James (part 4)

All right, so we didn't quite finish up James chapter one last week, so as I talked to John I felt like we were time was like quickly running out on us and And all these years you've made fun of me for not finishing a lesson

Well, I never put together a lengthy dossier of questions

All right, where is it? There it is. So we we had talked about Being slow, quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger and we had also

Started talking about how we deceive ourselves by only hearing the word Only being part of it, and we began to talk a little bit about what it is to be a doer of the word also and I Think James uses a little bit of humor in here when he gives the example of how

You know, you look in the mirror and then you forget your face I think maybe as we get older we look in the mirror and we wish we could change things that we've seen in there

You know, but I mean, I just remember as a young kid like trying to impress

Girls, like I knew everything that was in that mirror and what I wanted it to look better And you know, so I spent a lot of time there.

I got Caught once admiring myself in the mirror. My mom opened the door on me.

I think I was flexing or something like that Yeah, yeah, yeah

So I think it's a lot. I think he's a little humor in there to kind of say like come on Like you can't you don't forget what you look like and then

I had read something too where I Think one of the commentators was saying it'd be like going in and listening to Jeff and coming out and completely not

Remembering what he said or not applying anything that he talked about in the sermon into your daily life that week

Which I mean sometimes we're guilty of And I also felt too after our discussion.

There was a little bit in his sermon. He talked a lot about just listening to God and Maybe a little bit of a contradiction from what we had talked about But I think

I think you have to not be so regimented in its passage where It is good to just listen to the word and soak it in like Jeff had been talking about in the sermon

But you have there has to be that action afterwards. Maybe it's not not everything. It's an immediate thing, but it's something that we have to eventually do that's the other side of the corn

I guess you can say So, why don't we well somebody could pray first and then we'll read the last few verses of James we'll finish up our discussion on chapter one and then

John's gonna Jump out of there and then John will come into chapter two

What you want to hope that's a prayer Dear Heavenly Father we give you our glory and praise and we thank you that we're two or more gathered you are right near us

Lord We acknowledge your presence. We seek your glory and honor Lord God And we pray that you will give

John wisdom to teach us to apply what we've learned so that we can glorify you Love and edify and build each other up for your glory and honor.

We ask all these things in Jesus precious So if someone would read 22 to 27 and then

Do not merely listen to the word and serve you see yourselves do what it says

Anyone who listens to the word? But does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror

And after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this

Not forgetting what he has What he has heard but doing it. He will be blessed in what he does

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue

He deceives himself and his religion is worthless What religion that God our

Father accepts as pure and farthest is this? Look after orphans and widows when they're distressed and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world

So what I thought we could we needed to finish up on was talking about verse 25

So in 25 James refers to the Perfect law the law of Liberty with what do you think?

He's referring to in that passage? Well, the law points out your sin

I Knew that I'm sinning against God so I have to come back to him

It seems like every day I'm breaking a law So I continually have to humble myself and keep coming back and back and back and yet I feel like I'm stumbling but yet It's almost impossible to keep

God's laws perfect perfect law That's why he sent his son, yeah, so he's he's referring back here to law

Moses the Ten Commandments and It's one of those. It's one of those things where You have to be perfect to hold it.

We get it's it stands there as a mirror So to speak to reflect how we are unable to do that but yet we have

Christ who has come and died for us that allows us to When we mess up Well, I would think

I would think so as well and that's that was one of the other questions we say so how it seems kind of Opposite that that we could describe that as a law of Liberty But what why do you think it would be?

Liberating for us So It's liberating the sense that we didn't have to have our own selves try to live by the mosaic law anymore

When you live by the law and if the laws are right just tomorrow there there is total freedom in following those laws

There's actually a topic that comes up in the next lesson Well, give me a favor read verse 12 of chapter 2

Speak and act as those who were going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because It is so this is a theme that he's going to use again

Almost a conundrum You have liberty on one side And you have judgment

The other side Yeah, we had we had mentioned last week to that this this kind of ending point of One is really the springboard for the rest

So I looked up the the definition of liberty This is liberty is defined as being free from restriction or control

And what I liked about that was like we have that through the power of Christ as a believer It's the right or power to act

Believer express themselves in a matter of one's own choosing free from confinement servitude or forced labor freedom from unjust or undue governmental control

Immunity to engage in certain acts without control or limitation not employed or occupied

Do you mind if I take a couple of passages because I had planned on touching this I Like the ureus in the

Greek I'm sure Eric and I did the exact same thing could not find much of anything in any commentary

About what this is all about. It's like they just seem to pass over this concept

So if anybody's got anything in any of your study Bible, it's cool What I did was I went back to find this word

