the vine and branches illustration of closeness to Christ, and joy being made complete
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8 “In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
21 But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates me, hates my Father also.
24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father.
25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.
27 You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
God exalts the humble, oppose the proud, humble yourself under His hand, cast your cares on Him
1 Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed.
2 Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly;
3 neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock.
4 When the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the crown of glory that doesn’t fade away.
5 Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time;
7 casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
8 Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
9 Withstand him steadfast in your faith, knowing that your brothers who are in the world are undergoing the same sufferings.
10 But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
11 To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
12 Through Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I consider him, I have written to you briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.
13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you; and so does Mark, my son.
14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace be to you all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
guard your steps before the Lord and draw near to listen rather than offer the sacrifice of fools
1 Guard your steps when you go to God’s house; for to draw near to listen is better than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they don’t know that they do evil.
the humble believer takes pride in high position while the rich should note their wealth fades like a wildflower
9 But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;
10 and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.
11 For the sun arises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in his pursuits.
the one who perseveres under trial will receive the crown of life
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
do not merely listen to the word but do what it says, like looking in a mirror and acting on what you see
22 But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
not keeping a tight rein on the tongue makes religion worthless; pure religion is caring for orphans and widows
26 If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.
27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
having believed, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a mark in the spiritual world
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ;
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love;
5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,
6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved,
7 in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
8 which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him
10 to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him;
11 in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will;
12 to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.
13 In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
15 For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which you have toward all the saints,
16 don’t cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers,
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him;
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might
20 which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
22 He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This was a women's Bible study teaching through James chapter one, led by Deborah at First Baptist Jackson. She worked through the chapter verse by verse, asking what real faith looks like when life gets genuinely hard. The thread running through everything was this: God is good, he is not indifferent to what we suffer, and faith that is real will eventually show itself in how we think, what we trust, and what we do.
What was said
James was Jesus' half brother, and like his brother Jude he did not believe Jesus was the Messiah while they were growing up. It was only after seeing Jesus risen and glorified that both of them were completely sold out. James went on to write this letter to Jewish believers who had been scattered from Jerusalem by persecution, many of whom had lost their jobs and been forced to leave everything they knew. He wrote to people in real pain, and he did not pretend otherwise.
The first thing James asks of those people, and of us, is to think differently when trouble comes. Deborah was careful to say this is not about faking happiness or pretending suffering does not hurt. The joy James points to is a settled sense of well-being, the ability to say "I know God is good and I know he is not finished" even when circumstances are painful. She shared a conflict that landed in her own home right after returning from Uganda, exhausted and jet-lagged, and described how the Lord brought her to first Peter five and the word "focus," asking her simply to humble herself, guard her tongue, and let him sort it out. He did.
Wisdom, James says, is available to anyone who asks, but the asking matters. Deborah drew the distinction between the man in the Gospels who said "I believe, help my unbelief" and the double-minded person James is warning against. The first man was honest and moving toward God; Jesus met him there. The double-minded person has never actually planted a foot on solid ground, living one way in Bible study and a completely different way on Friday night. God cannot entrust his wisdom to someone who is not genuinely trying to stand on what they claim to believe.
The section on the rich catching James's early readers off guard was not random, Deborah argued. The wealthy believers in Jerusalem were watching brothers and sisters go hungry and not helping. God has no problem with people having resources, but the beauty of a blessing is destroyed when it is hoarded rather than given. James ties this directly to perseverance: the person who keeps giving, even from little, is building the same muscle that carries them through every other kind of trial.
On temptation, Deborah leaned on a quote from Pastor Todd Wagner: all sin against God is ultimately rooted in the refusal to believe that God is more dedicated to our good and more aware of what that is than we are. Adam and Eve did not set out to ruin everything; they just decided that apple looked more appealing than God's instructions. We do the same thing. James's call not to be deceived is a call to keep settling the question of whether God's motives toward us are actually good.
The closing movement of the chapter is where James gets most direct. Real faith acts. Deborah told the story of a close friend of nearly thirty years, a woman who has spent her life encouraging church leaders and shepherding souls, who called two weeks before this study to say she had been diagnosed with tongue cancer and her surgeon had warned her she might never speak again. Her friend's response, even facing that, was "God is so good." Deborah held that up as exactly what James is describing: a person who has been doing the word for so long that when the worst arrives, the foundation holds.
