A Jet Tour Through James (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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All right, if you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of James. To the book of James. This is found almost towards the end of your

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Bible, the book of James. I taught James when I first got here to the church, and in light of some of the ministry going on and No Compromise Radio and putting together new messages that would take twenty or thirty hours, we're going to look at some old material, but I was reading

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James the other day and I thought, if I need to reread this, if I need to have this minister to my soul again, so too would the church.

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And of course, it's not as if we've heard James preached through fifty or sixty messages and then we have it wired anyway.

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Who was here for the James series when I preached? James, Cindy, Haley, and Jack, okay, oh and Dan, all right, so some of you were.

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But when you get back into it, it will refresh your soul, it will also convict you. D .L.

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Moody was conducting evangelistic messages, evangelistic services all over the country and he would get hecklers back in the day, and some people would shout and they would threaten him with violence, and at the final service of one of these campaigns, an usher handed him a little note.

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Moody thought it was an announcement, sometimes Pastor Steve will come up and hand me something, I think, okay, I've forgotten an announcement.

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He quieted the congregation down and prepared to read the notice, and he opened it up and it had a single word in that little note, and the single word was fool.

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Moody was a sharp guy though, and he said this, this is most unusual, I've just been handed a message which consists of but one word, the word fool.

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I repeat, this is most unusual, I have often heard of those who have written letters and have forgotten to sign their names.

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But this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone who signed his name and forgot to write the letter. This is going to be one of those passages where you just really want to grab a hold and say,

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God, help me to learn from this passage, may I be wise and obey and not a fool and disobey.

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We'll go through a jet tour of James, probably it won't take one week, probably not two weeks, maybe three weeks, so for you, you already know that's about a four week sermon series.

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James is going to test your salvation. Do you say you're a Christian? James will try to push it,

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James will get up close and personal and will challenge your faith.

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Hebert said, if you have one commentary, by the way, to get on the book of James, it's by D. Edmund Hebert, H -I -E -B -E -R -T.

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Anything that he does, 1 Thessalonians, Mark, James, etc., he does a great job.

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One commentary and one commentary only, if you needed, it would be Hebert on James. He said this,

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James is practical in purpose. James presents to them a series of practical tests whereby they may test the genuineness of their

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Christian faith. The epistle develops the theme of test for the Christian faith.

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And so, if you'd like to know how to be right in God's eyes, you read a book like Galatians or a book like Romans.

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And if you'd like to know how a Christian lives, you read the book of James.

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To use a biblical metaphor, the letter of James, Hebert said, is quick and powerful and James is sharper than any two -edged sword.

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Interesting quote, eh? Absolutely. I like to call this book, because it is so fast -paced,

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I call this the Indiana Jones book of the New Testament epistles, where it's just action, action, action.

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You don't hardly have time to breathe. Now, let's have a little background on this book.

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It was the earliest book written in the New Testament. Did you know that? Somewhere around 46 to 49

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A .D., it's the earliest book that we have in the canon. And it has a lot of verses. I think

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I said 104 verses this morning, 108 verses, 54 imperatives.

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And here, the leader of the church is going to give this call of duty to the people.

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And he has a right, based on his apostolic nature, to expect obedience.

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Now, how many people here have heard James be called, it is a Proverbs of the

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New Testament? Not many, some have. I don't think it's a

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Proverbs of the New Testament at all. And what happens is, instead of looking at this book and saying, oh, it's like Proverbs, it's got a very

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Jewish flavor to it. And so, there's a Jewish phrase, a

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Hebrew phrase, that talks about stringing beads. And basically, it's like a string of pearls, one pearl, then the next, then the next.

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And the way he lines up this book, moving quickly from one idea to another, is a very familiar way of teaching the

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Bible back in that day, a very Jewish way of teaching the Bible. I think this sermon is also, this book is like a sermon, it's ready for public reading.

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You could stand up and read this sermon, read this book during the sermon time, and I think it would probably be better than most sermons

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I hear in some churches. It's prepared for public reading. It is fast, it is energetic, it is full of rhetorical questions, illustrations, similes, analogies, all kinds of figures of speech.

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It's very, very Jewish, Abraham, Rahab, Job, Elijah, the law,

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Ten Commandments, and all kinds of allusions to Jewish life. And so, we want to get into this book, and really, if you had to pick a theme, a theme verse, it would be down in verse 22 of chapter 1.

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Turn there, if you would, with me. We're just taking an overview, and then we'll get into these tests of saving faith, the 12 tests.

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Here's the main thought of James. If you were given a Bible college quiz, or you'd like to try to dissect this book, and you say, what's the key verse in all of James to unlock its meaning?

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It's found in 1 .22. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself, do what it says.

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Are the NAS? Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

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And so, we are going to go through the book of James, 12 tests of saving faith. It's going to be fast, not just because the pace of this book is fast, but I'm going to try to not turn this into some two -year

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Sunday night series. Take a look at 1 .1, just for a little background on the first verse, so we can set the scene properly.

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James 1 .1, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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James in Hebrew is really what word? What's the equivalent to the

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Hebrew word of James? Well, an

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English derivation would be Jake. What is a word that is really close to James or Jake?

