Transcription
Well, good morning, morning. Be in the house of the Lord. Amen, amen. Well, as we continue on, every time I’ve come here, like I said, we’ve been going through a sermon series called “The 12,” as we look at the lives of the 12 apostles. So today we’re going to look at the life of James, the son of Zebedee, who is the brother of John.
So, as we’ve been going through this series, we’ve been looking at the apostles and their lives and what they, as the first disciples, have to teach us modern-day Disciples of Jesus Christ. Now, James is one of the inner three, which means he spent a lot of personal, one-on-one time with Jesus in a lot of events that other disciples did not. Those other ones were Peter and his brother John, who get a lot of limelight in the gospels and in the scriptures. We know Peter; he’s always at the forefront—do first, think later. John, his brother, uh, wrote the gospels, the Epistles of John, as well as the Book of Revelation. But Andrew, in contrast, has a lot of very limited light and airtime in the Bible. If he’s in the Bible, he’s normally with his brother John, and we don’t really see him talk; we don’t really see him do too much. So compared to his other two in the inner three, you kind of wonder why he’s in this inner sanctum with Jesus when we really don’t hear too much from him.
In fact, the only time you really see him, he’s normally, uh, lockstep with his brother John. But we’re going to look at a couple of stories of James, and yes, his brother is going to be there, all except for the last one. But we’re going to look at these events that we see in the gospels, and we’re going to see how James’s faith in his walk with Christ is affecting us today. So the first story we’re going to look at is in the Book of Luke 9:51 through 56. Luke 9:51-56, all right.
When the days were coming to close for him to be taken away, he determined a journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead of him, and on the way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But they did not welcome him because he determined a journey to Jerusalem. When the disciples—John, uh, James and John—saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village. James and and John, um, as it says in a couple different parts of the gospels, um, one of the references being Mark 3:17, have a special nickname with Jesus, and that’s the “sons of thunder.” These were men who had a lot of zeal for their Jesus, and we just see it played out every time you see them kind of hit the page in the gospels. Right here, I mean, there’s this interaction with people, and they kind of badmouth Jesus and/or reject him, and their first reaction is with overzealousness: “Lord, you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up?” That’s a little intense, but we see this passion that James has for his Jesus, and that is huge.
Now, one of the things I love to do when I, I give a sermon is I like to either call it, uh, “sermon in a sentence” or a thesis statement, because sometimes when we have a sermon, the pastor, the preacher, there’s, there’s so much great content from a sermon that sometimes you’re like, “What did you learn from church today?” and you’re just like, “Jesus,” or, “Yeah, it was good,” because there’s so much. So I like to kind of whittle it down. There’s going to be lots of great things for this morning’s message, I pray, but if there’s one thing I want you to take away, is this statement: Zeal without humility can be destructive, but passion with grace can transform the world. James is a passionate man, fire on, on fire for his Lord, but we see in the beginning of his discipleship journey with Jesus that passion could be a little crazy and off, and off the rail, and we see Jesus kind of hone him and his brother in. He got to hone in those sons of thunder, and he had to direct that passion for Jes—for Jesus, and that’s what I want us to take away from here this morning: that whenever I preach a sermon, the desire is to equip and edify the Saints and Believers, and for those who don’t know the Lord, that know the Lord. So I pray as we come together and we leave this place that you would be energized and impassioned for your Jesus, but not recklessly.
