Book of James - Ch. 4, Vs. 8-17 (09/16/2001)

Park Meadows Church

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4th chapter of James, verse 8, draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

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Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded.

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How do we draw nigh to God? What does nigh mean, Joy? Alright. Now, how do we get closer to God, Burge?

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Alright. Bill, how do you draw closer to God? Alright.

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David, just every day, just normal working, how can we draw nigh to God in that?

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You know how sometimes you talk about things you shouldn't be doing, it's just not, or think of the things you should be doing, and do those, and you can only do so many things, so it kind of gets rid of the bad things.

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But at the end of verse 8, it says, purify your hearts, you double -minded, and that phrase, double -minded, is key, because it means that we focus our minds on the things of the

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Lord rather than a thousand other things. When I hear what you think of all the charitables, or all the things we have to take care of, and so forth, all the time, if you don't think about the

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Lord, that's really important. You can draw near to him by not being double -minded, by devoting and sanctifying your heart to him.

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Here's why you're working. All right, that's good, even while you're working.

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How can you work, though, and draw near to God? Jesse? All right, but you can't pray all of the time, that that we consider prayer.

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You can't keep your mind centered on God all of the time. What do you do?

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What? All right, that's getting close to it.

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You live for him day to day. Joy, how do you do that? All right,

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Bill? We should conduct ourselves in a way that we will not be ashamed to say that we are in Jesus Christ, in our work.

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So if you do your job in a way that will not bring dishonor to Christ, we will be proud of you in a way that will not bring dishonor to Christ.

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You are a light, a reflection of Jesus Christ in wherever you are.

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And I think that's the way to pray. That's one way to draw near to Christ. But I think that's really more a result of your already having been drawn nigh to Christ than it has given you.

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Well, that's getting down to it. You live each minute of each day in a positive way, doing those things, whatever it is you're doing, the very best that you can, with whatever you have, wherever you are, right now.

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Now, how do we cleanse ourselves? Greg, how do we cleanse ourselves?

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All right, but you stop doing them because you know it's not honoring him. It's not stopping because I don't want to do it.

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It's because it does not honor God. You honor

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God in doing everything honest. That's right.

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That's good. We think we're so smart, so strong, so good.

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God says there is no good within us, none at all. You cannot work good enough for him to approve you.

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There is nothing that attracts him to us. Now, we think we're attracted to each other, but there is nothing in us that attracts

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God to us. Do you ever think about that? Only God can lift us up.

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Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

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Never, never treat sin lightly. You're prone to say, well, that's just a little sin.

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Doesn't make any difference. It does make a difference. Never joke about sin.

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When I hear a Christian that's making jokes about sin, I rather suspect that when he thinks he's where no one can see him, he indulges in it.

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Ten. Humble yourself in the sight of the

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Lord and he shall lift you up. Humble yourself. That's a mouthful.

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John, how do you humble yourself? All right.

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Bill, how do you humble yourself? You can't make much difference, can you?

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We've been brought home to that this week. All right.

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That's right. God. Now, if we humble ourselves,

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God will lift us up. Will lift us up. Greg, what is the up?

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David, what is the up? Yes.

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All right. Clarence, how does he lift you up?

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How does he lift you up? All right.

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John? Showing us what?

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All right. That's good. The assurance. He makes us know that we belong to him.

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It's hard to get up if you don't know. He what?

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Yes. Now, these are imperative verbs.

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Greg, what do I mean by that? All right. Humble yourself and lift yourself.

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God will lift you up. That's right.

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That's right. That's right.

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Instead of going to God, we go to our neighbor. We go to someone we know.

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And we ask, what should I do? Well, now, that's all right. But first, you ask

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God. All right.

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Who is it that moves in this? What? God doesn't move.

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That's right. That's what I want to enjoy. God doesn't move. We do. We humble ourselves.

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He will lift us up. Yes. Yes. All right.

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Be close to God in duty, and he will be close to you in mercy. His mercy is always there.

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Sometimes we've got it hidden. We cover it up with ourselves. But it's there.

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Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judges the law.

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But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

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Now, we come to judging. We come to doing the law. What law is he talking about,

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David? All right.

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How? Well, let me go at it another way.

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If you judge a person in a thing, what does that say about you, Greg?

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It means you've done it. We can judge only where we have participated, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

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There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judges another?

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Bill, go to Matthew 10, 28, please, and read it.

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There is one lawgiver, only one, who is able to save and to destroy.

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Who art thou that judges another? Yes. Yes.

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Man cannot destroy both the body and the soul. If a person should, if you should come to a place where your soul is in danger, rest assured it's in God.

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No one can do anything to you unless God has approved it. Now, we don't understand that, but we know it's true.

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Thirteen. Yes. Judgment, what does judgment mean?

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It seems like from that statement and other statements that there is paralysis.

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Well, the Christian is speaking out against what is wrong. Use of that phraseology.

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If the search may, I guess, be the clarification of what judgment actually means, is it given the act, or is it given to the person about who it is?

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But what does that mean? If the world and the churches all need to know, what does judgment, this terminology of judgment, does it mean that the person is standing here to say, or, or what?

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All right. To judge somebody, first of all, at the highest point, means you're judging whether they are saved or not.

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We don't know that. Only God knows that. If I judge a person, if, and I have to go by what he's doing, if I see him doing something wrong, a brother, and I feel it is detrimental to him, then

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I think I am obligated to tell him privately, keeping all of the time

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God in mind. To judge somebody irrational, on the judging part, is wrong.

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To say, well, that's not of God, is wrong. To judge somebody that you think is not right, you may need to talk to them about it and find out.

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I think the judging here, there's only one lawgiver.

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The judging is not, or it is to not judge somebody on their spiritual state.