James ends the chapter by saying that religion which does not control the tongue and does not look after orphans and widows in their distress is worthless. Deborah said she did not know how to say it any clearer than James already had. The book is not a list of rules to earn God's favor. It is a portrait of what a person looks like who genuinely trusts that God is good and is walking through life with him accordingly.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Deborah quoted Martin Luther saying that faith is 'a living, daring confidence in God's grace and God's love' and that we should be so sure of it we would stake our lives on it a thousand times over. How does that description compare to how you would have described your own faith before hearing it put that way?
Deborah talked about the lies we pick up over our lives, from parents, teachers, culture, and said Tim Keller put it this way: 'Satan doesn't control us with fang marks on the flesh, but with lies in the heart.' What is a lie you have had to actively fight against with truth from Scripture?
to start working on it. I'll figure it out for the pregnant mama.
Alright. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to women's Bible study. Let's go ahead and find our way to our seats. And then when you get there what's that?
And silence the phones. Once you've made your way to your seats, let's go ahead and stand up, and we're gonna worship the Lord together. And let's just pray. God, we thank you that we get to gather in this place, and we get to be sit sitting under great teaching, get to be together, worship your name. Come into your holy presence, Lord.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood in righteousness dare not trust the sweetest pray, but holy trust in Jesus' name.
Let's sing that again. My hope is built.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus might in righteousness. Savior's love through the store
made
Amen? The veil Christ alone cornerstone
This is our story.
When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in him be found,
Yes. Thank you, Lord, that you are our cornerstone, the one that we can trust, the one that we can run to in the middle of the storm. We worship your name this morning.
Name compares to this Jesus. Thank you for your blood, Jesus. There's no longer anything that can separate us now. There's nothing that can hold you back. Not even grave for death itself.
Let's see if death could not hold you.
And death could not hold you. God. Of Jesus Christ you are my king What a powerful name it is. No, nothing can stand against. What a powerful name it is.
The name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus.
I feel like the Lord just wants to highlight this morning morning that there was nothing that could separate us from his love, and he went to the ends of the earth to get us back to him. And he wants you ladies to know that this morning, that not even death could hold him back. I mean, Jesus went through the temptation. He didn't have to go to the cross, but he did because you were worth it, and he wants you to know that this morning. And so when you come to him this morning, come with the boldness of Jesus Christ, not because of what we've done, not because we've earned anything, but because Jesus paid the price for you to come to him.
And that is our merit. Amen? So thank you, Lord, for your presence this morning. Thank you that we get to draw near to you. Thank you that nothing can separate us from your love.
We just pray that you would open our hearts to receive from you this morning. Whatever you have, Lord, that we would have ears to hear and eyes to see your goodness. And, Lord, we just pray that you would just bless each and every part, each and every relationship that is formed this morning and every word that is spoken. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Yep.
Oh,
I can.
But No. No. It's good.
It's good. Thank you, Ali and Shar. Thank you. I know. It's never enough praise and worship for me.
Well, welcome back to James chapter one. I hope that you had time to dive into this first chapter of James. I'm so excited. This morning, we're going to go through every verse of James. Okay?
So put your seat belt on because it's pedal to the metal. Okay. James is a book of action, and he you know, people say, well, James is a book of works, and that's not how we get into heaven. That is absolutely 100% true. That is not how we get into heaven.
We get into heaven how? By grace, by faith in Jesus Christ, by accepting him into our hearts. Right? But James teaches us, as Martin Luther said, we are saved by faith alone, but that faith alone, that faith that saves is never alone. We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.
Martin Luther goes on to say, faith is a living, daring confidence. Do we have that kind of faith today? That faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace and God's love, and we should be so sure that we would stake our life on it a thousand times over. Wow. That's pretty serious faith, isn't it?
So what is the background in the setting of James? So James was Jesus' little half brother. And, actually, Matthew had no doubt met Jesus' family because Matthew traveled with Jesus, and Matthew wrote in Matthew thirteen fifty five. He shared with us Jesus' half brothers and by name, and then he said he also had some half sisters. And we know that this letter of James was written to the first church in Jerusalem, and it would make sense that the church would start in Jerusalem because where was Jesus teaching?
Mostly in Jerusalem. Did you know that James was the first New Testament book written? And it was written about in context about fifteen years after Jesus was crucified and resurrected. And what's really interesting about James, just like Jesus' other half brother Jude, who wrote the book of Jude, they both did not believe growing up that their big brother was the Messiah. They had a very hard time coming to terms with that.
And it was only after they met him, after he was resurrected and glorified, did they say, oh my gosh. This is the Messiah. And I wanna encourage you this morning, if you have not sorted through in your mind what happened after Jesus died and how he came back to life and was resurrected, on our website, go back and listen to the introductory teaching of our fall study called Root It because the whole introduction is about the resurrection and the impact it had on those early Christians and the impact it had on James and Jude. It had such an impact on James that he said, will die before I deny my Christ. And he was martyred shortly after he wrote this book because he would not deny Jesus.