See, it’s so easy for us as Christians, especially Western, modern Christians, to feel sleepy and to come to church and do routines and go back to our daily lives. But I want us to be on fire for the Lord when we leave this place and refreshed for the week to go out into the world as lights in the—go for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that passion has to be submissive to Christ, because there are plenty of people who are religiously zealous, and that could be destructive. There are plenty of people who would die for a cause around the world for a religion, but can be destructive. And now this, this is, um, a rebuke from Jesus; it’s not directed towards James, but it is a rebuke about being overly zealous to defend him. When he is in the Garden of Gethsemane and they’re being—he’s being arrested, one of his disciples—in a couple gospels that just says a disciple, and others it says Peter—so we know it’s Peter—“think first, do,” uh, “do first, think later,” um, he takes a knife and he cuts off one of the guard’s ears who’s trying to arrest Peter, uh, Jesus, and Jesus in the middle of that steps down, says “5c rule,” picks up the ear and puts it back and heals the man’s ear and rebukes them and says, “Could my Father not call—could I not call down 12 legions of angels from my Father in Heaven? No, I’m not—no one is taking my life from me; I’m laying it down that I might pick it up again.” See, here he’s not rebuking James, but he’s rebuking overzealousness—that no one had to defend Jesus. And here’s what I want us to take away for the first part: We see the passion, uh, James had for Christ is that we sometimes want to feel that we have to step up and defend Jesus—that you know we have to be the Defenders of the faith. But here’s what—here’s the thing: We serve Christ with our hands, not our fists. We have to realize who we’re really battling, and in parts of the Scripture it says that you do not battle like they do—that we battle the principalities of darkness and and the spiritual things. We don’t fight with swords of iron; we fight with the sword of spirit, the word of God. We have a different battle, and that passion has to be directed because it’s not against the person we think it is; it’s not against those people on the internet who…
[Music]
John, we were all waiting for you. You’re just an answer to prayer. That’s all right; glad you’re here, John. Good morning, John. Good John. Over it. Forgivable. Forg—it forgivable. Start over. John, we’re looking at the life of Andrew, the brother of, uh, uh, John today, um, so like I was saying, so this, this passion that he has, he has to be direct—it’s got to be directed because on its own it can be destructive, but in Christ’s hands it, it has a purpose. So it is a good thing to be zealous for God, but look here in this—we’re going to put your finger here in this story and turn to Romans chapter 12, because zeal for the Lord is a good thing. I, I don’t want you to take away from this, this first point that, okay, you know, Pastor Nick said, you okay, don’t, don’t be too over-enthusiastic for Jesus; that’s not the point. Is that James, when he had this interaction and he felt like he had to defend Jesus and call down fire from Heaven, he was thinking he had to defend Christ, but yet we see from his statement to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane is: No one has to defend me. Over and over in the scriptures we’ll see that God is our Defender; he is our refuge and our strength; he is our shield and our rescuer; he is our firm foundation. No one has to rescue Jesus; he rescues Us. In fact, um, there’s a, a quote from [Charles] Spurgeon, as you’ve all known my over such man on this preacher, um, there’s a quote from Spurgeon where he says, “I defend the scriptures like I defend a lion. I—who defends a lion? I just let it loose.” You know, there, there’s this kind of over-ridiculousness of: I don’t need to step in and defend Jesus; I don’t need to step in and defend the scriptures. Jesus can do that himself; he defends me; he is my rescuer and my deliverer. And a lot of times we feel, especially today where, you know, we know Christ, Christianity has the hot seat, and there’s a lot of people looking down, say, “Why, if there’s a loving God, why do bad things happen? If there’s a loving God, why does this and why does that?” And we feel in the hot seat of: “I don’t know how to answer those hard questions.” So either we get into confrontations and we forget who the real enemy is—it’s not the person who we’re having that discussion with; it’s the enemy and the forces of the world—or we’re scared and we’re silent. They say, “I won—I can’t stand up and speak about these things because I’m afraid. What if someone questions me about hard things? Like, I, I, I don’t know how to defend the gospel; I don’t know how to do that.” In this quote from Spurgeon, and quote even from Jesus is: No one has to defend me; I defend you. Jesus can take care of himself, and he takes care of us. Amen. So, but there’s this, um, so there’s that quick rebuke of James’ passion, but here we see there’s that unbridled passion of James where he would think he has to defend the Lord, and the Lord’s like, “I don’t need anybody to defend me; here, I, I’m defending you.” But he takes that in Roman—Romans 12, as I said, and we see that zealousness for the Lord is a good thing. You know, as we go through the stories of James this morning, we’re going to look at passion, and we’re going to look at this enthusiasm for the Lord, but how Jesus takes that unbridled passion of James and he hones it like—to what it looks like lived out in Christ.