Like Uranus and see how it's used in the New Testament This word of liberty freedom

Being Romans 8 19 There are about 10 passages these are four of the best tables and insight into this concept

First Corinthians 10 23 Rick and then after that 28 29 the same chapter

Chad Galatians 5 1 and a 1st Peter to Please For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly

But because of him who subjected it and hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption

And obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God And that's the same word the word freedom there is the same word that here's translated as liberty the same way so the concept creation was held involuntarily in bondage and Corrupted state will eventually be set free

Will eventually be set free same word Rick first Corinthians 10 33 1023

I'm sorry All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful All things are lawful, but not all things build up But if someone says to you this has been offered in sacrifice

Then did not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience I do not mean your conscience, but his

For why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience and again the concept there had to do with how?

with Peter Sheet that came down It's okay to eat. No. It's close enough.

It's okay to eat okay, but then the concept of Being able to eat anything even even meats that offered to idols

There's nothing wrong with that unless there's a conscience and he's arguing well if I have liberty why should my liberty be judged by others?

this is reality that some of the Constraints that were held by the old law were no longer under bondage to But that gets into the matter of conscience it goes deeper, but again that concept the same way or that's in Liberty there

Go ahead Chad relations live one For freedom Christ has set us free stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery

Same word freedom same word as Liberty however. It tells us, and it does give us the contrast don't be submitted to the yoke

Okay, so there's this release The concept For it is

God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men lives free men

But do not use your freedom as a cover -up for evil live this service to God Very prevalently when this word in the

Greek is used in the New Testament. That's what it would be used It's this concept of being released from These constraints or these things that the old law would have put us into that our

World our life is now defined to it to a large extent by Peter's experience

It's easy for license to become licentious Go ahead with that.

Yeah Well, you feel like you have a freedom, but then you might go too far with that Which takes us back to Eric's question because it says judgment

Being judged by the law of freedom. So that's the conundrum. Where did where do you take that? We also talked two weeks ago about how you know because of our freedom that we have in Christ of the power of sin well, you know before I could use the example of the overhead projector from Vince Retreat that our pastor used he had to find that a sin now we're handcuffed to it but through the power of Christ, we've been freed from that bondage, but yet we we are the ones who willingly go and Clamp on The handcuffs again, so to speak with particular sins or the desires.

We were talking about that during the temptation that We have power over that sin to overcome it.

But yet we are the ones who willingly walk back in and say No, I want I want to be

Mastered by this again, but yet we're sitting there with The keys to get out again like borers before we did not have that power that freedom and now we're locked back in again

So was your question to me, where are we going with the concept of being judged By the law of liberty

It almost sounds like a contradiction in itself How do you get how are you judged by the law of liberty

According to the liberty that we think that we have if we're really not into the scriptures and following it

Well, Rick was talking about the early church took that liberty to an extreme I'm not racing the license.

It was called antinomianism They are free from the law they figure because the law doesn't apply to us.

We can sin You know, we have freedom to sin instead of freedom from sin so if you go back to Kimberly's strong Thought at the beginning in lesson one

If we if we do anything in the book of James a good place to be Well, obviously the best place to be is in prayer and in the

Holy Spirit, but as we start to intellectually pursue what's being Presented here.

Good idea to do is to do what? What Kimberly said? We'll be able to remember the context remember the

James is ready writing to a specific context What's being written is going to be applicable to us all scripture is giving great inspiration.

God is profitable But the Jews were going through a certain problem they were going through several problems and one of those antinomian is

Yeah, I think too we were talking as well that you know as we put ourselves in their shoes

Yeah, this is a new a new belief system of following Christ They are trying to reconcile with the old laws that they had been used to for years

Now people coming and saying well, you still need to be circumcised. No, I don't you know So that all that confusion happening and you know the idea of You know, these people are choosing to follow

Christ. They're being persecuted and we talked about the anger. There was a

Passionate anger that was like ready to go kill someone. It was that deep -rooted.

So, you know tempers were flaring and You know, they're trying to Try to figure out how do we navigate our old world with the new world that were or the new belief system that we're trying

We're trying to follow this guy Christ. We we don't have the luxury of having this and teachers and Historians and stuff to help us navigate it.

This is all fresh and brand new for them So that I think that was that's another Challenge that we're doing that we we don't often think about because because of our context today.

What was the turn of words you use? I just said license to licentious to licentious

There's a risk right in there and as Eric was saying there's there's a liberty.