And we know that millions of Christians from the early church, those who had experienced something when they came face to face with resurrected Jesus, they said, we would rather die than deny him after that. And I think it's because Jesus in his glorified form, the old rope illustration really applies to James. Because, you know, this is our short little life here, but Jesus says we are eternal souls and we're going one of two places. And our eternal souls, this represents the timeline of our life. And our eternal life, just pretend this rope goes on forever and ever and ever.
That is our eternal life. It goes on forever and ever and ever. But what we do right here really matters forever and ever and ever. And they saw something in Jesus' eternal glorified state. They got a glimpse of their eternal future, and they were just sold out from then on.
And James wrote another interesting fact is that James wrote this first book in the Bible before Paul even began his earthly ministry. So why was James so important? What was going on during this time? Well, we know that there were many Jew mostly Jewish believers in God who became believers in Jesus Christ. And in Jerusalem, they suffered great persecution both from within the church because the church was having a hard time the church then, the Jewish church, was having a hard time accepting this man Jesus as messiah.
So they were putting a lot of pressure on these new converts. But even greater than that was the persecution and pressure from the Roman government because the Roman government demanded that all citizens bow down to Caesar as God. And these new Christians said, no. We bow down to the one true God, Yahweh, Jehovah. We will not bow down to you.
So as a result, many new Christians in Jerusalem had to leave Jerusalem because of the persecution. Many lost their jobs, and they were spread out through Judea, even Northern Africa, and some went into Europe. But guess what happened as a result of that? The message of Jesus spread with them. And so James is writing to them.
He's saying, I know it's hard. I know you're suffering. And he writes in verse one, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered because they were scattered among the nations. Greetings. And I love that James, he could have so easily laid down right there and I might have been tempted to.
I am the half brother of Jesus. He didn't say that though. He says, I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my new title now. That's who I am.
And then James said, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds. James leads leans right into what's going on. He's like, there are trials and there are troubles. And point one on your handout, real faith because chapter one and chapter two of James are what real faith looks like, real faith starts to think like a follower of Christ. Real faith thinks differently than those who don't follow Christ.
And this word consider, when I look the original meaning of this word up, do you know what it means? Think. It means think. James is saying, look. As a follower of Christ, we have to think differently when troubles come our way.
When the waters get rough and bumpy and we're struggling, we have to think different. And he says considerate joy, and we'll talk about that in a second. And James is you know, many people think this book of the Bible is just a book of rules. And if and I used to think like this many years ago. Okay.
If I follow these rules well enough and I do what I'm supposed to do, then God has to answer my prayers. My life has to be, like, really comfortable. Comfortable. I I don't don't want any trouble because I'm following the rules. Right?
I'm being a good Christian. And that's not what this book is about at all. This book is a story of a perfect, holy, loving God who pursues you and me to be in an intimate relationship with. And he sets up how we can best do that. He wants a real relationship with us, but you know what a real relationship is based on?
I mean, we know this from one another. A real relationship is based on truth. So God says, first, you have to root out some lies that you've picked up on. And we all pick up on lies. You know, when we're young, a parent will say something over us.
Oh, you don't do that very well, and we believe it for the rest of our life. Or a teacher will say, well, she's not too bright, and you're very bright, and you believe that lie. We believe lies from the culture. The narrative is coming at us powerfully, and we believe those lies. You know, Tim Keller said, in general, satan doesn't control us with fang marks on the flesh, but with lies in the heart.
That's how he controls us, with lies. So James is saying right up front, you're gonna have trouble, so make sure the narrative you're playing in your mind is rooted in truth. Consider it joy. What does that mean? Okay.
Troubles hurt. I'm not gonna be like, oh, this is great. No. That's not what James is saying. This word joy is so different from the word happiness because we know that happiness is based on what?
Circumstances and our happenings. It's easy to be happy when I'm on vacation. Right? Yeah. I'm very happy then.
But joy is something entirely different. God's definition of joy is having a sense of well-being and peace knowing everything is gonna be okay. So James says, this is not about faking faking it until you you make it, and it's not about if troubles come, but when they come. This is what you do. You say, I know that my God is good.
I'm gonna choose to believe that he's not a liar, that he loves me loves me enough, as Ali said, to die for me. I mean, do we love each other that much? Probably not. That's a lot of love. He tells us, will never leave you or forsake you.
