Happiness, Humility, and Mastering the
Details of Life; James 1:9-10
Inverses 9-11 we are going to
focus on grace orientation, and one particular aspect of grace orientation which
is humility. Humility is defined as the absence of arrogance and recognizing
that everything you are is a result of God and what He has provided, and not
the result of your own efforts and your own energy. That is a difficult thing
for us to understand because we live in a society and a culture that rewards us
for our efforts and our hard work. In the spiritual life the issue is not what
we do, it is what Jesus Christ has done for us and we have a whole different
set of dynamics that the spiritual life is based on, so we have to come to an
understanding of grace orientation.
James 1:9-11 NASB
“But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position;
If you were reading this
passage for the first time you might think that it is one that praises poverty,
praises the person who doesn’t have much in terms of material possessions and
wealth, and is a condemnation of the rich and the wealthy. But if you were to
read it that way you would be terribly mistaken because that is not the point
of this passage. The Bible never impugns anybody or runs anybody down because
of their wealth. In fact, some of the greatest believers in all of the
Scriptures were some of the wealthiest people in the world at their time; men
like Job, Abraham, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Barnabus. The issue here, first of
all, is the details as instantiated by money. It could be anything. Maybe for
you it is a social position, a family, friends, a
particular kind of job or working in a particular position. But James uses the
issue of money here probably because that was a problem with this particular
congregation. We will see that it is when we come to chapter two. Secondly, the
spiritual issue is humility and grace orientation versus arrogance and
self-reliance. The contrast is between the humble believer,
i.e. the believer who lacks possession of any details of life. Here it is
money, but it could be someone who doesn’t have family, doesn’t have friends,
doesn’t have social position, doesn’t have a job, whatever it may be; it is the
one who lacks any of the details of life versus the believer who has an
abundance of the details of life.
Verse 11 then provides us
with an illustration that focuses on the tests of adversity. “For
the sun rises with a scorching wind.” This is the attack of adversity
that blows across the life of the wealthy person who has the abundance of
material things, the details of life, and it withers the grass and its flower
falls off; and because of this adversity he loses all that he has, and
everything is destroyed as happened with Job. With Job the issue was: would he
continue to trust God, apply the doctrine in his soul, would he get mad at God,
would he curse God, would he give up on God and react in arrogance and anger
and bitterness towards God? So this is the background here. How are we going to
handle adversity when
it takes away all of the details of life for us and we are left
with nothing. How do we handle that? It begins with grace orientation and
humility.
“But the brother of humble
circumstances…” The use of the word “brother” here is very important throughout
this epistle—HO ADELPHOS [o( a)delfoj], “the brother.” This is usually a term used in the
New Testament of one believer to another. Throughout this James is writing to
believers, fellow Christians, and the subject is always issues in the Christian
way of life. The issue is never coming to Christ, the
issue is how we are going to handle these situations as a believer in the
Christian life. This is going to be critical when we come to some of the
problem passages in the latter part of this chapter and in chapter two. This is
not talking about a believer versus an unbeliever situation.
James is addressing these
believers as brothers because he is emphasizing that we are all believers in
Gods family, and we have to remember that there are all kinds of believers.
There are carnal believers, spiritual believers, wealthy believers, poor
believers, educated believers and uneducated believers, sophisticated believers
and unsophisticated believers, and there are all kinds in between. You can’t
fit Christians into moulds. You can’t say that because you are some way other
people’s experience ought to imitate mine. One of the great problems that we face
is trying to fit everybody into the same mould, and yet everybody is different,
they have different talents, different abilities. God in His grace has given
them different spiritual gifts and different measures of those spiritual gifts.
So everybody needs to be the person that they are and the person that God means
for them to be. James in this passage takes one of the most superficial of all
distinctions to make his point so that all those who read his epistle from then
on would be able to understand the issue. He uses this distinction to drive
home the importance of grace orientation and humility under adversity and under
the attack of adversity. People who think that you ought
take wealth away from people because wealth in and of itself is evil misread the
Scripture. The Scripture says it is the love of money that is the root of all
evil, not money. In fact, what would we do in spiritual life, in missions, in
the ministry of the church if it weren’t for those people that God has blessed
with material possessions and material wealth who then understand the
principles of grace giving and use that to support the local ministry in the
church, missions, and all kinds of different ministries to provide the
communication of the Word of God.
So James starts off, “But
the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position.” This
should really be translated, “But let the humble brother glory in his high
position.” The idea of humility here comes from the Greek word TAPEINOS [tapeinoj] which we will run into several times. It has the
idea of humility, of someone who is in a lowly position, someone who has an
insignificant place in life, someone who has very little power or ability to
advance themselves. This is the idea here. This is a person, obviously, who on
his own has very little in the way of finances, no possessions, and he is told
in a command to glory in his high position. The word “glory” is the Greek word KAUCHAOMAI [kauxaomai] in the present active imperative. He is commanded.
This is not an option, it is a mandate. Rejoice might be a better idea here. He
is to rejoice in something. It takes us back to the main theme in verse 2, to
count it all joy. He is to rejoice in his lack of the details of life and
rejoice in his high position in Christ. As believers we are blessed with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenlies and we have more
wealth than we can imagine in the spiritual dimension.