There's a liberating grace That believers have the risk is is the concept of antinomian is taking this

Expectation and turning it into a license to do License to sin he's fighting against that in this book of James Eventually, he's going to say even the demons believe

He's fighting against that and making us be Still accountable

We're not accountable under the law for salvation, but we're still accountable for what we do And then

I think he kicks up a notch now where he starts talking about what religion is So It's funny as I was thinking last night.

I was like if we can go around the room just like what would be Well, I guess the way I would like to tackle this last part would be is how is

James? How would how would you define religion? How do you think?

One of your non -christian friends would define religion and then we finish up with how is

James? Defining religion and why does he kind of limit? We reckon had alluded to a little bit last time like how why does he only list three things?

You would think that this would be a good part where there would be a long list of things that would define true religion

So what? For me one word popped in my head. It would be Pharisee. You know like that these guys would have been to Jesus had pointed out how

Pharisees were religious And that wasn't They weren't doing What they were supposed to be doing, but so how would you how would you define religion?

How would a non -christian friend of yours would they look as religion as being a good thing or a bad thing?

Throw that out there I see so many people today folks that I believe to them

Today neutral is a religion is a neutral thing to them

You know they don't have any fire about it, but they don't they're politically correct. They don't want to You know put it in the corner

But yet it holds no sway in their life So I think to them

Religion is One of those things that's okay for some people if that's what you believe that's okay

But I don't think that in there. They don't know how to assess it and judge it in People's lives when they say it they don't have basis to even begin to understand

Why we live as we live why we feel as we feel why we act as we act why we do

They often do because it's the right thing to do, but they don't do it because They believe

What's behind that right thing? I don't know whether how clear I'm making myself if they don't do it because they believe what's behind it

Then why do they do it? Oh What's the difference between religion and Worship I Think religions man -made well true religion is

Christianity. That's the only true religion Hinduism is a religion Buddhism You know

Mormonism all man's efforts to get rid of God by his own works

And worship is realizing that Christ has saved you by grace, and you want to give glory and praise and honor to God For what he has done

For what he has done Because it's all here And I think to Ralph's point too is that you now in today's society you have people who

Do it because they're forced to or you know something that their parents brought them up, and it's all they know It's a cultural thing like oh, well.

This is what my people do you know they have no idea whereas Or that's okay for you to do that I'm doing my thing just don't put your thing on me, but I think back then everybody have had a very strong Rooted they were very strongly rooted in whatever the belief system was and there were many of them around And I think they were able to have

Good healthy discussions. I mean they would debate this openly in the Forum right yeah that there was a healthy dialogue and a healthy respect for the other religions where we don't

Maybe have that in today's society So these people knew they knew what they believed and they could defend it, and maybe that was a reason why you know there was this this anger quick anger as opposed to You know

Even atheists often do you see atheists and they do

What we do consider to be good and right things, but they're lost And then if they say

I don't believe in a religion, but atheism is certainly a religion Yeah But I think to Christians don't necessarily want to be labeled as religious

Because that has a negative connotation You know if we're known by helping orphans and widows you know if we're known by our love

That's one thing, but I don't want to be called religious There are because that has such negative baggage there are enough evidences of Televangelists and stuff like that that have used this mantra of religion

It's really hard to abuse the mantra of worship Our friends look at us

They look at the law They look at us You're pious

You're strict You know you're no fun We don't want any part of that.

They don't want to have these strict rules and laws that they have to follow And when they look at us, and that's what you're saying

Oh, you're religious because you've got to follow these strict laws by Moses written by God and the

Pharisees too You know and they don't want any part of this. I want to go out and have fun. I want to live my life

I don't want to live your life And this is where we get into you know worship religion strict friends

Liberty I want the Liberty so I can do what I want to do. I don't want to have this I think you've even see it now recently in the

Christian culture where a Little bit of wanting to escape from some of the names that we've placed on church names have been changing.

They're dropping Baptist or this and because that has a negative connotation I think even now even

Christian people now are what I hear around this I'm a follower of Christ because you talk to someone.

I'm a Christian I think we talked last week my kids had asked me that in my class You know are you a

Christian? Are you Jewish? And I was like oh wow we're gonna have a religious You know we're gonna have a

Christian talk here in my PE class But it was more of like they wanted to know what side I'm on are you you celebrate

Hanukkah? Are you celebrate Christmas? Do you like Moses or do you like Santa Claus and we talked a little bit about that last week?

So I think yeah now you hear the word Christian, and that just means a cultural. You're not a Jew You're not a

Muslim. You know you call yourself a Christian, but now And that we talked a little bit about being skeptical last week, too

All right, well, what did what does that mean to you as a true believer? You want to know like what does that mean to you and now?