And if you bring those troubles to me, what's his promise to us? Romans eight twenty eight, I'm gonna start working good here. It might take a minute, but you just keep bringing it to me, and I'm gonna start working good. That's the joy that James is talking about. He's like, play a different narrative.
Play a narrative that I'm gonna be okay. This is all going to be okay because I've got somebody on my side. I've got almighty God on my side. In verse three, this gives us point to real faith knows the truth. Real faith knows that it knows that it knows.
Okay? At some point, when you become a Christian, you have to make that decision. Is this the truth or isn't it? Does God love me? Is he good or is he not?
James says, you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let that perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. What is James saying that we have to know? Well, first of all, we have to know that whatever is happening to me, it did not slip by God. I had a lady years ago in California come up to me and say, Deborah, I I disagree with your teaching.
I don't think that God allows bad things in our life. And I said, look, girl, God is sovereign. God knows everything, and he is all powerful. Do you think that it just slipped by him what you're going through? It did not slip by him.
Now this is what I don't know. That's what I know that it didn't slip by him. What I don't know sometimes is this is this coming from him to test me? Is this the result of my bad choice or is my suffering just spiritual warfare? That can get a little tricky sometimes, but who cares?
What I do know is that it didn't slip by him, he's allowing it, and he is a good God and I can trust him. That's what I know. And James is telling these early Christians, you need to get this straight or you're gonna fall apart and you're gonna walk away from the faith. Because just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're exempt from problems of this world. We are still gonna have problems in this world.
Why does God allow some of these problems though? Why does God himself allow it? I think because he wants a very intimate, deep relationship with you and me. He doesn't want a shallow, I'm Santa Claus God, it's Christmas every day kind of God. As long as you're giving to me, God, as long as I'm comfortable, I love you, and I'm gonna trust you.
But when it gets really painful, I'm out of here. God doesn't want that kind of relationship with you and me. He wants to show you that no matter what comes our way, he is going to be there with us. You know, there are over 7,000 promises in here, and everything I go through, I start searching for a word that I can claim over my trouble and my heartache and my situation. Jesus says, you can have confidence in me because I am a friend who sticks closer to you than a good brother or sister.
And he gives us a great visual in John 15 of the vine and the branches. How close are vine and branches? They're close. And if the branch breaks away from the vine, what happens? It withers up.
It it's not it's not very nourished. It's not doing well. Jesus said, I tell you my teachings so that my joy, there's that word joy, may be in you and that your joy, your sense of well-being, your sense of peace will be made complete. And he said, you wanna know how to get going on this path? Learn to love each other like I love you.
Everything in the Bible goes back to the greatest commandment. Even the 10 commandments are kind of focused around the greatest commandment. That's all we need to really focus on. And he said, greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend, and you are my friend if you do what I command. Do you see the grace in this passage?
Jesus is saying, look. I'm your friend, and I love you so much I'll die for you. Now I'm not sure how many friends I would die for. Would I die for my son and my daughter and my two little grandsons? I would die for them.
I would. I've made that decision. But for my friends, I might think about that because I think, well, I wanna see my grandsons grow up. But Jesus said, I'm the kind of friend I would die for you. But he says, I don't ask you to die for me.
What I ask of you is just to be in sync with me. That's all I want from you. Just to be in sync with what I say. Now James, no doubt, reminded the early believers what big brother Jesus had taught them in John 16. He had taught them all these principles and then he ends in verse 33 by saying, I have told you all these things so that you can have peace in me.
You can have a well-being knowing everything's going to be okay in me because here it comes from Jesus himself because here on earth, you're gonna have trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world. What does take heart mean? Take heart means you can have peace of heart knowing that no matter what happens, this is gonna be a crazy year in America. We have an election year coming.
And Jesus is like, don't worry about that because whoever is elected, I am still king of kings and lord of lords, and I am still in control. It doesn't matter what happens in your world, doesn't matter what happens to you personally, I am still in control. You can take heart. Yes. This world has been permeated with sin.
And, yes, things are really messed up, aren't they? Aren't they? I mean, why do kids die? I hate that. Why do my friends get cancer?
Why do my friends die? Why do people do ugly, horrible things? Jesus says, at the right time, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna restore all of that to the way it was intended to be, to heaven on earth. And not only everything on earth where a lion and your toddler can play together, but I'm going to restore you to your glorified state. Can you imagine?
I tell my husband, I can't wait for heaven where everyone just behaves, where everyone just does what we're supposed to do because I don't even know. Sometimes I don't behave. And Jesus says, don't worry. You can have peace of mind now. Verse four, James says, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
You know, this word perseverance is an amazing word in the original language of Greek in which James wrote this. It is you know what it implies? It implies that I'm gonna move forward under a very specific kind of thinking. I'm moving forward. I'm not gonna walk away from Jesus when it hurts and when things are tough.