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Jacob. That's really the word Jacob, but I wonder why we would call this

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James. I don't know if it could be King James loved to see his name in the

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English translation he authorized, but that's another story. This is really Jacob. This is Jacob.

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It was a very common name in Palestine at the time. Lots of people in the New Testament were named

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James. Can you think of a few? James the son of Zebedee, that's not this James.

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James the son of Alphaeus, that's not this James. James the father of Judas and Ascariot, that's not this

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James. But this is James, the half -brother of Jesus himself. James was a child of Joseph and Mary.

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He was next to the oldest, and for at least up to seven months before his crucifixion, he was an unbeliever.

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Can you imagine? His brother, John 7 .5, for even his own brothers did not believe in him.

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Undoubtedly, James was with the crowd who said, Jesus is out of his mind in Mark chapter 3.

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James saw Jesus post -resurrection appearance, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

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Maybe that's when we got saved, we don't really know. Just to give you a little history about James, and then we'll try to get into the passage as quick as we can.

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James was known, according to Hiccupius, as James the Just. He lived under a

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Nazarite vow, according to history. This isn't in the Bible, it's just history. He did not drink strong drink, eat meat, and he refused to cut his hair.

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He was so much known as a man of prayer that he had a nickname, and his nickname was Camel Knees.

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That's true. How did he die? Josephus said,

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James was brought to try out the instigation of the high priest, Annas, during a time when there was no Roman governor.

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He was charged with breaking the law and stoned to death. Eusebius said, the

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Jews tried to talk James into not believing in Christ, and when he refused to deny Christ, they set him on the pinnacle, threw him down, stoned him while he prayed for their forgiveness, and finally hit him on the temple with a club and killed him.

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And what does he call himself? James chapter 1, verse 1. He could have said, I'm the leader of the

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Jerusalem church. He could have said, I'm a pillar of the church. Paul calls him that in Galatians 2.

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He could have said, I'm an apostle, not the technical sense, but a wider sense. And he could have said,

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I am Jesus's brother. But what did he say? I'm a servant. I'm a servant.

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He deliberately, I think, didn't call himself any of those. Now, I don't think this way, and I don't know if you think this way or not.

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Who knows a doctor? Who knew of Dr. Andrew Bonar? He did a great biography of Robert Murray McShane, wonderful writer.

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And he wrote a letter to his friend, and he ended his letter with these words, you're affectionate, aged, frail, unworthy, feeble, stupid brother, and fellow servant of a glorious master.

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Ever sign a letter like that? Now, I don't know, I don't think it was false humility.

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But when Augustine was asked, what's the chief grace of Christianity? It was humility. What's the second? Humility. Third, humility.

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Fourth, any guesses? Here, with humble means, James said, I am a servant. I voluntarily submit to the

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Lord. I'm not at my own disposal. I serve the master. I'm at his beck and call. I'm responsible to another.

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I'm dependent upon another. I have no rights. Whatever way the master wants to dispose of me, he can.

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And he writes, verse 1, to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. These tribes that were sown throughout the nations, like a farmer scatters seed.

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That's exactly the word here. Now, we move to test number 1. There are 12 tests in James.

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We'll try to get through several tonight. And you can ask yourself the question, A, do I believe them? C, is there some fruit in my life?

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If there's not evident really good fruit, you can say, A, I'm not a Christian. You can say, I'm struggling in that area, but I want to do that.

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Somebody said to me a while back, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not.

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And I said, when you sin, do you struggle with that sin? And they said, I really, really struggle.

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I said, before you were a Christian, when you sinned, did you struggle with sin? Absolutely not.

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I didn't struggle. I said, do you think that's a good sign that now you struggle with sin? We aren't sinless, but we struggle with sin.

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And that's a good sign. So we'll take a look at these. And we'll look at test number one.

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Do you have joy in trials? James chapter 1, verses 2 through 12.

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And if you can hang in there with me for about five more minutes until I get my preaching feet tonight, I feel like it's like this morning.

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It took me about a half hour to get in a groove because I think, I don't know if I was tired or sick or what it was, but I'm starting to feel like I'm getting in the groove.

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I'm about ready to break the sweat, feeling good. So just hang in there with me. As I look at my notes,

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I'm thinking to myself, if you ever got up to speak and you look at your notes and you go, I can't even read. I can't even read these words in the right order.

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It's kind of like when you get up to spell on a chalkboard, you just forget how to spell. E after I, I, you just can't do it.

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So I'm starting to break a sweat. We're going to get into this because this is a fast moving book. I just want to begin to preach and then have you forget about me.

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Do you have joy in trials? James 1, 2. We're not going to cover every verse. We're going to look at big picture. We will look at this verse in detail.

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James 1, 2. Consider it pure joy, or all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

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I mean, talk about a way to start the book. There's no, you really did a good job. I know you're suffering.

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I know you're scattered. I know you're running. This is like Reveille with a bugle. Who here has ever played

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Reveille with a bugle or a trumpet? The good news is you don't have to... Oh, Brian, of course.

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Well, thanks. Why did I ask the question? Do you even need to change any of the notes? No, you just play away.

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And here's his wake up call in verse 2. And it just starts off with a bang. There's no opening.

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There's no wasting time. There's no, hi, how are you? Grace and peace. You know, it'd be nice if you counted all...