So in Romans chapter 12, uh, we’re going to look at verses, uh, 9-21. It says: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters; take the lead in honoring one another; do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the spirit; serve the Lord; rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer; share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality; bless those who persecute you; bless them; do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be proud; associate with the humble; do not be wise in your own estimation; do not repay anyone evil for evil; give careful thought to what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath; because it is written: ‘Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay,’ says the Lord. ‘But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head.’ Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.” This is a quote, uh, out of the, the, the epistle to the Romans from the Apostle Paul. But here we see what unbridled zeal for Christ is supposed to look like. Like I said, we serve Christ with our hands, not our fists. He says, “Outdo one another in, in zeal, and outdo one another in honoring each other.” This—there should be a zeal and a passion in your faith that goes unchecked, and that is—it is ridiculous and otherworldly, but it’s not meant to be fighting these battles that we think Jesus wants us to fight; it’s serving one another and loving one another, and what he says—going out of your way to love those who hate you and living at peace and all things possible and conquering evil with good. See, that passion—we don’t battle the way the world battles. When we’re called to go out to be into the darkness and to fight the good fight and run the race, we’re not out there hoping to stomp on, on people who are opposing us or, or to get into these arguments with unsaved people or all those things. We are out in the world to fight with our hands lifted in prayer, our hands lifted in service to our Lord and our King, to live and conquer evil with the good of Jesus Christ. That’s what our passion is supposed to look—lived out with our hands, not our fists. And we see that correction over James and Peter and in us, because sometimes we’re really either quick to start a fight or too slow to do something because we’re afraid that we need to defend Jesus when Jesus defends us. So we see him take that passion for Christ from James, and the next point we’re going to look at in the Book of Matthew 20:20-28 is that we see James’s passion for Christ—you know, wants to call down fire from heaven because someone dared to speak against Christ, but now we’re going to see he wants a position in Christ. This is in Matthew 20. Now there’s this variation of the story—pretty much all the gospels—and it can either be humorous or encouraging, depending on how you look at the first interaction. So we probably all heard the story if we’ve went through Sunday school, but James and John’s Mommy goes up to Jesus and asks them, “Hey, will you put my sons at your right and left hand?” Now, first, it could be funny because like, your mommy had to go up to your teacher and ask you, “Hey, can you give my son extra credit? And can you be nice to them?” And in some ways it’s funny, but if reality—just as a side note—how amazing it is that a Jewish man had a woman approach him and he not only didn’t rebuke her, but honored her conversation and and saw her faith for her sons and had this conversation with her. See, a lot of times today, especially people think, you know, “Oh, the Bible is such a, a horrible book to genders and and it belittles people,” but you got to realize back in the time a woman wasn’t going up to a man and having an open conversation; they were considered second-class citizens. He, he would—he would have been—it would have been disrespectful almost in a way. But here we see this conversation, so it’s exciting to see that Jesus has such respect for men and women. We’ve seen that over and over throughout the scriptures when we see Jesus interact with women. But that’s just a cool side part. But when you have this conversation of: “I wanted—please put my sons at the right hand of you or the left hand”—when someone becomes a right hand, it’s not about position or power. Don’t get me wrong; it, it comes with that POS—being a right hand. But the point of being someone’s right hand is that you have that person’s absolute trust, and they absolutely believe that you are essential to getting things done. You know, that, that is the point of being someone’s right hand—that you are essential to them and that they trust you. And yes, power and position comes from it, and we’re, we’re going to see through a bunch of parts of the script in, in Luke 22:24-27, uh, Luke 9:46-48, that the disciples had a problem with the idea of power and position; it was a constant issue for them of, of squabbling. So it is something that happens when you’re a right hand or the left hand of Jesus. But this is what this conversation says. This is in Luke 20—Matthew 20, sorry—20 through 28: “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons approached him with her sons and she knelt down to ask him for something. ‘What do you want?’ he asked her. ‘Promise,’ she said to him, ‘that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right and the other on your left in your kingdom.’ And Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ ‘We are able,’ they said to him. He told them, ‘You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and left hand is not mine to give; and that is for those to whom it has been prepared by my Father.’” When the 10 disciples heard this, they became indignant with the two brothers. And Jesus called them—called them over and said, “You know the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