I'm gonna move forward thinking differently than the world thinks when they have their problems. It's almost like James is saying, as a follower of Christ, you know something that other people don't grasp. You can endure with confidence because you have a support system that's available twenty four seven that will never take his hand off you. The scriptures tell us he watches us when we rise, when we go about our day, and when we lie on our bed. And James is saying, you can persevere, you can endure with confidence.
You're not alone, and God is working good. Now, I know theoretically that sounds great, doesn't it? But when it happens to us, oh my gosh, it hurts. This fall, we finished our study, then my daughter and I went to Uganda, had an amazing trip visiting some an orphanage that we're supporting there. And we came back from Uganda, and then we had the Christmas luncheon, which was so beautiful and wonderful.
Thank you all for your help. And then after that, I had family for two weeks for Christmas. So to be honest, I was exhausted. I was running on fumes. For some reason, this trip back from Africa, this time I couldn't adjust to our our time zone.
So I was up 03:00 every morning, and my two year old grandson doesn't leave my side when he's with us. He sleeps in our room, and I was just like, oh my gosh, I'm not gonna make it. So that just sets the scene. I'm exhausted. And boom.
We had this awful conflict in our family. I did not see this coming, and I was caught right in the center of the crossfire. And I I remember going to bed one night, and I was like, Lord, I don't have the bandwidth for this. This this is not truth. I don't know what to do about this.
I have spoken truth over it, and it's not helping, and I am so exhausted. And as I was lying there, I always pray for a word for the new year. And the Holy Spirit said to me, your word for 2024 is focus. Focus. You focus on me.
And I was like, okay. And then immediately, first Peter five came to mind where the Lord says, I exalt the humble, but I oppose the proud. Therefore, humble yourself under my mighty hand, and in due time, I will lift you up. And to me, I felt like he was saying, in due time, I'll sort this out. You stay under my hand.
And then he says, cast your cares upon me because I I really do care about you. And it just struck me for the first time, why does he say humble yourself before you cast your care upon him? So I was lying there thinking about that, and the Holy Spirit said, this is why, Deborah, you can't solve this, and you're not in control of this. This is bigger than you. This is a spiritual war that has come up on your home.
So your job is to focus. Your job is to humble yourself under my hand. And to me, I felt the Lord was saying, control your tongue. Just don't say anything. Let me handle this.
You're not gonna solve it. And so for the next few days, I just kept saying, visualizing myself. I'm gonna take what was said, Lord, and I'm gonna give that to you. I'm casting it upon you. And you know what happened?
He, in his own perfect way, shed light on the darkness. And he shed truth on the lies, and he took care of it. Praise God. Right? But I'm not saying it was easy.
I'm not saying I was, like, all joyful in our term of joy, but I did have this sense of well-being that he was in control. He was gonna sort this out. You know, at the end of verse four, James says, persevere because he is finishing his work and you will lack nothing, not lacking anything. Do you know what that not lacking anything means? I can tell you what it means because I lived it at Christmas.
It means God will give me whatever it takes to focus on him and to obey him because I didn't have anything left, guys. I really didn't. And somehow, every day, I woke up with this renewed energy and this renewed focus because I was like, my eyes are on you, Jesus. I'm not focusing on this problem. But here's the thing, we will not persevere with him until we know that we know that we know that he really does love us, that he really will care for us, and we really can cast our cares on him and trust him.
So whatever that takes you know, for, like, three years, I went through a period where I had a hard time praying. So this was my prayer. Jesus, help me. Jesus, heal me. Jesus, I trust you.
That was pretty much it. Jesus, help me. Jesus, heal me. Jesus, I trust you. Until it sunk down into my heart, and I started believing it.
So point number two is know the truth. On your handout, I wrote, do you want to know how do you want to know how real your faith is? Well, it's how you deal with trials is a solid indicator. Where do we run when it heats up in our life? Do we run to that extra glass of wine?
There's a lot of places we as Americans can run. We can just wear our self out with exercise. We can medicate. We can zone out, numb out in social media. We have a lot of choices, don't we?
And James says in verse five, this is where you should run. You should ask the Lord for wisdom if you're lacking wisdom. Now notice he didn't say knowledge. You can have a head full of knowledge and live like a fool. I mean, I'm not saying anything, but a lot of our elected officials, I mean, they're pretty knowledgeable, but do they make wise choices for us?
You can easily have a head full of knowledge. Proverbs nine ten says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And that word fear there means respect and reverence for who he is. And you know what that word implies? That you know who he is.