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Bang. How would you like to be one of these dispersed

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Jewish people? And you're on the shore and there's a little bottle that floats up and you look, there's some kind of message in the bottle and you open it up and you're really struggling and you're running for your lives and you're not a

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Jew anymore really and you're not a pagan and you're this new thing called a Christian and you're getting attacked on all sides and you think, oh,

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Jay, you open up. It says, this is from James, the half brother of Jesus. Of course, he's going to comfort and relax and give me all kinds of compassion.

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And you know, I can identify with your pain and you open the scroll and it says with the trumpet blast, count it all joy, my brethren, when you're in these trials.

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Interesting. He says with the word here, I want you to consider with deliberate intelligent appraisal.

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He's not saying feel it all trials. He's not saying enjoy the trials. He's saying, I want you to make a candid assessment of what's going on and think about it and use your mind.

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All joy accounted. Right at the very beginning of the sentence which gives it more emphasis.

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This is not passive. This is not, well, I'm really glad to be masochistic and I'm in trouble. This is not whatever will be, will be, kind of que sera, sera.

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This is not grin and bear it. This is not make the best of a bad situation. This is not complaining. This is not feeling it all joy.

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This is, I'm going to calculate in my mind how this could actually bring me joy.

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And he does kindly say it, count it all joy, my brothers. He calls people brothers in this epistle 15 times.

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And he said, okay. You say, when exactly am I supposed to do it? Do you see the text? When you face trials.

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Not if, they're sure to come. Not once in a while. You've got to do this all the time. I will make a mental evaluation.

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You can almost do it ahead of time. I don't know what this week will bring but I know it's going to bring trials to some degree or another.

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And so James says this. Make up your mind ahead of time that when an adversity comes, a trial comes, you're already going to have the right mindset to try to attack the problem rightly.

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That's what he's saying. Don't let it take you off guard. And he says, there's a reason why you can count it joy.

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Because you're supposed to love pain and sorrow and angst. No, verse three. Because you know, you know

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God is testing you. The testing of your faith develops perseverance. God is making something and he's making you into his own image and likeness.

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God is perfecting your faith. He's doing a job on you. You ever pray, God help me to be more patient?

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I don't know how often I really, I try to pray that but then I'm almost interrupting my prayers thinking if I pray,

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God give me patience. You know what's coming. It's inevitable. And he says, you know, you know what's going to happen.

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He's going to be working things out in your life. And verse four says, let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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That's what we want, shalom life, lacking nothing, all sided, complete, round hole.

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You say, how could I ever do it? I can't do it on my own. In context, verse five. You're in a trial.

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You're trying to count it all joy. You don't know what to do. Here's what you do, verse five. For those people who are in trials, ask

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God wisdom because you lack it. If any of you lacks wisdom, what a kind way of James to say, you really need it, especially you, he says.

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You really need it. Let him ask of God. What kind of God is this? Who gives to all generously and without reproach, it will be given to him.

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And so here's what Christians do. Christians don't have to enjoy trials. Christians have to say, I'm in a trial and I'm going to do something that I used to not do.

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I used to say, I'm in a trial. I can't wait to get out of it. It accomplishes no purpose. Woe is me. I get all the bad luck.

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I get the short end of the stick. The Christian says, I know that God has a plan. He's sovereign and he's working everything out for his glory and my good.

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That's what a Christian does. Not perfectly, but that's the direction. You take the compass, you shake it all around.

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It finally goes back to north and that north compass is, I know God has a plan and I can have joy even though I can't see what's going on.

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Number two. Number two, the second test of saving faith. All right, now we're on a roll. Now we're working.

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Now we got revelry going. Part two, second test. It's called the blame and temptation test.

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First of all, Christians, as a direction of their life, as they mature, they count everything joy, including trials.

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Number two, they don't blame God when they're tempted. Verses 13 through 18.

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God is not the problem in the midst of temptations. And so we love to blame God, maybe not directly, but indirectly if we're not careful.

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And so look what James says in James 1 .13. Let no one say when he is tempted,

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I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone.

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Trials are sure to come. James says, count it all joy. And when the trials come, you better be careful not to say,

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I think God is actively somehow tempting me. Don't blame

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God when the trial comes and you fail in your trial. Don't ever say, no one should ever, ever, ever say, the

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Greek says, don't let anyone ever at any time say God is tempting me. People have said it in the past, haven't they?

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Adam said, the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.

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Directly blaming God. But sometimes there's an indirect tempting.

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You look at the text, God is tempting me. Literally, I am tempted from God. Not God directly, but God more remotely.

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God somehow sovereignly over other means has put this thing together by his providence and I'm going to blame

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God that he made me do this. Maybe I'll say, I'm only human. God, you made me this way, therefore

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I will fail. God, you put me in this environment and then I failed. God, you didn't give me enough grace to overcome that trial, then

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I failed. God, you give me a certain kind of heredity and then I failed because I couldn't do it.

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No, you can't say, God, you gave me a capacity to sin even though I'm a Christian. No, we can't rationalize it like that.

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And James gives a couple knockout punches. He gives some punches to knock that idea out of our mind.

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For God cannot be tempted by evil. I call that the uppercut and then he's going to give the left jab. Here's the uppercut.