You see people saying well, I'm a follower of Christ, and you're kind of like okay, so you're You're a true believer like they're

They're trying to put themselves under a new label so that it's easier to figure out who you're dealing with so you can either rejoice in that or Figure out how to not navigate that You are faith in don't tell you

I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian and what they're saying is I am a

Christian, but they're saying is yeah, I know that there's a God. I know that there's Jesus Any further than that they're not going to get up, so they want to hold you off at that point

I think a big problem with religion per se is

The hypocrisy Because you can't be perfect because you stumble it won't fall

And they a non -believer will see that and They yeah because they don't understand the concept of grace

They think well, you're no better than me And we're not

But it's only because it's just because of God's grace that we have any

Righteousness at all, but they can't understand that and so they see so many religious people

Just being hypocrites And we're gonna get that to a large extent because the

Bible tells us the natural man cannot understand things in the spirit But as long as we live holy life the best we can in accordance with God's Word, you know, the seeds will be planted

You know if they're meant to know Christ if you believe in Calvin's sovereignty

The seeds you plant will bear fruit in season in season. You might be ten years down the road, you know

But we can't stop planting seeds, even though we don't get nowhere seeds right

Yeah, why didn't I see the journey the journey It will not return void

So let's so what is so what is James list of pure religion here in the five religion here in 27

I'm caring for the orphans and the widows and living an unstained life trying to be very

Aware of sin so that you can avoid it That's not written on the

This is in the new this is the New Testament to Jesus and If we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, yeah, we're gonna take care of the orphans

We're gonna take care of the widows. We're gonna do what God has asked us to do This is what I think James is trying to draw out here.

Okay, exactly. Don't be on yourself. Don't think of yourselves only think of others outside of the box that need that, you know need that help and Not to take your thunder away, but that's what chapter 2 gets into Okay, and just how we're going to live our lives and how we're going to go through that and take care of one another

You know, he talks about I think the rich and the poor You know This is where James is coming to you.

You've got to take care of all not just yourself And not just looking at the rich, you know,

Jesus says look at the poor too. I Love them just as much as I love you. I think

Eric's, one of your opening volley questions or comments was, this list seems to be very short

Put yourself in a situation where you're sitting on the church board and you're trying to establish

Perhaps a new church, maybe, how old is this church? 37 years ago.

Put yourself in Bill Wien's Bill Wien's basement 30 years ago.

What should the Mount Laurel Fellowship Evangelical Free Church look like? That's what we originally called it.

I think things that would have been on that list where we're going to be, we're going to have a heart for missions

I think things that might have been on that list where we want to be making disciples

And the Great Commission, I think things that might have been on there where we're going to challenge our communities with the

Word of God And we can do that through strong preaching. We can do that through an effective relevant worship.

We're going to have youth groups None of that's on here None of that's on here

Why not? I think here you see The word mercy comes to mind.

Like, you know, God has shown mercy on us and he wants us to do that to others. I also,

I mean, it's funny how God, I think it's also fitting we're talking about this as we start IHN this week There you go

Very relevant He's talking about, when he talks about the widows and orphans, he's talking about putting your faith into action

There you go I think that's what we're doing. We're talking about the founding of this church.

That's what those items that you've created were putting faith in action

Put yourself back to Kimberly's channel Action movement Action movement.

As we read this, a good A good Mindset when we read this is to put us into The times and the places where this was written.

As Eric just said a minute ago, these people knew all about The worship teams, they knew all about Bible studies.

They knew all of them contextually at the time He didn't need to teach them about those things

But perhaps what he did need to smack them upside the head with was Are you willing to surrender yourself to somebody else?

And the other one is are you willing to not, as Rick said, turn liberty into licentiousness or whatever it was

These would have been risks for those people Not how do you have a youth group? That wasn't their risk.

I think to these people, if you think of context, they were also in a system where Women couldn't work, so you relied on your husband or your husband's brother, and then if you know they

I'm thinking of Ruth What is Belraz? I can't remember Tinsman Redeemer, you know that idea of like this this is now who you need to be for those who

Have lost everything You need to be a verb

Not a hearer only but a doer Right? Yes Simple but good

Just do it, I like that It's very good, I like that Nike James Home Depot Let's do it or something

Justification Word without justification Then a word comes out to justification

Sanctification And we are to become like Christ And this is where James is coming in here

Sanctification The verb that you're saying is being doers Because we are to be Christ like Because Christ is in us

The spirit is within us You know we don't have to have a list We are to live like Christ Like he was here today

Be like him And that's why we are doing the sanctification Everyday Everyday it's a process

We are going through it Sometimes it takes me a little bit longer than others But yet it's there

I know it's there And you keep working at it And that's where the verb comes in Be doers

Doers of what? Christ living within you What would Christ do?