That you have established that you believe everything he says about himself. And he's not very confusing about who he is. I mean, you could do an easy search and find the names of God, and he'll tell you exactly who he is. That he is omniscient. He is all knowing.
He is omnipotent. He is all powerful. He is omnipresent. He's always with us. He is a god of veracity, a 100% truth.
He's a god of 100% grace. He's a god of faithfulness. You can whatever area you're struggling, and I did this for years too, I would write down, you're a god of love, so I'm gonna believe that. You're a god of love. You love me.
You love me. You say that, I don't think you're a liar. So James says, if you're lacking wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, and James says this is very important, you better ask this way. You must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind.
That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double minded and unstable in all they do. Now, what does this word doubt mean here? Well, we know that Jesus had an incident where a man came to him and his son needed healing. And the man said to Jesus, will you heal my son?
And Jesus looked at him and he said, well, do you believe I can? And he said, I do. I do believe. Help me with my unbelief. And Jesus healed the son because this man was sincere.
This man was honest. He said, I'm I'm on a journey, Jesus. I'm not where I wanna be, but I'm trying. And I showed up and came to you. That's the first and most important step.
This is not what James is talking about. James is talking about the person who wavers back and forth, who's never taken a stand on the solid rock, who isn't anchored into the truth. This is the person who's two different people depending on who they're with. And maybe in Bible study, they're one person. And then on Friday night, they're a completely different person.
James is saying, if you won't take a stand, God cannot trust you with his wisdom because you are too unstable. Okay? And it's not that we have to be perfect, but we do have to be sincere and say, I'm coming to you, Lord. Yes. I have some doubts.
Yes. I have some areas of struggle, but I'm coming to you because I believe that you will give me wisdom. I'm gonna be looking for it, and when you give it to me, I'm going to act upon it. I'm gonna take a stand upon it. That's the person God answers that prayer for.
Okay? Going on to verse nine, James writes, believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wildflower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant. Its blossoms its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the ritual faded way even why while they go about their business.
Now, okay, I come up on this and I'm like, what? Like, what what what is this? He's all of a sudden talking about rich people when we've been talking about perseverance, and we can trust God, and God is there for us, seek wisdom from him. I'm like, what? This seems so out of context.
But you know what? It's not. It's not out of context at all. Do you know why James wrote that? Because Christians were watching their fellow brothers and sisters lose their jobs, struggling to eat, and some of them were wealthy, and they weren't helping.
They they weren't getting the teachings of Christ. I was teaching once in Burma, and it was in a very Burma's all Buddhist, and so this area was Buddhist too, but these were new converts. And so I was sharing about love your neighbor, and I shared an example. My neighbor got a new ankle, so I just started taking her dinner over. And that was a practical way I could love my neighbor.
And so I said to them, so if something happens to your neighbor, would you take your neighbor to dinner? And they said, no. And I said, oh, why? And they said, because they're not Christian. I said, okay.
Let's go over this again. It doesn't matter if your neighbor is Christian or not Christian. God says, love your neighbor. If you have something you can give and your brother or sister is struggling, this is this is the coolest, like, passage in a way. Jesus says, what I've okay.
In Proverbs, he says, I give you blessings or riches with no sorrow. God doesn't care if we have riches, but he cares what we do with them. Okay? And he says, it's like a beautiful blossom, your riches, and you can use them to bless others, and it it would just become more beautiful because Jesus said you're more blessed to give than receive. So in the red zone, in this short life, Jesus says, I will bless you in just all these amazing ways when you give.
But if you don't give, James says, which I these are pretty powerful words. The beauty of that blessing is destroyed. Wow. And then he tells us at the end exactly where we can give. He says, the beauty of that blessing is destroyed.
James is like, don't just live in the red zone. See the bigger picture. You have been blessed to be a blessing. And then he goes on to say, blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Okay.
He's saying two things here, and I never caught this before. He's saying, if you persevere with confidence and focus on Jesus, you're gonna get some special crown. We don't really know what the crown of life is, but we know it's pretty good. And James says it's forever and ever and ever, and it's amazing. And he says, so persevere with your eyes in Jesus.
But he's also saying this right after the riches. So I think James is saying, if you persevere in your giving, and specifically here, he's saying by opening your wallet. Other places, it's open your hands and your heart, but right here, it's open your wallet. If you persevere in your giving, there is a crown of life waiting for you. And there is a principle.
I I talk to Christians who say, I just have so little to give. And I'm like, well, here's the principle. If you give when you have a little, you'll give when you have a lot. If you don't give when you have a little, you won't give when you have a lot. That is the principle of life.