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God can't tempt anyone by evil. He's holy.

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He's too pure to look upon evil. And number two, here's the left jab. He himself does not tempt anyone.

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Who's the real problem for us in the middle of a temptation? The Christian says, the problem is who?

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I'm the problem. Look at verse 14. I can't blame God by either a sovereign direct hand or by providence.

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I'm the one who made me do it. But each one is tempted by his own desire. He is dragged away and enticed.

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What's the word entice mean? It's like bait. Do you ever go fishing? If you have a little hook, what do you try to do with that hook?

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I spent such a long time since I've been fishing. I don't mind the fish taste. I just don't like to clean the fish actually. But if you've got a hook, what do you try to do to that hook?

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Okay, disguise it. I'm going to have to step this up. You should see her faces tonight. You're all sitting there like, maybe you feel like I feel so.

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All right, here we go. I'm going to try to let my hair down and we're going to really let it rip. We're going to go into no compromise radio mode in about two seconds.

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So you better be careful. This is bait. Listen to what Hebert said. I'm going to try to sell the

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Hebert book to you. This kind of idea enticing, quote, it depicts the juicy worm being dangled in front of the fish.

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His inner craving to appropriate it for himself prompts him to bite, but he is deceived and caught.

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Instead of enjoying the anticipated pleasure, he is caught on the hook concealed within. When a person is confronted with an alluring temptation, he sees only the attractiveness of the desired object.

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Only when his will has sanctioned the performance of the sinful act to do the tragic consequences that they will come into operation.

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So for us as Christian, here's the big picture. First test, we say we're going to count this as joy, even though we don't want to, we know the bigger picture.

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Number two, we're not going to blame God. Number three, the third test, saving faith test, is your response to the word of God.

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When you hear the word preached, how do you respond? Verses 19 through 27.

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This could be called the scripture test or the testimony of God test or the word test.

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Count it all joys, test number one. Test number two, don't blame God in temptations. Test number three, here's the scripture test.

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Now you've heard me preach this lots of times, so I won't spend tons of time tonight doing it, but let's just do it for the tape and for the radio, et cetera.

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Verse 22, prove yourselves doers of the word, chapter one, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

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Now look at this picture that he's going to paint in verse 23 through 25. Very interesting, very common.

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If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Once he's looked at himself and has gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

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But the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides in it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

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So James says, don't just do the word, single act, be a doer of the word.

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Your life is a doer. If I ask you what you do for a living, you say, I'm a security analyst.

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That describes what you do all day long. And so, same thing here. Prove yourselves to be doers of the word and not merely hearers only.

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By the way, I don't mind kids talking on Sunday night because I grew up at a church where we called it family

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Bible hour. And so, I think I can talk louder than your son, even though he is from South Africa. So, don't walk out on my account.

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It's fine. Bye bye. We hear the word of God and we say, even though it's going to be difficult,

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I am resolved to do it. Because what's the opposite? We don't want to deceive ourselves.

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We don't want to delude ourselves. Here's basically what James is saying. You're not going to get an attaboy for just hearing a sermon.

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Oh, I went and I heard Mike preach today. I went and heard John MacArthur preach. Way to go. Wow. Good job.

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Impressive. No, that's not it. Many people across this world rarely hear a sermon from the

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Bible. But the issue for you is you hear a sermon from the Bible, you want to make sure you obey.

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Thomas Manton said, don't be like chicken. Chicken. This is so bad.

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I can't even read. I should have canceled. No. You know, the good thing is, sometimes when you're so weak,

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God will use the message and transform your lives right side up overnight. And it's not me. It's the spirit of God.

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Thomas Manton, the Puritan said, like children with...

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For those like Steve Pru, who would like to be a pastor someday and preacher and Simon, this is exactly what you ought not to do.

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But after 12 years of preaching, you have to give me these nights once in a while. Like children with rickets, they have big heads, but weak joints.

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We don't want that. We don't want to be what Manton said, to be like beasts in Noah's Ark.

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They went in unclean and they came out unclean. Satan wants to deceive you and Satan wants you to think, the only thing

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I need to do is listen, get a lot of knowledge and I never need to do it. Here's the big problem. If you say to yourself,

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I walked into BBC Sunday morning and I had this level of knowledge and I learned this, but throughout the week,

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I only did this. The next Sunday you come and you learn this and then you do this.

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And this gap becomes so huge. We know all this information and then we don't do anything about it.

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So the best thing to do is, before you come to church service or on the way out, you say, Lord, help me to try to do what

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I've learned tonight, to think about you properly. Maybe it's not just an action, but it's an attitude or whatever it is,

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I want to do the right thing. Empower me and help me. I am resolved to obey what I've heard today.

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So it's just not more knowledge. That's the issue. We don't want to delude ourselves. And if you take a look at this passage, look at what it says in verse 23 again.

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This person looks at his natural face in a mirror. He looks for a real long time and goes away and he forgets.

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He thinks, he considers. It's not a casual, it's not a quick look. He notices everything.

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If you've ever looked at a mirror for a real long time, you ever get one of those big mirrors that are magnifying mirrors and it's times 10X or 5X and it's got a lamp in it too, some kind of cosmetic mirrors.

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My mom used to have one of those. It was like 25X and then it's got the light on it and she would just sit in front of that and do things on her face.

