of her close family members, but leaving $12 million to an 8-year old dog. Now that’s a woman who had her priorities all wrong and her heart was hardened by selfishness and sin.
But the point I want to make here is that she died at age 87 years of age. All of her meanness, her attitude, her wealth, her corporations and everything else was left behind for others to fight over. She didn’t take anything with her except a lost soul to face God. Death is the great leveler.
We will all face God after this body lies down for the last time. Death will place its cold finger on you and upon me and not one of us will escape if Jesus doesn’t come first to catch His Bride away. So if you are poor, rejoice in the knowledge that you have riches in heaven and reward waiting on the other side. Those that are rich, and who are Born Again, need to rejoice as well, for God has brought them down where they too can have that eternal reward.
Just as the grass comes up green today, and the flowers bloom in your garden in the springtime, and then both are dead and gone in the winter, so is your life, so rejoice in the knowledge that whatever season you are in, you still belong to God and you are His Child.
Job 14:1,2 says, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”
James then goes on to say this in James 1:12, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."
Do you remember what James said in James 1:2? He said, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;”
Now he says that if you go through those temptations, enduring through it all, that you will be blessed.
Enduring temptation means that we must bear up under it, not get mad at God when troubles come and things don’t seem fair. We must remain faithful and not stumble if God takes his time in bringing us through it all.
Enduring temptation means that we take the troubles of life and bravely face them, continuing to trust in the Lord. We should just be quiet and stand still, bear them patiently and with integrity because we know that it’s all in God’s hands and will somehow work out something good in our lives.
We need to remember that temptations are nothing more than tokens of God’s love and confidence in us. He allows them to come to strengthen us and to help us draw closer to Him.
And what is waiting for us when we have endured to the end, when we have faced that great leveler? We shall receive the Crown of Life!
This isn’t a literal crown that you wear on your head. It’s called a crown because of the glory of it. That glory shall be an eternal life and a transformed body. The glory of eternal life and a glorified body are better than any crown on your head anyway! You will have a kingdom and a throne that has been prepared for you and you will rule and reign with Christ in all his Glory. That’s all part of the Crown of Life and it is incorruptible and will never fade away.
James compares this crown in some fashion to the crown awarded contestants in the ancient Olympic Games of his day.
Epictetus, a great philosopher was quoted as saying to each of those athletes as they began training, these words: You say, "I want to win at Olympia." ...If you do, you will have to obey instructions, eat according to regulations, keep away from desserts, exercise on a fixed schedule at definite hours, in both heat and cold; you must not drink cold water nor can you have a drink of wine whenever you want. You must hand yourself over to your coach exactly as you would to a doctor. Then in the contest itself you must gouge and be gouged, there will be times when you will sprain a wrist, turn your ankle, swallow mouthfuls of sand, and be flogged. And after all that there are times when you lose. That sounds like a speech that will really separate the men from the boys.
The champions in those early Olympic games were given a “Crown of Life” because their title was there for the rest of their life. But though they held the title the “crown” would not truly last forever. The glory of that victory soon faded away and the next champion came along pushing their memory and name into obscurity.
The crown that they received was a symbol of victory, courage, strength, bravery and marked them as a champion, but it is made of leaves to let the victor know that popularity, recognition and victory is fleeting and soon another will take his place on the victor’s stand. The Crown of Life that we shall be given will be forever bright and incorruptible through eternity. It won’t fade away because Jesus never changes.
The Crowning Touch of Your Faith will come on the day that you are given this “Crown of Life”.
2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Righteousness and eternal life will be our glory, purchased by the Blood of Christ. That will be the Crowning Touch of your Faith in Jesus Christ.