So James is like, don't just live in the red zone. See the bigger picture. Persevere. At verse 13, he says, when tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. Okay.
God doesn't tempt us, but he sure does test us. Why? Why does God test us? Well, why why does our school system give our kids tests? Why?
There's two reasons. One, God test us to say, okay. I'm trust I'm I trusted you in that trial, so I'm doing better with my trusting. And my relationship with you is getting deeper. He shows us what we're doing right, but he also tests us just like our kids are tested in school to show us what we still need to learn.
And, you know, that was the story of the Israelites. God kept testing them, and they just could not get it right. So what what did God say? Kathy, what did God say? Another lap around the wilderness.
Kathy loves that saying. So God would say, alright. Let's do another lap around the wilderness. We don't wanna take forty years of laps around the wilderness. We want to get it right.
James goes on to say, but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after that, desire has conceived. It's it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. I gotta tell you, a lot of people say to me, I don't know why I did that. The devil must have made me do that.
Well, honestly, the devil isn't too concerned about you and me. Maybe his demons are at times. We do things because we want to do things. We really do. We just do it because we want it.
Pastor Todd Wagner says this, you want to understand your own behavior, you have to understand that all sin against God is really grounded in the refusal to believe that God is more dedicated to our good and more aware of what that is than we are. When he says, my boundary lines fall in pleasant places for you, that's because he has your best interests in mind. Pastor Wagner goes on to say, we don't trust God because we think, and we do think this, if we give him complete control, we're just gonna be miserable. He's so no fun. And you know what?
Adam and Eve thought the same thing. Adam and Eve did not say, let's be evil and ruin our lives and ruin everybody's life after us. You know what Adam and Eve said? That apple looks like fun, and maybe God God's commandments aren't that fun, so let's eat the apple. That's what they said.
And you know what God says? He says, why do we sin? Because it is fun initially, but its end is destruction. That's why he wants us to stay away from it. James goes on to say, don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.
Don't be deceived. Don't buy the lie that God is not good and that he doesn't have your best interests in mind. When Jules and I were in Uganda, we went out to one of the Bush schools, and these kids are even poorer than the kids in the city. And a lot of these kids were orphans, so they've experienced their parents abandoning abandoning them. A lot of them were abused, and almost all of them had suffered from starvation.
And you know what their favorite saying was? God is good all the time. All the time. God is good. And I said to one of the social workers, I don't get it.
Like, these kids have suffered more than anybody I know in this world, and they joyfully say God is good all the time. And she said, you know why, Deborah? Because they they think they know God. They know God's motives are good toward them, but they do believe that people's motives are not always good. But they know God is good, and his motives are good.
And that's what James says in verse 17. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. You know what James is saying? He's saying, yes, everybody is made in the image of God, but you have chosen to be a child of God, and there's a difference.
You are now his first fruits. You are his child. And having believed in Jesus, Paul tells us in Ephesians one, having believed, I have been sealed, and you have been sealed with a mark. In the spiritual world, you have a mark on you. It is the Holy Spirit within you.
So we are not doing this alone. So we bear the name of Christ. That's what James is saying. He's like, you have been given a gift of eternity with Christ. Bear his name well.
And he tells us, here's how you do it. Point number three, real faith does. Real faith moves. Real faith is action. If you're like, oh, no.
My faith is private. I never talk about it. I don't really do it. I would have to ask you, what kind of faith is that? That would be weird.
If you know me more than five minutes, you know my kids are Grayson and Julia, and I have Griffin and Ford William. Why? Because I love them, and I talk about them. We talk about what we love. We talk about what we think about, and then we move to action.
Verse 19, my dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Okay. Over all the years I have read this, I absolutely thought be quick to listen, slow to speak meant between you and me.
And Proverbs does say that because that just shows good emotional intelligence. And it is the road to a good relationship if you're not always talking, you actually listen to the other person. But you know what? That's what James is talking about here. You know what James is talking about?
He's like, when trouble comes your way and when pain is inside you, be quick to listen to the Holy Spirit and be slow to become angry with God. In other words, James is saying, watch your tongue because so many of us will go down this narrative of lies. God is not good anymore. He doesn't love me. He doesn't care about me, or I'm not worthy.
James is like, be quick to listen to the Holy Spirit. Ecclesiastes five one says, guard your steps when you go before the Lord. Guard your steps and draw near to listen. Listen rather than offer the sacrifice of fools. Wow.