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And you normally think, I don't look too bad. Things are okay and I don't think I have any blemishes.

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And you sit down and you turn that thing on and you go, why didn't Kim tell me? How did she marry me?

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I mean, there's a lot of things on there. And so can you imagine sitting down at the 25X? I don't think they make that large of a magnitude.

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But you sit down, you turn on the thing, you study for about 20 minutes and then you go, I don't need to do anything,

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I'm good. No, if you look at yourself, you think, I've got to do something.

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And here they had mirrors back in those days. They weren't like our mirrors. The best mirrors were called

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Corinthian bronze mirrors. But when you look at yourself, there needs to be some action. Soon as you walk away from the mirror, you don't do anything about it.

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It's gone. It's in the rear view mirror. And James is saying, when you hear the word of God, make sure by the grace of God, you do something about it.

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And by the way, it's implied here by God's grace. He didn't say, by the way, you're in Christ, you have the power of the spirit, spirit dwells in you.

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He just says, you ought to do it. That's all he does. Get up in the morning tomorrow, look at yourself, man or woman, and don't shave, don't put any makeup on, leave your hair as you saw it when you woke up and then walk out the door doing nothing.

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How ludicrous would that be? It'd be scary and it'd also be ludicrous. What's worse is this,

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I hear the word of God, but I'm not going to do anything about it. No, we want to act on what we have heard.

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We want to look intently and then act. All right, number four. The fourth test is found in James 2.

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And if you are not interested in any of the first ones, this one should interest you very much.

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The test of prejudice or discrimination. Are you a prejudiced or discriminatory person?

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I have to say that partiality is not good. Would you say that's a true statement?

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It's not good to be partial. Well, I have a new policy. In 2010, I'm going to keep an updated copy of all your church membership contributions financially.

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And then that will help me decide on to whom I'm available. And if you need me, I will check to see how much you've given.

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And then if I notice you haven't given very much, then I won't be available. If you've give a lot, I'll be at your beck and call.

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Now, what would you say if I was that kind of guy? Bye. Goodbye.

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Partiality has no place in a local church. Now, this is a different kind of partiality, but we want to try to make sure we get rid of this.

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And James basically goes for the throat of partiality. And he says this,

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James 2 .1. My brethren, do not hold your faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

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It's a present imperative. Present in the Greek is an ongoing. Don't ever do it. And if you're doing it, stop.

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Don't be partial. Literally, personal favoritism, it comes from the

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Greek word to receive someone's face. When you see someone's face and you judge who they are by what they look like, skin color, eye color, whatever it might be, and you receive their face.

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And he said, don't be biased in your judgment based on external circumstances.

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And it could be applied to race or wealth or rank or looks or anything else.

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When you compare yourself to Jesus, you've got to have a right value system.

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And he gives a really good illustration. Look at James 2 .2. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, you pay special attention to the one who's wearing the fine clothes.

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And you say, oh, you sit here in a good place. And you say to the poor man, you stand over there.

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Sit down by my footstool. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

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And what's the answer? Somebody comes walking in and they enter and there are no ushers around.

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And he's got a lot of gold on his hand. Literally, the Greek is he's gold fingered.

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People wore rings back in those days. Not many wore gold. And this one, Blanchard said, he's got a gem at every joint and a nugget on every knuckle.

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Who can afford all this? And he's got fine clothes. Fine means bright, by the way, or shining.

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Luke 23, Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked Jesus, dressing Him in a shining, elegant robe.

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Angels had shining clothes on. And so here comes a guy walking in. And how could we do this?

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It's New England. So he's wearing a Brooks Brothers suit. He's got an

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Armani tie. He has some kind of Calvin Klein cologne on.

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He's got a nice Rolex watch. The way he carries himself commands respect. And you meet him out there and you're an usher and you think, front row.

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Then you meet someone else. By the way, here's a little personal story. I was teaching through this in my home

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Bible study in 1992 or 93. And I was on this very passage,

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James chapter two. And we had this pretty new couch. And it was not white, but it was,

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I don't know, it's kind of a Berber carpet kind of couch look or something, I can't explain it, but it wasn't pure white.

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And so we would all gather in our room, in the living room. And there was sometimes 20 people, sometimes 30 people.

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Started off with just a couple and it just was growing. And so they all came over. And then our friend, his nickname is

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Bones. And Bones was an old heroin addict and did so much heroin that he was so skinny, his nickname was

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Bones. And he liked to bring all his Harley Davidson guys over. And the neighborhood people were having heart attacks that all these people were driving up on these

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Harleys. But they're all people wanting to learn the Bible. So we had all kinds of different people come. I met this one girl, she came to the

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Bible study and she said, there's some information about me that you ought to know. I said, well, okay, tell me.

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She said, I was buried alive by my father. Okay, I just can't process some of this stuff.

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So we just had a variety of different people coming to this Bible study. Well, in walks this guy and my friend

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Bones said to him, his name was Steve. Steve said to me, this is my friend, let me change his name. This is my friend,

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Jim. And Jim doesn't have a house. Jim's homeless, he was telling me this on the side.

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And he just works at this auto repair shop. And then he sleeps in his truck.