So we see here James and John have this conversation with their mother about wanting to be at the, the right hand and left hand of Jesus; they want to have position and power with Jesus. But like I said, it’s, it’s more than that. When you’re at someone’s right hand, there is a mountain of—saying the king, the boss has complete and utter trust in this person—that they find them utterly essential. So literally when they’re coming and saying, “Hey, will you make my sons your right and your left hand?”—saying, “Will you make them essential to you? Will you make them that you trust them so much that you—that they are vitally essential to you? Will you take them and be so close—close to them?” And yes, they want power and position, and they, they were humbled by that, and Jesus taught them that to have power and position in my kingdom is completely different than what you think it is—that power and position in Christ’s kingdom is to take an example out of his. Because like it says right here: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” Look what it says in Philippians 2:1-11. Yes, I know I’m going to make you flip once again if you’re following along, but in Philippians chapter 2, verses 1-11, it says this: “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in the spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility considering others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he came as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. And for this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
As James comes again with this passion and this zealousness to be close to Jesus and to live with Jesus and to be a part of what he’s doing, Jesus teaches him, “You want to have that position with me, you got to follow my example. I came not to be served, but to serve.” He said, “I love what it says here: He considered equality with God not a thing to be desired, but lowered himself down to the point of servant—to death—even death on a cross. He lowered himself down.” So he’s telling James, “If you want to have height and position in My Kingdom, you got to follow my example. I didn’t, I didn’t lord it over; I didn’t, I didn’t sit where I deserved on the throne of Heaven; I came down; I became a servant; I died a death—even a death on a cross.” He lowered himself down, and this is the example he gives to us as well. I pray that all of us have the similar desire to James—to be at the right hand of Jesus—but here is what Jesus tells us for that passion—that for us to want to have that position with Christ, it doesn’t come from being higher and and self-righteous and better than others; it becomes being a servant like Christ—following him as an example. Like I said, we serve him not with our fists, but with our hands—to be Christlike, to be servants is how we have that position and nearness at his right hand. And then goes on and, like I said, as his, uh, mother asked them, “Will you put them at my right and left hand?” He says, “Will you be able to drink from the cup I drink?” And he says, “Yes, you will.” I said there’s only one time where we see James get his own spotlight, and it’s when he fulfills that prophecy from Jesus. Turn with me to Acts 12:1-2. This is where we see James drink from the cup. “About that time King Herod violently attacked some who belonged to the church and he executed James, John’s brother, with the sword.” It’s the only time we see James by himself—where he became the first martyr of the Apostles. James, who’s one of the inner three, I believe is because of this very reason—is because Jesus was preparing the first one who would give his life of his 12 for the good news of Jesus Christ. We, we never see him preach; we know he did because he sent the 12 out, but we never see him—right? We never see him having big moments. What we see him do is give his life for Christ. This zealous man, this son of thunder, this man who would dare ask the Messiah if he could sit at his right hand—Jesus took that passion and that zeal to live for him and to be with him, and he took him and he showed him, “This is what a life lived out for me looks like—is being willing to not only live your life for me, but to give your life for me.” In, uh, Philippians 1:21 it says, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Being a follower of Christ, a disciple of Christ, is more than just where you attend Sunday mornings, where your—what your list of ideology is; it is about living your new life in Christ—for him. When the Bible says that we need to be born again, it’s not a matter of just asking for a ticket to Heaven—say, “I believe; can I have my free pass to Heaven?” It’s that we have new life in Christ. I love—it says, “The old is gone, and the new has come. We are new creations in Christ.” The old man is gone; the old—the old man, the old woman is gone; we are new in Christ. This life we have is either we live it for Christ or, or we’re not living it at all, because we’ve been called to live for Jesus. So