Isn't that amazing? Because James is saying, you know, when troubles come, it's so easy to be angry at God, and it's so easy to numb out, or it's just easy to bail. I can tell you over the years, a lot of ladies have bailed that have come to Bible study, and they're like, doesn't work for me. And I'm like, well, God's not a liar. It works for you.
It works. You come back to the Lord. He's there for you. He's waiting for you. Tim Keller says, the peace of God is not the absence of struggle.
It is the presence of God himself. That is the peace of God. So, yes, troubles come. So we are called to mourn with those who mourn, to pray with those who pray. Awful things happen to really good people, and I will never understand it.
You know, one of my friends of almost thirty years, we prayed for our kids growing up. She is probably the most compassionate, gentle soul I know and uses her tongue to encourage many. She is a full time soul shepherder, which means that she meets and prays with leaders in the church and encourages them. And she she's just a very gentle, loving person. I don't think I've ever heard her say anything about anyone.
I I I mean, that's crazy. I I mean, I wish I could say that about myself, but she is that kind of person. She called me just a couple weeks ago, and she said, Deborah, I need you to pray for me. I've been diagnosed with tongue cancer. And I was like, tongue cancer?
And she said, on Friday, she told me, she had her surgery yesterday, on Friday, the surgeon had met with them and said, this is what I need you to expect. This is very serious. It's there's a big white spot. We won't know until we cut into you, but you can expect there's a very good chance I'm going to cut your tongue off, and you will never speak again. I was like, no, I do not receive that Joan.
No, we're not going to accept this because you use that tongue to advance the kingdom of God and the glory of God. And she has six grandkids under the age of six that she pours into. They need to hear her godly wisdom. So I called two of my prayer warriors, and I said, guys, get on your knees for Joan. We have to pray for Joan.
She had her surgery yesterday. Her husband messaged us and said, better than we expected. Cut a huge chunk out. She can't talk yet. She can't eat yet.
We don't know if they're going to cut more. They're gonna have to take some pathology reports, but please keep praying for Joan that she doesn't lose her tongue. Can you can never taste food. You can never communicate. I mean, you could communicate just not with words.
But, honestly, this is straight up spiritual warfare. I don't have to question this one. This is straight up warfare. And I said to Joan on Friday, I said, how are you doing? Like, where is your heart?
You know what she said? God is so good. She said, don't worry about me. I I was crying. She was comforting me.
I said, oh my gosh. This is so messed up, Joan. Can we just stop here for a second? And she's like, Deborah, God is so good. No matter what he has for me, I know he loves me.
I'm gonna give him all the glory. Wow. Verse 22, do not merely listen to the word and deceive yourselves. Do what it says. You know why Joan could say that?
Because she does what God's word says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and afterward looking at herself goes away and immediately forgets what she looks like. I was laughing this morning because I was brushing my teeth, and I'm a very sloppy brusher teether. And I had toothpaste all over my mouth, and I looked in the mirror and I wiped it off, I thought, what if I just came before you today with all that toothpaste? You would say, Deborah, look in the mirror and clean yourself up.
Right? And that's what James is saying. He's saying, this is like a mirror. And what does a mirror do? It reflects our image back.
God is reflecting to you where you might need to tweak a little thinking, where you might need to tweak the narrative you're playing, where you might need to tweak something. So James is saying, when you're in church or in Bible study or in the word, don't just walk out the door and forget what the good word that you heard. Put it into practice. And how do we do that? He says, whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they heard but doing it, we have to do it, will be blessed in what they do.
And then he James, he just goes for it. He says, those who consider themselves religious and do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. What? Oh my gosh. Lord Jesus, help us all.
Right? Help us all. Religion that the father accepts as pure and faultless is this, look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep yourself from being polluted by the world. I don't know how to say that any clearer than James said it. Lord, thank you for your word.
It is so powerful and life changing. And James is a book about doing. It's not a book about agreeing with you and some philosophical kind of thinking. It's about a book of when the rubber meets the road of saying, I trust you. You're here with me.
I'm gonna take your hand, and we're gonna get through this together. And I'm just someday gonna pass right on into glory with you forever and ever. Lord, I pray that every one of us in this room will receive whatever that amazing reward is, that crown of life when we see you face to face in Jesus' holy name. Amen.
Thank you, Lord, for those words, and we just take it deeply in us, Lord. We ask that you go before us as we gather, and we thank you for the safety of being able to be confident, share in confidence the things in our hearts, and just bring healing today as we just bring those things to the light, and we ask for your power to overcome the things that we feel weak in. So thank you, father. In Jesus' name. Alright.
Everyone can go ahead. Oh, yeah. Any announcements or anything? Okay. Yep.
Everybody knows where you're going. Okay. And there's some gloves.