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I thought, okay, fine. He comes in with his grimy, greasy, this is what he lived in, this is what he slept in.

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And I don't know if you've smelled homeless people before, but there's a distinct smell. You don't shower for several days and months.

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And he came walking in. And I could just see him with slow motion. I said, hi, how are you,

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Jim? Pleased to have you. You want some soda? Can I help you? Good to see you. And I could watch him with slow motion walk towards that white couch.

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And I was gonna have a heart attack. I just thought, well, maybe he knows better.

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He's completely dirty, greasy, and everything else. And he's on his way to the bathroom to kind of freshen up.

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And he walked over to that couch and turned around and sat down on that couch. And I thought, what am

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I gonna do? I'm gonna say, oh, no, you sit over here on the metal folding chair. That'd be really good for you.

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Or let me get a tarp and put it on my couch because I wouldn't want to get your soiled pants on my carpet.

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I just had to let him sit there. By the way, he kept coming to the Bible study and he would find good deals at certain stores.

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And then he would buy those things at the store and then bring them over for the home Bible study. But sometimes he didn't really know his theology very well.

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So he got me a bunch of gospel mugs. And he said, you can give one out to everybody here.

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They're gospel mugs and it's got the admit, confess, believe, repent, and all that stuff. But they happen to be baptismal regeneration gospel mugs because the last step to get saved was you must be baptized.

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So I just thought, well, poor Lenny, he wants to do the right thing. So I gave them out one day when Lenny wasn't there and they were false gospel mugs that you can remember that this isn't the real gospel and still go ahead and drink your coffee.

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So I thought that was an interesting story. But I'm telling you, I received his face.

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I received the smell. And I thought, you know, I've got a good place for you to sit. And it's not here on the best couch, the new couch.

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Why don't you sit over here on the folding chair? That's exactly how I thought. And then I had to preach this message and I was very ashamed.

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Fine clothes, shining clothes. You look at verse two. Comes poor man in what kind of clothes?

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Dirty clothes. Back in these days, you had one outfit, two, if you were a little richer.

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Have this good seat. Oh, you sit by my feet. We can't do that.

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We can't look at somebody's face and then say, based on what you look like and based on what you wear, then we'll treat you accordingly.

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By the way, if John the Baptist walked in here tonight, somehow we could figure this out theologically and he would still be alive and he would wear and eat what he wore and ate back in those days.

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I wonder where we would set him at Bethlehem Bible Church. Or you want to sit back there by the baptistry or something, some guy in all these camel clothes.

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Look at, there's wrong motives involved when you judge somebody externally. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

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The answer is, yes, you have. Don't do that. You can't do it.

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Compare yourself to the glory of Christ Jesus. How could you? Rich or poor.

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God has died for all kinds of people. Verse five, listen, my beloved brother, did not

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God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith? Answer, yes, most were poor. And heirs of the kingdom, which he promised to those who love him.

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So if God loves these people, we ought to love these people. Matter of fact, most times, nine times out of 10, it's the rich who basically sue you anyway and oppress you.

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Verse six, you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppresses you and personally drag you into the court?

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Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? So we want to be very, very careful.

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And we want to keep the royal law. Here's the royal law that if you engage in this by the spirit's grace, you will not be a partial, racist, prejudiced person.

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If however, verse eight, you are fulfilling the royal law, here's the king's law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

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But if you show partiality, you receive someone's face, and then you act on that, you're committing sin and convicted by the law as a transgressor, not just missing the mark, but more active, a transgressor.

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Whoever keeps the whole law, I do everything else well, but I'm not really good when it comes to discrimination and prejudice.

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You stumble in the point of prejudice, that's the context of this verse, he has become guilty of all.

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Verse 12, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.

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I thought, you know what I'm gonna do? For no compromise radio ministry, I'm gonna do a show either next week or the week after that, and I'm gonna preach through James chapter two, and I'm basically going to try to obliterate the thinking that somehow interracial couples are less than good.

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And I say to myself all the time, I have three daughters and a son, and if they say, well, let's see dad, we'd like to pick a spouse and, the guy's really not that godly, but he's white.

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What do you think I'm gonna say? That's right. I'm gonna go, what are you thinking?

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Or if they say, you know, I met a man, he's the man of my dreams, he loves the Lord Jesus, he wants to serve him with all his heart and soul, mind and strength.

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There may be some complications because we come from different cultures and everything else, and who knows what will happen in the world and how they might treat us.

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But as far as I'm concerned, he's a Christian man and I love him and you're gonna love him too. Maybe, you know, the guy should go through you first, but just for the sake of illustration.

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What are you going to say? Are you going to be the kind of people where you say, some new people have moved in town and I'll never forget that as long as I live.

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We had some people move in next door when I was a kid. They had a heart attack.

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Everybody had a heart attack. That's how pagans act. Pagans want same. I think there's prejudice.

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Black people are prejudiced. White people are prejudiced. Puerto Ricans are prejudiced. All kinds of people are because we like the same.

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But once you become a Christian, you don't think that way anymore and you begin to think a different way. You think this way.

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Jesus died for white, black, yellow, brown, whatever all the different colors are. Jesus died for all the children of the world, whatever that's.

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And you go, he's my brother in Christ. He's my sister. She's my sister in Christ. Isn't that how you're supposed to think?