He would take care of the orphans He would take care of the sick The widows And And that's this

Sanctification process that we are all going through right now James is written

To believers We went through that carefully Three weeks ago Probably the

Jewish believers scattered Probably they are the ones that went east We don't know that for sure

But this is a book written to believers This isn't a book that is

Predominantly an evangelistic book You don't get a ton of what you got in Romans In the book of James But what you do get in the book of James Is how can you be an effective evangelist

By being a verve I think too in a broad context

The church's responsibility Over the years Was to provide for the orphans and widows

When the church Say abandoned that And the government takes over All kinds of regulations

And secular interests Intervene And it can't be done as well

Because it's not being done through the mobile church It's almost taking Sanctification away from them

If we let them If we let them They can't take it away from us

We have to give it to them While they do think of it as someone else's responsibility It's just a wrong thinking

So in some respects It is a condemnation today Of the church Because we haven't done our job

State takes over And corruption And whatever else

They abuse You know it's a wonder That concept

And I agree with you We haven't done our job The church hasn't really done our job

It's a wonder that The votes and the marches Wouldn't be against the church

Because the government stepped in We're the ones That should be

Marched against Because we're not doing our job The church really has Faulted here

Big time Not doing what we're supposed to And that's where the government stepped in I wonder if Even though James Only Specifically mentions

All of the rules This whole question of why not All these other things

Is his message In 26 and 27 Kind of tucked

Under the question Or not question Of the reminder

To constantly be Evaluating Sort of where we are

And assessing Both Well basically our

Motivations in doing things And it seems in 26 He specifically mentions

The caution About deceiving our own hearts And then he ends it in 27

With keeping oneself Unestimated across the world And we come to faith

Because The blinders Are removed And the deception

Is suddenly We're not deceived anymore And there's that freedom

But what happens as we proceed In how we walk our faith

Don't we tend to Be deceiving ourselves again If we're doing All the right things

And doing the good things It can turn into religion again Or we can be doing the proper things

But having to go back And check Are we doing it

For what reason And is it Are our hearts being deceived And that's it

That's back to the garden You're absolutely right There are two prongs to this verse

Philippians 2 Verses 5 through 8 Most of you know

What he's going to read already There are two things in this passage

One talks about Our response to the world

Philippians 5 Philippians 2 5 through 8 And the other's going to talk about Our response to God Our response to the world

Have this mind among yourselves Which is yours in the Christ Jesus Who though he was in the form of God Did not count equality with God A thing to be grasped

But emptied himself By taking the form of a servant Being born in the likeness of man

And being found in human form He humbled himself By becoming obedient to the point of death

Even death on the cross Our response Is Like We read here in Philippians Our rights

Our needs Are put subservient to the needs Of those around us

The church is going to truly be The bride of Christ We're going to emulate Christ Who Emptied himself even to the point of the cross

Yeah we got IHN Coming this week But I don't know that we're emptying ourselves Even to the point of the cross

Visiting widows and orphans Is just a tremendous example It's not the example

It is a tremendous example Empty yourself By Christ Who even emptied himself to that point

The other one is Keep yourself from staining And that talks about our response to God It talks about Not claiming the law

Of liberty I can do whatever I want No You can't Yeah you're saved

But no you can't There's two prongs In that one

They're not the exclusive list of religion But it sure talks about what it means to be

In a relationship with God I got the time is up I didn't get to my last one

I was going to say I had a feeling that When we talked about religion I was going to take some time

So it's all good Does anybody have any Final I think too

John You had clarity too I think too about what Jesus says he needs to do I think of the cross

That's evident here Well I think James is a great Counterbalance to Romans Because I think the early

Christians Got the idea In Romans speaking about being justified By faith

That led to antinomianism Yeah we have to be justified By faith but if we're truly

In Christ then we're evidenced by works By the things we do That is a reflection of the spirit

Living in us so James Counterbalanced the deceptions Like Carlene said

We're a brilliant self -deception We can deceive ourselves But the evidence

Is the works the love that we show Through what we do for other people I mean a lot of commentators

Refer to James as the Proverbs Of the New Testament Dear Lord we thank you again for The tremendous privilege and opportunity we have

To study your word and to Have a good healthy discussion here Lord we do ask that we would hear

We would do That we would glorify you in all that we do We thank you for A chance now to go in to worship you

In the main service We ask that you would be with Pastor Jeff as he Preaches the word today