Romans
Galatians 4:6, 7 NASB
“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our
hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
1 Peter 2:9 NASB
“But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD,
A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR {God’s} OWN POSSESSION,
so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who
has called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light.” So the point here is that we have a new position and a new identity. We
have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies;
we have a vast array of spiritual assets; we are all spiritually wealthy; as
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we are all sons of God, we are in the royal
family and we have a position as a royal priest. So we are now spiritual
aristocracy, heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
This is phenomenal in
terms of its implications for who you are. It has nothing to do with your
material situation, the details of life that you enjoy or do not enjoy, or your
circumstances in this life at all. It has everything to do with your spiritual
position, and that is what you should be concerned about developing in light of
eternity. So the focus for James is for the believer who lacks the details of
life, to focus on who you are in Jesus Christ, and what God has provided for
you at the cross. At the moment of salvation God provides 40 different things
that make up this vast array of spiritual assets. This is a portfolio of
weapons and provisions that God has given us so that we can face and handle any
situation in life, so that we can grow to spiritual maturity, and so that we
can be true victors in the spiritual warfare and angelic conflict that rages
around us.
So the believer who lacks
the details of life is to focus on everything that he has in Jesus Christ, and
he is to celebrate in that, rejoice in that. That is the thrust of the words to
“glory in his high position.” Let the lowly believer celebrate his high
position in Jesus Christ because of divine grace. All that he has is because of
Jesus Christ.
“…and the rich man [the
man who has an abundance in the details of life] {is to glory} in his
humiliation…” In the English Bible the word “glory” and the word “let” is in
italics. This is because they are not in the original language text. What
happens here is because of the previous sentence which is a comparison there is
a stated verb, KAUCHAOMAI, in verse 9. In his excitement he has left out the
main verb in v. 10 in the original but you can supply it by bringing it down to
v. 11 because of the context. What is his humiliation? This is really a bad
translation because there is a difference in being humble and being humiliated.
True humility sees yourself as you truly are, not
inflating yourself or deflating yourself.
The doctrine of grace orientation
To understand grace
orientation we must understand that there are two major categories of grace:
saving grace and post-salvation grace. What happens at saving grace? At saving
grace God the Father in eternity past recognized that the greatest problem man
would face was sins. Every one of those sins was poured out on the cross. Jesus
Christ died as a substitute for our sins on the cross, and God the Father
poured those sins out on Him and Jesus paid the price in full. When it was
done, He said: “It is finished.” There is nothing left for man to do; man adds
nothing to what Christ did on the cross. Man must come to the cross with his
hands empty. He must come in true humility, recognizing that there is nothing in
man—no good works, no good deeds, no talent, no wealth, no
detail of life—that gains for us approbation from God. When we come to
the cross we must leave it all behind and realize that we do nothing, Jesus
Christ does everything. This is the beginning of true humility. We understand
in grace that God does all the work and man simply accepts it. So the rich man
glories in his humility because he realizes that there is nothing that he can
add, and that at the cross God provided everything for him.
What happens at the moment
of faith alone in Christ alone, relying on nothing of our own, God the Father
takes the perfect righteousness of Christ and imputes it to the believer. So at the moment of salvation it is not that you
become good, it is that now God has credited to your account the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ. So when God looks down on you He sees the perfect righteousness
of Christ—this is what you are clothed with—and because of that God then
pronounces you justified. Before the Supreme Court of heaven you are declared just.
Remember, what the righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes,
motivated by the love of God and expressed by the grace of God. The application
of that: what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns, but
the love of God provides a solution through the grace of God, which is the
cross. So the righteousness of God looks down on man (the believer) now and sees
that he has perfect righteousness. So what the righteousness of God approves
the justice of God blesses as it is motivated by the love of God and expressed
through His manifold grace.
So this brings us to the
first category of post-salvation grace which is logistical grace. Logistics is
that science and art of supplying the physical needs of a military unit out on
the field. We are a military unit as a believer out in the field doing combat
in the angelic war, and God has said that He is going to provide for us
everything we need for our physical and spiritual sustenance in the battle. He
is going to provide food, shelter and clothing and he is going to provide Bible
doctrine so that we can grow. He is going to provide the Holy Spirit so that we
can have power to understand and apply doctrine, and he is going to provide the
Word of God so that we can apply it.
The perfect righteousness
of God looks at you and sees your perfect righteousness. Then the justice of
God is going to bless you, not because of who you are or what you have done,
but because you possess the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is not
because as a believer you decided to apply doctrine, you have decided to give
money to the church, because you are going to teach in Sunday School, etc. God never blesses us on the basis of what we do, God blesses us because we possess the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ.
Matthew
Matthew 6:26-28 NASB
“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into
barns, and {yet} your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more
than they? And who of you by being worried can add a {single} hour to his life?
Matthew
Now he is going to drive home
the point.
Matthew 6:30 NASB
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is {alive} today and
tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, {will He} not much more {clothe} you? You of little faith!
Conclusion:
Matthew
Matthew
So in James chapter one: Let
the rich man glory, not in the fact that he has this abundance of the details
of life because he could easily lose those, but let him glory in his humility
because he doesn’t have this on his own effort. Everything he has, all the
details of life that he enjoys are the result of the grace of God. God has supplied
them on the basis of who and what He is and on the
basis of who and what Jesus Christ is, not on the basis of who and what the
individual believer is.
But how is this person going to handle this when he loses those details of life?