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Now, if you want to say, I remember a couple at Master's Seminary, he's white and she's black and the seminary told them, listen, you're probably gonna have to take a church somewhere in a large city because a smaller city might not get it.

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You can't really get necessarily go to Mississippi and be a pastor married to someone who's not the same color.

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It's going to be problematic. And so he's serving in Long Island now. Everything's fine. You know what

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I love to do? I love to watch Dave Jeffries and his family where he has one son, Caleb, he and his wife had the son and then they have another son,

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Noah. And Noah's pretty white. Well, he's white, but he's a white, white.

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And then he's got Candace and Naomi. They're all his kids.

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And so when we come to faith, we say to ourselves, there used to be some kind of prejudice.

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Maybe there's not because you were raised well, but after we come to faith, we see things differently and we don't look at what people look like on the outside and say,

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I'll judge you for that and I'll make decisions based on that. We say, you're in the family of God. I'm in the family of God.

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I was a sinner saved by grace. You're a sinner saved by grace and we will minister and work together.

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So I could flip it around and say this. If your daughter does come home with somebody who is different, maybe you're

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Asian and they come home with somebody who's white. What would you say to them? Could you have a leg to stand on biblically to say, no,

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I won't allow you to date that person. I know they're born again. I know they're Calvinistic. I know they're a five -point

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Calvinist. I know they wanna serve the Lord with missions. I know this, that or the other. I know they're parents, but they're the wrong color.

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Could you do that? Now, you might say, honey, I'm gonna try to save you some pain, but I think you can't do it in light of this.

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All right, number five, I think we've got, do we have time for one more test? You tell me, do I go for one more or I just wrap it up?

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Peter Leavich, you're fired. Peter, you know, we've gone way back and that's the straw that broke the camel's back.

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Hey, I asked him the question. All right, test number five, the saving faith test.

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James chapter two, verse 14 through 26. Verse 14, look at how he asks these questions, wonderful questions.

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You can tell this is set up for public reading. I think it was a sermon. What use is it, my brethren?

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Now, let me say this in the Greek. If someone continually says he has faith, but he continually has no works, that faith can't save him.

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It's good for nothing, no profit, especially not for salvation.

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The negative answer is anticipated. There's no deeds, it's a fake faith.

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It's a fool's gold faith. True or false, James is teaching salvation by works.

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No, he's just dealing with this problem. And the problem is this, he's dealing with the problem that you can say you're a

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Christian and then never act like it. As one of the commentaries has said, here is the man, if you were in hermeneutics class, you saw me do this.

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Here's the man with the sword and his name is Paul and it's in Romans four and the sword is fighting the enemy of justification by law and by works.

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And James says, you're justified by free grace alone through faith alone. James is standing back to back to Paul and he's fighting a different enemy and he's got a sword and what enemy is

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James fighting? He's fighting the enemy that says, you can say you're a

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Christian and have no works. So they're fighting two different enemies. Luther got that confused, so he called this a what?

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A right, as we say in New England, strawry epistle, a right strawry epistle.

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That's exactly right. But he didn't figure it out. Verse 15, if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, so they could be naked.

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That's where we get the word gymnasium. It's a place where they would do sports naked without clothing in need of daily food.

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They didn't have enough for the day. And what do you do? James chapter two, verse 15.

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They have no food, they're naked. And you say to them, go in peace, be warmed and be filled. And you don't give them what's necessary for the body.

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What use is that and what's the answer? It's not use, it's not any use at all.

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You used to act like that when you're a pagan. I have a true confession to make. Before I was a Christian, Kim and I were dating and we went to church one day.

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And I mean, this is like one of the most embarrassing stories I could ever tell you in my entire life. But just to show you the difference between what

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I was before and what I am now by the grace of God. I always thought people were kind of after me and wanna take advantage of me and I didn't trust people.

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And here I am in Los Angeles. So Kim and I go to this church. We went to Jack Hayford's church, Church on the Way. And it was on the way, way, way, charismatically.

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But we went there and nobody got that joke. And afterwards, we were going to the parking lot and a lady came up and she said, you know,

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I couldn't really get a ride home. And do you think you two could give me a ride across town to such and such a place?

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And I said, no. But I'm smart enough to know how to say no in a real nice way and all that stuff.

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And you know, could you help me somehow? And it was exactly opposite of what Paul did today. Paul, he needs some help. Okay, yes.

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And so here I am. Somebody's gonna try to take advantage of me. They need a ride across town. They wanna try to do something.

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And so I go, no, I can't help you. And basically I said to them, what? Be warm, be filled, get your own ride.

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This is, what do you think this is for, pal? It's what this is for right here. I couldn't believe that I did that now looking back on it.

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Somebody can't eat, somebody needs help. And you think, no, I'm not gonna do it. Then you know what that person has? If it's a consistent pattern, they have a dead faith.

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It's a morgue faith. Look at verse 17. Even so faith, if it has no works is what? Muerte, it is dead, being by itself.

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Faith and works go together. Of course, we're saved by faith alone. But when you have faith, you have works.

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Dead, necros, necrotic tissue, no sign of life, dead.