I love where he says, “To live is Christ”—point blank, period. Whether you go to the grocery store, whether you go to your job, whether you go to sleep at night, whether you eat—do it all for the glory of God; it is Christ. He died for more than this Sunday morning. I’ve been saying that as many times as I think I’ve come—I’ve come here because I want us to leave here with this place with this zealousness—that Christ died for more; he gave—came to give you life and life abundantly, and that life is lived by that statement: “To live is Christ”—is every moment of your life lived for Christ, or is—I, I, I’m doing my thing, but I believe God loves me; I believe he died for me on the cross, but I’m going to do my own thing over here; I’m going to give Jesus this small portion right here, but I’m going to do mostly me. He died for so much more than that; he died that every step and every breath would be for him, because to live as Christ and to die is gain, because that’s just to be home and even closer with him. Love—the word it says, um, in Matthew 16:24: “Pick up your cross and follow me.” In the Western mindset, I think we all hear that, and even if we’ve heard what I’m about to say—say—I think in our hearts and our heads when we hear, “Pick up your cross and follow me,” in our minds we think, “Oh, that means pick up like the burden of Jesus and like, you know, have his burdens on our back and, you know, be willing to, you know, think of the things,” and that kind of thing. But it’s more than that. To them, the symbol of the Cross wasn’t the symbol of Jesus; it was the symbol of execution by the Romans; it was death. It would be more accurate depiction if we said, “Pick up your coffin and follow me.” Be willing every day to live—live like you know tomorrow you might be joining God in heaven—that your life is forfeit and it’s his and that, that’s the picture Jesus is trying to get out of his people when he says, “Pick up your cross—pick up your coffin and follow me. Be willing to live for me and to die for me.” I was reading a book this week—I, I love to read; I told you I love to read biographies—and I finished the biography of a Christian missionary to, uh, Africa. He worked with the Pygmies and inner tribes back in the early 1900s during the World War II era. His name was, uh, Don Fairley. And I finished his biography this week, and, um, he was a great read. Like I said, I love to read biographies; I love to hear the stories. But at the very end of the little book there was a story about how their mission board had a policy—because they were so isolated and because missionaries were under such threat by the natives and animals and the elements and diseases—and because they were so isolated that they were by mission board policy told that they had to have a certain number of wooden planks on hand at any time because they were so hard to get, and they needed those planks because at any moment you needed to know when you could build your own coffin. So everyone’s policy was that you had to have enough planks on board to make your own coffin. And there, sitting up in his attic, was literally this man’s coffin as he traveled the world—away—went through isolated jungles and cannibalistic tribes and jaguars and diseases and all of these kind of things—literally picked up his coffin and followed Christ and served his life for the Lord. And this was towards the end of the book, and I’m just sitting here…
Reading it, and I was blown away by that statement and that idea of this man. He served his life literally after the to live as Christ and die as gain. Served it after literally to pick up his cross and follow him because he did not know what the next moment would bring for him. If he would get a disease that he could not cure because the next hospital was 100 miles away; if a jaguar would slip into his camp at night and kill him; or if the cannibalistic uh tribes would turn on him, or anything like that. He literally carried his coffin with him to serve the Lord and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now I'm praying that Jesus wouldn't send all of us to his many dangerous places, but are you willing to carry your coffin with you? Are you willing to live after Christ? To have your passion and desire to be for him and to be near him; to live for him. Him lived out with that humility that he would eventually teach James and hopefully would teach all of us—that to live is Christ and to die is gain. They literally carry your cross; carry your coffin and follow him. This is the passion we see from James, and he has—I learned a couple hard lessons—but I pray as we come here and as we leave this place that you would have a fire in your gut like James did, but not an unbridled one, but one that is hitched entirely to Christ. To live after him and to live for him is to live is Christ and to die is gain. Let's pray.
Heavenly god father, I just thank you for this day. I thank you for the testimony in the life of this man, one of your first disciples, Lord. And I pray that we would learn from his life, and I pray that we would just listen to these stories, Lord, and just be encouraged by them to go out and live for you. To go and every day be willing to pick up our coffins and follow you; to live for you with all of who we are because we find our all in you. We thank you, Lord, for your love, for your grace and your mercy, in your son's name I pray, amen.