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We don't know that. It's impossible for us to know that. We must give everybody the benefit of the doubt.

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Now, if God is who we believe him to be, he's already controlled everything.

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Everything is according to his decree. So who am I to find fault with anything?

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The awful bombing and plane crash in New York City was orchestrated by God.

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I couldn't understand it. There's been lots of good come out of it. Now, the devil played out the part.

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He had the men to do it and so forth. But it was really all orchestrated by God.

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It didn't surprise him. So, Clarence, I think that there is one lawgiver.

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There's only one. And we must be very careful when we judge people.

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It's just better to not judge anybody. To hold our condemnation, even to judge those that did the bombing, would not be right on my part.

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No individual has a right to judge. Our law has a right to judge, but not you and I.

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I was going to ask a question about what you said there. We're not judging him or whoever did it, but the act is what we're judging.

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Is that not correct? Yes. We don't know the guy, but we know the act was definitely a wrong act.

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So you wouldn't be judging the man if you were judging the act of terrorism. Is that not correct?

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That's right. Jesse? Do you know what the problem is? Oh, yes.

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That's right. Yes. That's right.

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That's right. No, what do you mean? That's right.

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That's right. We have laws, and we could not operate without laws. The laws are to be upheld.

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God's law is the only thing that's higher. He ordained these laws to come into existence, therefore we observe the laws.

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Anything else? That's right.

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That's right. That's right.

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That's right. That's right. That's right.

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No. That's right.

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Yes. That's right.

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That's right. That's right.

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That's right. I don't know how many of them, how many of us, needn't worry about where we want to spend our money.

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That should be our focus, probably, on what happens to us. Absolutely. I know it's a tragic business, but we're just ignoring it.

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David, do you want to say something? I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. That's right. Go to now.

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Alright. Go to now.

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Go to now ye that say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a city and continue there a year, buy and sell and get gain.

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Greg, why is that wrong? All right, we can go if it's

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God's will. We can go into business if it's God's will. Now we have to live in such a way that that's automatic.

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We don't have to stop and say, now if this is God's will, I'll do it. We should do nothing that was outside of his will.

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We could go into such and such a town and establish a Bible study.

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Well, is that wrong? If it, that's right.

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Bill go to Isaiah 40 and 9. Greg, go to Daniel 4 .35.

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Got it, Bill. All right, we're to point out

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God. Now, Daniel 4 .35. We're not to question

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God. Now, are we given work to do because we need it to stay out of trouble?

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Are we given work to do because we need it or because the work needs doing? We need it.

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Providence is God's government of the world. He who properly trusts in divine providence, trusts in God, must walk uprightly before him.

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For it is absurd to expect God to be our friend if we continue to be his enemy.

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14. Whereas you know not what shall be on tomorrow, for what is your life?

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It is even a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. My life is nothing.

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All of my life has been put together for this time right now. Everything has brought me to here right now.

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No matter what it was, it's brought me here. All of the accumulations of everything

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I've ever done, has ever been done to me or for me, has brought me here right now.

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And right now is the important thing. Each one of us could say the same thing. It's brought you here.

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I've got another scripture here. Clarence, go to Daniel 5 .23.

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We don't know what will be tomorrow. We think we do, but we don't. How many of you could have guessed ahead of time that the plane was going to run into the building?

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None of us. Clarence? Daniel 5 .23.

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You know, lift yourself up and draw back.

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That's what's called getting out. When you're in your work, you're wise. I'm a wise man.

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And I pray to God to deliver us all from our sins. So, please do not steal your own.

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And God, behold your brethren and count all your ways, you have not glorified.

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This is a...go ahead. This is a picture of the one that did not do what he was supposed to.

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He holds your breath, Nebby, he holds your breath in his hand.

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For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this and that and the other.

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The conclusion of we shall go into a foreign country. But now you rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil.

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Now if you boast in your rejoicings of what you did and what you accomplished, that's evil.

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If you give God the praise for it, that's good. When we know it's probable that we shall continue to live, it's a possibility that we might not draw the next breath.

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We may die at any time. We are in the very best state of mind for attending to God's work.

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Think about it. Judgment day is coming.

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Could be the next minute. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

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Whether you get it done or don't. To the one that knows to do good, you know this is what

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I'm supposed to do. And you don't do it, it's sin. To do less than your very best is worse than doing nothing.

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How is that Bill? Ever. That's right.

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So that's worse. God demands of us our best in each and everything.

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He sends all events. How many of you believe that?

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He sends all events. Proverbs 16 .33.

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Joy, would you turn to that and read it aloud? 16.

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Yes. 33.

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How many of you understand that verse?

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How many do not? How many are not decided?

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If we do our best in each and every task, we will not be guilty of a mistake.

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Now if you do your very best in this task. Now we're talking about things that are not sinful.

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If you do your very best, it's not a mistake. Even if your neighbor says it is.

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If tomorrow you discover a better way of doing it, and having done it today, you can do it tomorrow, and you do not do your best, it is a mistake.

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All mistakes are sin. Think about it.

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A mistake is not doing your best. That's right.

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We're responsible for what we think, what we do, everything, but the doing of it belongs to God.

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Faith is doing all with a positive attitude. Anything done from doubt is not weak faith.

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It's absence of faith if you do it from doubt. There's no faith at all.

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Faith exists only in the positive absolute knowledge that what you say or do is right.

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Now that will eliminate a lot of our conversation, a lot of our doing.

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If I know to do it, and I don't do it, it's wrong. Therefore, I'll do it the very best

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I can. Whatever it is, God's given me this to do. All right, you've got five minutes.

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Any questions? Then let's stand, and Jesse, will you dismiss us, please?