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And so here we have in James chapter two, verse 14 to 26, James surgically attacking someone who says that they're a

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Christian, but they don't act like it. Look at verse 18. But someone may well say, you have faith,

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I have works. Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works.

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You believe that God's one, big deal. You do well.

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You can see the sarcasm in there. Demons believe and shudder. Demons believe intellectually and they believe emotionally.

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That word shudder is the word where we get the hair standing on the back of your neck. They're even emotional about it.

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But who, but are you willing, verse 20, to recognize you foolish fellow that faith without works is useless?

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And then he gives some examples. Here we have these 12 tribes dispersed. And so he talks about Abraham and then he talks about Rahab as well.

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Now here's something that I wanna help you with congregation. What are the first two words in verse 24?

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You see. What are the first two words in verse 22? You see.

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How do you know I'm a Christian? Who can see into my heart and understand that I have a regenerative heart on the inside and that I am born again?

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Who can see? Peter, can you see? No, no one can.

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So how do you know I'm a Christian? You see things, right?

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You say, he's not perfect, but I see the general tenor of his life. I observe, I see.

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Here, the text doesn't have anything to do with you're saved because of your works. But here, you wanna show me somebody that's justified by faith alone?

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You will see it in their life. Take a look at this. The Catholics and the Protestants freaked out.

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The Protestants says, you're saved by grace alone, faith alone. And the Catholics would say, look at verse 24 though.

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You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Luther said, get rid of that verse because you're not justified by works.

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But the passage says, you are justified by works. Protestants said, you're justified by faith alone.

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And the text says, you're not justified by faith alone. So how did the Protestants win the argument? I mean, we're done.

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If you're gonna look at the words in the verse and you say, justified by works and not by faith alone, we are all done and you ought to be baptizing your children and re -sacrificing

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Jesus on the altar every Sunday. But what are the first two words? You see.

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You see. This isn't God seeing. God already knows. But you watch a man or a woman and you will see are they justified because their faith won't be alone.

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That's the issue. Verse 26, for just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.

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So the test is this. The test is if you call yourself a Christian, it will flow out of your life.

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You won't be perfect. It'll be the direction of your life, but there will be works. You say, well, you know, when should it start?

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I think it even started early with the thief on the cross. Did the thief on the cross perform any works of righteousness post -salvation?

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Righteous works. Yeah, John? Absolutely, and he affirmed that Jesus was

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Christ. He was gonna, you know, Lord, take me where you're going, basically, he was going to say.

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And so there was works right there. He might not have been baptized, but he was going to heaven and there were works there.

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So what do we do? Before we are a Christian, here's what I did. I said I was a Christian. I would have never denied

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Jesus, at least to my knowledge, maybe because of persecution, but I had no works. Never forget, as long as I live.

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Last story, I meet that girl and her name used to be Sharon. This is how I met Kim through this girl.

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And before I met Kim, I met this girl named Sharon. She lived above me in Los Angeles, in West Los Angeles, and we would jog together and run together.

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And so I said to Sharon, why don't people call you Sharon? Why are you called Aria? And she said,

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Jesus gave me the name Aria. I go, really, Jesus did? Yeah, Jesus did.

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Oh, that's interesting. She said, would you like to see a picture of him? And I thought, sure. And I thought I was going to go see one of those like blue eyed kind of German looking

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Jesus picture that people put over their, you know, I don't know, their winter cabin or something.

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I thought, oh, and there's a guy with a suit on with his arm around her and there's Jesus and there's

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Aria Sharon. And I said that, I'm a pagan, right? And I say to her, that's not

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Jesus. And she goes, yeah, it is. His name's John Rogers, but he's Jesus.

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Very interesting. I knew intellectually about Jesus. I could have told you he was virgin born, virgin conceived, he was fully

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God, he was fully man. I could have told you the Bible was the word of God. I could have told you he died on the cross for sinners.

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He was raised of the dead, but you look at my life and what would you see? You'd see a train wreck, you would see a pagan, you would see a

53:59

Gentile, you would see someone without works, without love, without compassion and someone who would love to say to a naked person, be warmed and be filled.

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But as a Christian, everything changes. Luke 6, 46, why do you call me

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Lord, Lord, Jesus says, and do not do the things which I say. Mon Fraser said, we are saved by faith yet faith is one with life like daylight and the sun unless they flower in our deeds, dead empty husks are all our creeds to call

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Christ Lord but strive not to obey belies the homage that with words

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I pay. So thankfully, we are Christians and they will know it by our deeds.

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All right, let's pray. Thank you Father for our time tonight. Thank you for these dear saints who had come out in the rain and the gloom to hear your word and the fellowship to sing.

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I pray that you'd bless them. I pray that you would help them tonight especially. I'd ask specifically

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Lord that you would help us to be people that when trials come that we might count them as joy.

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I pray that you would help us that we would never blame you directly or indirectly in our temptations and trials.

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I pray that you'd help us to be not just a Bible believing church but a Bible doing church that we would be doers of the word.

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I pray that we would love one another whether we look alike or whether we don't and that we might not be prejudiced.

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We might be not racist. We might not be having any of those sins that so contaminate a

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Christian church. And Lord, I pray also that you'd give us many opportunities to live out our faith in works and ministry and one another's.

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So thank you for this word. Thank you for James. And Lord, we bless your name for this scripture.